The Supreme Court allowed the State’s appeals in two joined cases concerning child benefit claims by parents whose immigration status had not yet been resolved. It held that eligibility depended on the status of the qualified person claiming the payment, not the citizenship or refugee status of the child. The court rejected claims to child benefit for periods before the parents were granted permission to reside in Ireland.
The first case involved four anonymised children in the X family, including Michael, who was declared a refugee on 9 December 2014. His mother, Ms. X, applied for child benefit in respect of the four children in February 2015. The application was refused because she was awaiting a decision on permission to remain. After permission was granted to the family on 11 September 2015, a later application was approved from that date. Ms. X sought payment for Michael from 8 January 2015, when the refugee decision was communicated to him, until 11 September.
The second case concerned Emma, an Irish citizen, and her mother, Ms. Y, who was awaiting the outcome of her asylum process. Ms. Y applied for child benefit in October 2015. Her application was refused because she did not then meet the habitual residence requirement. She was granted permission to remain on 6 January 2016 based on her parentage of Emma, and child benefit was allowed from that date. She sought payment from Emma’s birth on 23 December 2014 until 6 January 2016.
The High Court had refused the applicants’ claims. The Court of Appeal allowed their appeals, finding a constitutional breach in Emma’s case and concluding that Michael’s mother could claim from the date Michael was recognised as a refugee under the EU Qualification Directive. The State appealed those rulings.
In its judgment delivered on 21 November 2019, the Supreme Court said child benefit is paid to a “qualified person”—normally the person with whom a qualified child resides—who must also be habitually resident in the State. The payment is not an entitlement held by the child, and the recipient is not legally required to spend it exclusively on that child. The court therefore rejected comparing Emma with other Irish citizen children when assessing equal treatment; the relevant comparison was between qualified persons.
The court also rejected the argument that the EU rules on refugee social assistance required payment to be backdated to Michael’s refugee recognition. His mother was the claimant and did not have permission to reside until September 2015. As for Ms. Y’s reliance on Zambrano rights arising from her relationship with Emma, the court found no breach: the evidence did not show that withholding the earlier payments had compelled Emma to leave Ireland or the EU. It also declined to seek a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the EU.
The Supreme Court allowed the State’s appeals, overturning the Court of Appeal’s rulings. The judgment did not award either claimant the payments sought for the earlier periods.