Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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394. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the social welfare payments that are made to persons living overseas; and the reasons for making the payment to an overseas resident in the case of each payment. [40969/13]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The social security rights of people living and working in the EU and EEA are governed by EU regulations 883/2004 which co-ordinate social security systems and are designed to ensure that people are not disadvantaged by moving within the EU to take up work. As a Member State of the European Union, Ireland is bound to apply these regulations in accordance with the objective of the EC Treaty regarding free movement of persons.

One of the principles of these regulations is that nationals of one EEA State are entitled to have their benefit paid in any other EEA State. These benefits include: jobseeker's benefit, illness benefit, occupational injuries benefits, maternity benefit, adoptive benefit, health and safety benefit, invalidity pension, state pension (transition), state pension (contributory), widow’s or widower’s contributory pension, treatment benefit, bereavement grant, guardian's payment (contributory) and carer’s benefit.

Ireland also has a number of bilateral social security agreements with countries outside the EU/EEA. The main purpose of the bilateral agreements on social security is to protect the pension rights of persons who have paid social insurance contributions in Ireland and have reckonable periods in the other country. Reckonable periods in the other country may be periods of insurance or of residence depending on the social security system in that country. The agreements protect pension rights by allowing reckonable periods in each country to be taken into account in either country in determining entitlement to certain benefits where there would be no entitlement if national legislation only applied.

Ireland has bilateral social security agreements with Canada, the Republic of Korea, Australia, the United States of America, New Zealand, Québec, Switzerland (largely superseded by EU Regulations), the United Kingdom (covering those parts of the United Kingdom that are outside of the European Union), and Japan. Payments covered by these agreements include: state pension (contributory), state pension, transition), invalidity pension, widow's/widower's (contributory) pension and guardian's payment (contributory).