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2004

No to racism in the welfare system

Date Released: 01 Nov 2004

Speaking at SIPTU's Celebration of Anti-Racism Workplace Week, at which SIPTU President Jack O'Connor launched a leaflet demanding an end to racism and discrimination both in the workplace and the welfare system, the union's National Equality Secretary Rosheen Callender said that new rules in the welfare system were "unfair and unnecessary in their intent, difficult and in some cases disastrous in their implementation and discriminatory and divisive in their impact". She said that SIPTU was working hard, in co-operation with a number of other organisations, to have these new rules "amended or preferably abolished".

At the function held in Liberty Hall, on Thursday, 28th October, Ms. Callender said:

"On May 1st of this year, when many of us were celebrating the accession of 10 new member-states to the EU, an insidious new rule was introduced into our welfare system for the specific purpose of keeping certain Europeans and other nationalities out of Ireland. We were already reeling from the effects of last year's 'Savage Sixteen' social welfare cuts, but no. 17 was perhaps the cruellest cut of all.

"Known as the 'Habitual Residence Condition', or HRC, it basically prevents people from successfully claiming Child Benefit, the One-Parent Family Payment, or any of the social assistance payments (the means-tested pensions, unemployment, disability or other payments) if they cannot show that they are 'habitually resident' in Ireland. This is taken to mean that they have lived here continuously for at least 2 years and intend to stay, that Ireland is their 'centre of interest', that their families are here, and so on - as if it wasn't already difficult enough to qualify for welfare payments and pass the various means tests …

"The stated purpose of the new rule was to keep in line with the UK, with whom we have a Common Travel Area, to prevent 'floods' and 'hordes' of 'welfare tourists' post May 1st - to use the pejorative terms coined by the British tabloids and unfortunately picked up by some of their counterparts here.

"Of course, as many of us argued at the time, such fears were unfounded. There has been an increase in the number of workers coming to Ireland from the new EU member-states, but there have not been high levels of social welfare claims from these workers. The latest figure from the HRC Unit in the Department of Social and Family Affairs show that of all the claims submitted for decision under HRC, to October 11th only 661 were from nationals of the new member-states. They were in fact the smallest category of all, at 11% of the total. The claims from Irish people - e.g. returning emigrants and members of the traveller community - comprised 26% of the total, those from the UK were 19%, those from the other 13 'old' EU countries were 14% and the biggest group - 'other', i.e. rest of world - were 29%. So in fact most of the people affected by the new rule seem to be nationals of Britain, Ireland and the rest of the 'old EU' - travellers, returning emigrants and migrant workers with families - which wasn't exactly the intention.

"There have been major difficulties with the implementation of the new rule and a lot of anecdotal information is building up, e.g.

- the fact of having a work permit is being taken as proving that you don't intent to stay in Ireland;

- the fact that your family is still in your country of origin being taken to prove that your 'centre of interest' is not Ireland (even where family re-unification cases are pending);

- Child Benefit is being denied to parents who have been living and working in Ireland for several years, because the dependent spouse of a migrant worker may have 'visitor' stamped on their passport (and there was one story of Child Benefit being refused under HRC even though one parent was Irish); and

- asylum-seekers and even refugees being automatically turned down …

"SIPTU is pleased to be working closely on this issue with the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI), the Migrants Rights Centre, FLAC, the Irish Traveller Movement, the Refugee Council and Immigration Council of Ireland - and we are delighted to see many representatives of these organisations here tonight. We are co-operating to document as much information as we can, prior to an early meeting with the Department of Family and Social Affairs and, hopefully, the new Minister. We are campaigning for major amendments, or preferably abolition, of the Habitual Residence Condition, which we see as being unfair and unnecessary in its intent, difficult and in some cases disastrous in its implementation and discriminatory and divisive in its impact. SIPTU's own list of pre-Budget Priorities includes words to this effect and we are determined to do all we can to highlight this problem during Anti-Racism Workplace Week.

"We are also drawing attention to the fact that although the Department has been assuring us that HRC has no impact on the social insurance system, or on insured workers, we cannot see how this can be so. What if a migrant worker, paying tax and PRSI here for quite some time, becomes ill, or unemployed, or pregnant, or redundant, or needs to take Carer's Leave, before qualifying for the relevant insurance payment? Surely such workers could then be disqualified from the relevant assistance payment, by HRC and/or the means test? We need answers to such questions.

"We also need an answer to the question of how the only universal welfare payment, agreed for many years to be the central, crucial income support for all children in Ireland, can suddenly be denied to certain children born here after May 1st, 2004. The universality of Child Benefit must be restored, urgently. Otherwise, quite apart from its immorality, the legality of this discrimination - which can now occur even within the same family - will be challenged in the courts and will once again make a nonsense of our supposed commitment to equality and non-discrimination, in welfare as well as at work."





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