State fights back-pay claims for child benefit from EU migrant workers

The Department of Social Protection is contesting dozens of claims from EU migrants for back-pay relating to child benefit for non-resident children.

Under EU rules, migrants are entitled to child benefit payments in the country where they work, even if their children live in another EU member state. Last year the Government paid €12 million in respect of 7,700 children living outside the State.

However, the department has been served with legal notices in at least 19 cases that migrants will seek judicial reviews if it continues to refuse claims for backdated payments. In each case, migrant workers claim there was a prior period during which they were employed but had not submitted a claim for child benefit.

However, the department argues that the cases are “late claims” and has paid child benefit with effect from the actual date of claim as opposed to the date it was requested to have payment backdated to.

Disallowed

Under welfare rules, applicants must claim child benefit within 12 months of becoming qualified. If they do not do so, they are paid from the month after their claim and are disallowed for any earlier period unless there is “good cause” for the claim being late. In these cases, the department maintains there was no good cause and, as a result, the applicants were awarded payment from the month after the date of receipt of their claim.

A solicitor acting on behalf of the claimants has made the case that legislation is incompatible with EU regulations. The clients, according to the solicitor, would have been confused and would have believed that in order to claim, their children needed to be ordinarily resident in Ireland.

Welfare

The cost of payments in respect of children resident abroad has been decreasing over the past five years, down from €20 million in 2009 to an anticipated €11.6 million this year. Issues such as the entitlement of foreign nationals to welfare benefits have proved controversial in jurisdictions such as the UK, especially in light of public spending cutbacks.

While it has proved less of an issue here, the Government recently examined whether it was possible to curtail the payment of child benefit for non-resident children of EU nationals who are living here .