Yesterday, my colleague Ben Scallan asked the Tánaiste, Micheál Martin, why – in the words of Ashling Murphy’s boyfriend Ryan Casey – her murderer was allowed to live here for a decade without working or contributing anything to Irish society. The Fianna Fáil leader’s answer, for convenience, is below.
"There are various entitlements": Micheál Martin responds to a question by Ryan Casey, boyfriend of Ashling Murphy, about how Slovak killer Jozef Puska came to Ireland to be jobless on welfare for a decade. Question by @Ben_Scallan.#gript pic.twitter.com/IEfa3TDKI7
— gript (@griptmedia) November 21, 2023
It is a remarkably unconvincing, if not outright pathetic, answer. It is – as a matter of law – true that Ireland’s membership of the European Union brings with it the right of all citizens to move and live freely within the European Union. That is an obligation, and a right, of EU membership.
However, there simply is no EU law, or EU right, which mandates giving somebody an unlimited lifetime right to unconditional welfare supports in Ireland. There simply is no EU law, or EU right, which mandates giving somebody a house at the expense of the Irish taxpayer. It is a right to freedom of movement, not a right to freeload.
One of the common responses to this in Ireland is that the Irish state simply offers EU citizens the same rights as it does Irish citizens, and does not make a difference between them. This is a way to point to the reality – which nobody disputes – that Ireland has its own fair share of freeloaders.
There are two points to make here, though.
The first is that one thing which does not generally happen is the sight of Irish freeloaders moving across the continent to live and freeload in Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, or even Germany. Why is that? You’d think, it it was just about a right to live anywhere in Europe, that the sunnier parts of the continent would be over-loaded with Irish unemployed types lining up for a house and benefits in the nicer weather. That doesn’t happen, and the reason it doesn’t happen is because the Irish Government pays out more than just about anyone else.
In Germany, for example, unemployment benefits are cut off after two years, and the rate is vastly lower than it is in Ireland: The maximum amount an individual can expect is about €8,000 per year.
In other words, if you are – and forgive me, in these circumstances, for using un-journalistic language – an unemployed bum, it is much more profitable to be an unemployed bum in Ireland than it is just about anywhere else in the EU. That’s why our home-grown unemployed bums don’t leave, and why we attract the Puskas types of the continent to come here instead of remaining on their couches in their native countries.
In addition, there is nothing whatsoever preventing the Government from changing this. In fact, the European Court of Justice ruled, in 2014, on the matter:
European Union member states can refuse to give financial support to EU migrants who do not have a job, the European Court of Justice ruled today.
The ruling on so-called ‘benefits tourism’ involved a case in Germany but could have implications for the entire EU. The case concerned a Romanian woman living in Germany who was denied welfare payments because she had never held a job in Germany.
What’s more, the ruling of the court is not even necessary to end this charade. European Commission policy permits it:
The European Commission has said that the EU treaties clearly state that an EU migrant must have sufficient economic resources in order to stay in a member state in the long-term.
The Government’s decision to provide 10 years of welfare and a free house to Mr. Puska was not an EU obligation, or an EU entitlement. To suggest that it was is a lie, and nothing more.
The second point is that aside from the benefits, there is not, and never was, a legal obligation on the Irish state to confer on the Puska family a five bedroom home. Indeed, you do not need to take it from me: The very people who campaign for migrant rights are also the people campaigning as hard as they can for a constitutional right to housing. Why is that? Because it does not, presently, exist.
Nor could it, practically. Is the Taoiseach seriously arguing that the Irish state has a sovereign and legal duty to provide housing to every person who comes here? If so, then our “EU obligations” are truly limitless, and should probably be re-negotiated.
But no: This was not the doing of somebody in Brussels, but the doing of successive Irish Governments. There is not one other country in Europe that recognises the right to a home for people who come to their countries from other EU states and contribute nothing.
But Mr. Martin should not take all the blame.
It should be remembered that when the present Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, was first elevated to his exalted position, he declaimed that he would be a Taoiseach for people who “got up early in the morning”. In the case of Mr. Puska, that claim simply cannot be believed.
Ashling Murphy was, after all, a person who got up early in the morning. She went to work. She scrimped, and saved, and planned to pay for her own house. Everything she had, she worked for.
Meanwhile her killer – regardless of his nationality – had never worked a day in the life that he had spent in this country. In his evidence to the court, in which he – according to the Jury’s verdict – lied about his innocence, he told the court that he left his house that morning at 11.15am. Ashling Murphy had already done several hours of work by this point.
In this case, it is fair to say, Ireland was not looking out for the person who gets up early in the morning.
Mr. Martin’s attempt to blame that on the European Union was entirely predictable, and entirely weaselly. It was also, to be as plain as the rules of the press council permit, an absolute crock of nonsense.