The lady in question received the wrong answer from the council, because as the mother of an Italian citizen she should be considered an EU citizen. As she lives in Italy as the mother of an Italian citizen, with whom she lives, she should be treated no differently to an EU citizen who has settled in Italy and who has the same rights to a maternity allowance under the same conditions as an Italian citizen.
To treat her any differently would be pure discrimination and a violation of EU laws which give this non-EU mother of an Italian citizen the same rights as an EU citizen. This means that a permanent permit of stay is not necessary.
However, other non-EU citizens do need to have a permanent permit of stay to be able to have access to these rights and social services. It is a clearly iniquitous situation, brought about during the government of the centre-left which signed the Turkish-Neapolitan law on immigration (d.lgs. 25th July 1998, n.286).
With the financial law 388/2000, a disposition was adopted which specified that only non-EU citizens holding a permanent permit of stay would be eligible for social services.
In this way art.41 of the Turkish-Neapolitan law was repealed, as it originally stated that non-EU citizens holding a simple permit of stay were to be treated equally to Italian citizens.
