The High Court has refused a Romanian couple’s applications for judicial review of decisions refusing or ending social welfare payments, including jobseekers allowance, supplementary welfare allowance, rent supplement and child benefit.
In a judgment delivered on 9 June 2011, Ms Justice Dunne held that the first applicant could not rely on his former self-employment to retain a right to reside in Ireland after that work ended. She concluded that he could not seek work as a jobseeker without a work permit and was therefore not entitled to jobseekers allowance. The court also found that his claims for supplementary welfare allowance and rent supplement depended on that entitlement and could not succeed.
The first applicant, a Romanian national, said he had worked in Ireland, including as a self-employed metal fixer from May 2007 to November 2008. The judgment records that he had been unlawfully present before Romania joined the European Union on 1 January 2007. Under transitional rules governing Romanian nationals’ access to the Irish labour market, he needed a work permit for paid employment. The court distinguished that from self-employment, during which it was accepted he had been entitled to reside in Ireland.
The central legal question was whether EU rules allowing some workers to retain residence rights during involuntary unemployment also covered people who had been self-employed. The judge agreed with the interpretation adopted by the UK Court of Appeal in Tilianu: the provisions applied to workers in paid employment, not former self-employed people. She therefore found that the first applicant had no continuing right to reside once his self-employment ended.
The second applicant’s child benefit challenge was refused on procedural grounds. The benefit had been stopped after November 2008, and the refusal was affirmed on 25 May 2009. The judge found that the judicial review application came outside the applicable time limit and that no good reason had been given to extend it.
The court allowed the first applicant’s claims to proceed despite delay: his certiorari applications were within the six-month period, and the related declarations were allowed to proceed with an extension of time. But after considering the substance, the judge found no basis to overturn the challenged decisions. She refused the applications and said it was unnecessary to decide what effect the pending social welfare appeals had on the court’s discretion. The judgment does not order payment of any benefit.