Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

The free travel scheme is available to all people living in the State aged 66 years, or over. It is also available to carers and to people with disability who are in receipt of certain social welfare payments. It applies to travel within the State and cross-Border journeys between here and Northern Ireland.

There have been a number of proposals for extending entitlement for free travel to people living outside Ireland including a proposal contained in the report of the task force on policy regarding emigrants, which was submitted to the Minister for Foreign Affairs in 2002. This issue was examined in the review of the free schemes which was published by the Policy Institute, Trinity College, Dublin, in 2000. The review considered that the main objective of the free travel scheme is to encourage older people and people with disability to remain independent and active within the community, thereby reducing the need for institutional care.

It noted that extending the scheme to visitors would have significant administrative and cost implications even if it was confined to those in receipt of Irish social welfare pensions. In 2000, it was estimated that the extension of the free travel scheme to EU pensioners could incur expenditure of the order of €10 million to €19 million, depending on the level of concession granted.

The proposal to make free travel available to Irish pensioners residing in the UK, would have to be examined in a budgetary context taking account of the other demands for extension of the free travel scheme, the cost, administrative and legal, and possible wider implications.

One of the issues for consideration regarding this proposal is Article 12 of the Treaty of the European Community which contains a general prohibition on discrimination on grounds of nationality. In other words, a member state can not treat its own nationals more favourably than nationals from the other member states. This may mean that if the scheme were extended along the lines suggested, it would have to be extended to all pensioners who are EU nationals coming to Ireland for temporary stays. Extending the free travel scheme to all retired citizens of the European Union would not be in keeping with the objectives of the scheme. However, I am mindful that this matter has been raised in the House a number of times recently and I am continuing my examination of the complex issues involved

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