Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

In response to Senator Bradford's question about equivalents around Europe, the equivalent legislation in the UK is the only example I have to hand. This requires that claimants for social welfare must have a right to reside and habitual residence. Both criteria must be met.

Some of the questions on the asylum process are more relevant to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Throughout Europe it has been found that where there is a cash-based system, one is more likely to find asylum shopping. It is a terrible phrase but that is what it is known as. The more cash available, the more likely people are to come. If we were to initiate a situation whereby people could build up entitlements by virtue of them being in the country, as opposed to having a right to reside in the country, there would be a great attraction for people to come and to try to circumvent and delay all the processes. As the Senator knows, our legal system allows people to keep going back to the courts and to have judicial reviews and so on. We have seen very public examples of how people can drag it out for a very long time. With regard to some of the cases that were mentioned, the Supreme Court had previously decided that a person in the asylum process did not have residency status. The chief appeals officer took the FLAC argument, stating that the judgment in that case preceded the habitual residence condition and, therefore, did not apply to social welfare, which I accept as his finding, but it was an unusual finding to try to second guess the Supreme Court.