Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Under EU regulations migrants from EU member states working in Ireland whose dependent children are resident in their own country are entitled to claim child benefit here for children, either in full or as a top-up, if there is an equivalent payment but at a lower rate in their country of origin. That has been the position since 1971.

This arrangement has been there for 36 years. Obviously, the numbers have been low over those years and this regulation is designed to facilitate people who wish to move to and work in different member states. We have had reciprocal arrangements here since 1 January 1973 for a whole range of areas which have worked for the benefit of Irish people moving abroad, as happened in the 1970s and 1980s when the flows from this country were 30,000 to 40,000 per year. They were able to receive these benefits. To moan and groan because it has turned the other way, now that 2 million people are working here and people are coming to this labour market, is a bit sad. In the past, there were benefits for Irish people who emigrated to other EU countries with far more generous social welfare systems than ours. Recent benefit increases here, EU enlargement and net immigration have reversed the effects. Ireland has long benefited from these reciprocal arrangements and continues to do so. I mentioned earlier that, under EU regulations, the Irish health service benefited to the extent of €420 million last year as a result of similar benefits for people now in Ireland, many of whom are returned emigrants.

Our advice is that this reciprocal approach, which has existed since 1971, also applies to the early child care supplement. To do anything else on budget day would be to say that it was all right for that arrangement to apply in the case of child benefit, as it did for the past 36 years, but, because we are enhancing the position for our own people, we are in some way going to block that off. The figures for child benefit are about 1,800 and, for children, about 4,000 under-18s, one quarter of whom are under six. The additional money, in a budget of €350 million, would be €1 million. Are we to be real scrooges and change a 36 year-old regulation to save €1 million in a calendar year? We did not do that but, if we did, there would be people in here calling me the biggest racist that ever was. Let us not have a lecture on this.

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