Dan Boyle (Green Party)

The need for a common approach to social security and social insurance throughout the EU is necessitated by the principle of free movement of labour and it is the corollary to one of the cornerstones of the EU and its institutions. There are times when its application might have a negative effect and have a higher cost than had been anticipated but because it is based on the corollary principle, it is something we should be prepared to accept, given our support for a number of EU treaties.

The difficulty, as the Minister probably knows from Council meetings, is trying through these directives to marry the different types of social security systems that exist in the different countries, the different rates of payment that accrue to them and even the services that are provided as a result of social security. In her contribution earlier, Senator Fitzgerald spoke about reservations that arose when this issue was debated in the House of Lords in the UK about the British health system being applied to this directive. This is obviously because there is a national health system in Great Britain for which no direct equivalent exists in other EU countries.

We have had examples in this country, for example, the payment of child benefit to EU nationals to which they were entitled under previous regulations and directives. The corollary principle also applies to Irish citizens who find themselves in a similar situation in the countries concerned. The fact that, because of our rates of pay, Irish citizens would not achieve much monetarily is due to where we stand as an economy at the moment. We must also be conscious that when Ireland joined the EU in 1973, our gross domestic product was only 71% of the EU average. We are talking about a situation that might have a short-term effect but if many of the accession states experience the same economic effect as us, it should be something that works out in the medium and long term as regards the standardisation of the level of payments and services.

We should not be having a debate about whether we are ending up paying too much money or whether it is wrong for us to be a net contributor in this kind of situation. It is the principle about which we are talking and we have bought into it in terms of successive EU treaties.

I am glad that, despite the way the motion is being moved today, there will not be a division on it. To be fair, it was moved in the middle of our recess and the number of sittings of both Houses of the Oireachtas and the Cabinet since then meant that there was no other option except to deal with it in this way. We still have not set up particular Oireachtas committees.

It is an issue about which the Minister is all too aware and we will return to it regularly because of the problems mentioned by me at the start of my contribution. There is no standard EU model of social security and social insurance. In fact, our levels of social insurance payments are much lower than in many other EU countries. I do not see a demand from many in this Chamber or anyone else in public life to change this situation in terms of higher social insurance payments. Perhaps this is a debate we will have in future if we are talking about standardisation in the EU in terms of social security. Does that mean reaching some kind of agreement on how all EU workers are treated? Can that be done in economies that exist at different levels of success?

On those grounds, this motion should be accepted in its own right. The principle is something that is already underlined through many EU treaties. If we wish to be seen in the best light in terms of influencing this debate in the future, we have no option but to accept it as it is and entering whatever reservations we have in the context of trying to bring about improvements in the broader agreement that must be reached at EU level.