Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

However, I do not have the luxury of ignoring what the Attorney General or the Commission say. I must take account of what both institutions say. As the Deputy is aware, I removed the peak time restrictions recently and in the coming period it will be possible to give full details on the expansion of the North-South travel. We will then have sorted those two problems.

I am as committed as the Deputy to trying to make progress on this issue. I have had a number of meetings with Commissioners. My officials have met their opposite numbers on many occasions. There has been much protracted and heavy discussion about it and it keeps coming up. I have a letter here from the Commission setting out the issue in black and white, including the European Court of Justice case. It states that any action I take that is based on nationality alone will be challenged. Free travel could be extended therefore to everybody in the European Union over the age of 66. That is something I was not planning to contemplate given the huge numbers involved. One answer to this question would have been for the European Community to proceed with its free travel pass many years ago. That would have been a good solution but various countries pulled that apart and it did not get anywhere, which is a pity.

I will continue to press every possible angle to ensure that our citizens in the United Kingdom are dealt with, not just those in receipt of pensions, although that would be a start. I specifically put that proposal regarding those in receipt of pensions. At one time I offered to change the legislation to make it a condition of an Irish pension that one would get free travel. I even pointed out that it would be discriminatory for me not to give free travel to someone in receipt of an Irish pension in the UK, but that proposal was not accepted. I then went back to the basics but if I put some measure in place for Irish citizens only, it will have no chance of standing the test of time so there is no point in going down that road.

I will continue to search for every possible angle to address this issue. I will take careful note of what the Deputy says to me today and promise him that within a couple of hours I will have it assessed by whatever legal brains are available.

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