Freedom of movement of workers to be effective requires that the social security entitlements built up over their working lives are protected should they work in more than one country. The European Union provides comprehensive protection of these entitlements in detailed regulations which override national legislation. The Department of Social and Family Affairs, together with the Department of Health and Children, has primary responsibility for the implementation of these regulations at national level, and represent Ireland on the Administrative Commission on social security for migrant workers, that coordinates their implementation at EU level.
EU Law also requires Member States to provide for equal treatment for men and women in matters of social security, including occupational schemes, thus ensuring that this principle is applied equally throughout the EU. The Department of Social and Family Affairs has overall responsibility for the implementation of the Directives providing for equal treatment in this regard at national level.
Responsibility for the provision of social protection and its financing – mainly social welfare, health care and social services, lies at national level with each Member State. This means that in this area national sovereignty applies with a few exceptions and that Member States are free to organise and finance their systems of social protection in accordance with their own traditions, values and priorities.
Social Security for Migrant Workers
The EU Regulations providing for the protection of the social security rights of migrant workers are based on principles which include:
Equal treatment: Irish people working in other EU Member States and workers from other EU member states working in Ireland enjoy social security rights in the EU. Migrant workers must be treated equally for social security purposes to nationals of the State, for example, in relation to social insurance, payment of benefits/pensions, and all administrative procedures;
Competent State: the regulations ensure that a worker who moves to another State to work has social security cover, even where he may reside in another State or is employed in more than one State: the State of employment, main employment or last employment is normally the competent State for providing social security cover;
Aggregation: periods of insurance or their equivalents completed in all the countries a person worked must be aggregated (added together), where necessary, for the purposes of benefit/pension entitlement. In the case of entitlement to short term benefits only one country, the country of employment, pays the benefits, taking account of periods of insurance or their equivalents completed in other States, where necessary, to qualify the worker for benefits. In the case of pensions, the amount of pension payments a worker receives is related to the period of insurance completed in each State where he/she has worked; thus, for example, if a worker in a 40 years career spent 10 years working in each of 4 States he would receive a quarter of its full pension from each State;
Waiving of residence rules: benefits/pensions must be paid to workers irrespective of where they reside in the European Union; the one exception being unemployment benefit which requires the worker remain available for work in the State paying the benefit, but he/she is allowed to seek work while continuing to receive benefit for up to 3 months in other countries during any period of unemployment.