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The present case has been referred to this Court by the National Insurance Commissioner, who has jurisdiction in the United Kingdom to give a decision on appeal on certain social security disputes. The Court will once more be led to deal with the situation relating to cash sickness insurance benefits of workers ‘absent from Great Britain’ within the meaning of Regulation No 1408/71. In contrast to the Brack case on which this Court gave a decision bv judgment of 29 September 1976 ([1976] ECR 1430), the present case concerns a stay or residence of rather a special nature since the person concerned was imprisoned in another Member State. I shall therefore have to make a foray into the field of social security of prisoners which, if I am not mistaken, has never given rise to a decision by this Court. The Welchner case (judgment of 5 December 1967 [1967] ECR 331) in fact concerned a period of captivity as a prisoner of war. The main action is between a national of the Republic of Ireland, who is at present resident in England, and the Insurance Officer who represents the British Minister of Health and Social Security. On 9 January 1973, the Central Criminal Court in Dublin found Mr Kenny guilty of assault on his wife and sentenced him on that account to 12 months' imprisonment with a suspended sentence on condition that he complied with a prohibition preventing him from staying in the Republic of Ireland in the vicinity of his wife's place of residence for two years. He infringed this prohibition on 16 June 1973, was arrested and was committed on 28 June to serve a term of 12 months' imprisonment at Mountjoy Prison. During the term of his imprisonment Mr Kenny was found to be incapable of work on account of a duodenal ulcer and haematemesis certified even before he was imprisoned and, since his state of health required treatment which could not be administered in the prison or in the prison infirmary, he was transferred on 23 October 1973 to the Mater Hospital which was situated close to the prison but did not form part of it. He stayed there unul 2 November 1973 when he returned to the prison. He was released on 28 March 1974, having obtained remission for good behaviour. After his release Mr Kenny claimed cash sickness benefits from the English Department of Health and Social Security for the whole period of incapacity on account of his illness, both while he was in prison and while he was in hospital. It is not known exactly in what profession he was employed but it is established that, after serving in the British Army, the last post which he occupied on 19 June 1973, shortly before the period in respect of which he lodged his application, was in England; nor is it in dispute that during that period he was, within the meaning of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 of the Council, subject to the legislation of Great Britain, i.e. of part of the United Kingdom. The English authorities however refused to grant him cash sickness benefits for that period. The Insurance Officer's argument is as follows: Article 1 (a) (i) of Regulation No 1408/71 provides that for the purpose of that regulation ‘worker’ means, subject to the restrictions set out in Annex V, any person who is insured, compulsorily or on an optional continued basis, for one or more of the contingencies covered by the branches of a social security scheme for employed persons. According to Article 1 (c) ‘“competent institution” means: (i) the institution with which the person concerned is insured at the time of the application for benefit …’ Since the applicant was employed as a worker in the United Kingdom until 19 June 1973 the right to sickness benefits which he claimed had to be examined by an institution in the United Kingdom. Under Article 19 (1) (b), ‘a worker residing in the territory of a Member State other than the competent State, who satisfies the conditions of the legislation of the competent State for entidement to benefits, taking account where appropriate of the provisions of Article 18, shall receive in the State in which he is resident: … (b) cash benefits provided by the competent institution in accordance with the legislation which it administers …’ Under Article 18 (1), ‘the competent institution of a Member State whose legislation makes the acquisition, retention or recovery of the right to benefits conditional upon the completion of insurance periods shall, to the extent necessary, take account of insurance periods completed under the legislation of any other Member State as if they were periods completed under its own legislation’. Similarly, Article 22 (1) provides that: ‘A worker who satisfies the conditions of the legislation of the competent State for entitlement to benefits, taking account where appropriate of the provisions of Article 18, and: (a) whose condition necessitates immediate benefits during a stay in the territory of another Member State, … shall be entitled: (ii) to cash benefits provided by the competent institution in accordance with the legislation which it administers…’ Thus a worker who moves within the Community is entitled to cash sickness benefits if he ‘satisfies the conditions of the legislation of the competent State for entitlement to benefits’ and those benefits correspond to those provided by the competent institution ‘in accordance with the legislation which it administers’. However, section 49 of the National Insurance Act 1965, which was in force at that time and has since been re-enacted in practically identical terms in section 85 (5) of the Social Security Act 1975 provides that: ‘1. Except where regulations otherwise provide, a person shall be disqualified for receiving any benefit, and an increase of benefit shall not be payable in respect of any person as the beneficiary's wife or husband, for any period during which that person (a) is absent from Great Britain; or (b) is undergoing imprisonment or detention in legal custody.’ Such regulations were introduced by Regulation 11 of the General Benefit Regulations 1970, according to which the disqualification does not operate unless a penalty is imposed at the conclusion of criminal proceedings brought against the detainee. Similarly, it does not operate for any period during his sentence in which he is detained at the conclusion of criminal proceedings if during that period he was iiable to be detained in a hospital or similar institution in Great Britain as a person suffering from mental disorder unless, pursuant to any sentence or order for detention made by a court in such proceedings, he has undergone detention by way of a penalty in prison and was removed to hospital or to a similar institution while liable to be detained due to that sentence or order. Only imprisonment in connexion with an unlawful act or criminal offence leads to the suspension of the right to benefits: there is no suspension in the case of imprisonment for debt, in other words of an order for detention in default of payment. It will therefore be clear that the nature of the imprisonment or detention, according to the legislation of the United Kingdom, has an effect on the maintenance of the rights to sickness benefits of the insured person. In another connexion, the fact that the person concerned was detained in the prison infirmary or in a hospital separate from the hospital is relevant. Absence from Great Britain, which was the first reason for refusing him benefits and which is still quoted first and foremost in the Social Security Act 1975, obviously cannot be relied upon with regard to workers of the Member States moving within the Community, by virtue of the very provisions of Articles 18 and 19 of the regulation. However the competent institution maintains that the expression ‘imprisonment or detention in legal custody’ refers not only to imprisonment but to any detention which is sufficiently connected with criminal proceedings. In particular it concerns detention in hospital or in a similar institution as a result of criminal proceedings. Moreover, although it is true that the applicant was hospitalized, that occurred during the prison sentence which he was serving and not because he was liable to be detained in a hospital. Finally, the exclusion from receiving benefits applies to any detention wherever it takes place, not only in Great Britain. As a result the plaintiff in the main action was refused cash sickness benefits for the period in question on the ground that during the relevant contribution year he was undergoing detention in legal custody. If I have correctly understood the English system, the mere fact of imprisonment or detention in legal custody involves de piano disqualification from the right to cash benefits in addition to the penalty incurred as a result of Mr Kenny's failure to comply with the local banishment order placed on him. It is therefore a genuine additional penalty. Of course it will still be for the national court to decide whether the suspended sentence given by the Central Criminal Court, Dublin, constitutes a ‘penalty’ within the meaning of section 49 (1) (b) of the National Insurance Act 1965 and of Regulation 11 of the General Benefit Regulations 1970. Similarly the national court will have to decide whether detention near to a prison may under English law be treated as equivalent to detention in a prison. However, that court is immediately concerned to know whether the Community rules on the application of social security schemes to employed persons and their families moving within the Community or the fundamental principles upon which those rules are based limit the scope of the English rules to periods of imprisonment or detention in Great Britain, thus making disqualification from benefits arising from imprisonment or detention undergone in another Member State inapplicable to persons who are members of social security schemes or whether, on the contrary, those rules or those Community principles require the court to refer to the provisions of the English regulations. It was therefore prompted to refer to this Court the following three questions: ‘1. Whether within the scope of application of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 Article 7 of the Treaty of Rome is directly applicable in Member States. 2. Whether the competent institution of a Member State which is required by either Article 19 (1) (b) or Article 22 (1) (a) (ii) of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 to pay cash benefits to a worker who is not a national of that Member State in accordance with the legislation which it administers is entitled (1) to treat facts occurring in the territory of another Member State as equivalent to corresponding facts occurring in its own State being facts which had they occurred in its own State would have disqualified the worker concerned in part or in whole for receiving the benefits and (2) to withhold benefit accordingly. 3. Whether the answer to the preceding question would be different if the worker concerned were a national of the Member State of the competent institution.’