Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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Question 1280: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if she will advise on a query in respect of a person (details supplied). [29648/08]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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This question relates to whether or not the National Social Security Systems of the EU have been unified and/or harmonised. The social security rights of people living and working in the EU are co-ordinated by EU Regulations 1408/71 and 574/72. The Regulations co-ordinate social security systems and are designed to ensure that people are not disadvantaged by moving within the EU to take up work. This is achieved primarily by setting out rules as to which State's social security system a person will pay contributions when, for example, s/he moves from one Member State to another to take up work, or where s/he lives in one State and works in another. In addition, the Regulations also set out rules as to which State will pay benefit in the event of the usual contingencies arising, e.g. sickness, unemployment, old-age etc.

The general rule is that a person is insured in the State in which s/he works. Equally, the state of employment has, in general, responsibility for paying benefits when, for example, a person becomes injured or ill. The Regulations also provide that when entitlement to benefit is being examined account must be taken of insurance paid in any other Member State where the person worked.

These Regulations do not harmonise but co-ordinate the social security schemes of EU Member States, i.e. they do not replace the different national social security systems by a single European scheme. Therefore Member States are free to determine the details of their own social security systems, including which benefits shall be provided, the conditions of eligibility and the value of these benefits, as long as they adhere to the basic principle of equality of treatment and non-discrimination.