There was no objective justification for the statutory exclusion of an Irish citizen resident in the State from eligibility for child benefit prior to the grant of status to her mother in January 2016. Accordingly, this statutory exclusion constituted a breach of the equality provisions of Article 40.1 of the Constitution.

The statutory requirement that a qualifying parent for the purposes of social welfare payments must also have a legal entitlement to reside in the State was not unconstitutional. The key issue was that of citizenship. The Oireachtas was entitled to attach conditions to the eligibility for social welfare of a non-national whose entitlement to reside in the State was contingent on a statutory entitlement. However, social welfare was payable in respect of a person from the date of the grant of refugee status in accordance with Article 28 of the Qualification Directive and insofar as Irish law precluded this payment based on the status of the child’s parents, this was incompatible with EU law.