asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will include British invalidity pensioners, and in particular a person (details supplied) in County Donegal, as persons who will qualify for free electricity allowances within the scheme operated by his Department.

11.

asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he has plans to include persons in receipt of British invalidity pensions, and residing in the State, for qualification for free electricity allowances.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 and 11 together.

There are fundamental differences between the British invalidity pension scheme and the Irish scheme. A person must be regarded as permanently incapable of work to qualify for Irish invalidity pension. This does not apply in the case of a British pension.

The overall cost of extending the allowances to British pensioners, including the extension of the associated free television licence scheme and the free telephone rental scheme, which would also be necessary, would be substantial. There are no proposals for such an extension in present circumstances.

Would the Minister of State not accept that the difference between our invalidity scheme and that of the UK is technical? One must be permanently incapable of work to receive our invalidity pension whereas that is not the case in the UK. Surely the Minister would accept that anybody who is in receipt of a UK invalidity pension is incapable of work at that time and that the vast majority of them are permanently incapable of work?

One of the problems is that there are fundamental differences between the scheme operated by our Department of Social Welfare and that of the UK Social Security Department. To qualify for the Irish invalidity scheme the claimant must be regarded as permanently incapable of work. In the UK, invalidity benefit is payable automatically to a person who has been receiving sickness benefit for 28 weeks, irrespective of whether the incapacity is likely to be short-term or permanent. That is a major difficulty.

Would the Minister tell us the number of British invalidity pensioners living in this State and also the cost of extending the free electricity scheme to them?

That is a separate question.

If the UK invalidity pensioners were to receive the free electricity allowance they would automatically be qualified for free television licences under the provisions of that scheme. It is reckoned that there are about 30,000 UK invalidity pensioners living in this country. Based on the average annual value of existing allowances, the cost of the estension would be: for free telephone rental allowance, £357,000, for free electricity allowance £357,000 and for free television licences, £102,000, giving a total of approximately £800,000.

12.