I am slightly dubious in speaking on this measure in view of the number of distinguished members of the legal profession adorning the House. Nevertheless, because the Labour Party has put forward this measure, it is incumbent on me to speak in view of the change which we seek. Normally I would have dealt with the matter at length but because I understand the Government is prepared to agree to a certain action in connection with this Bill I shall confine my remarks to a concise expression of our views on the doctrine of common employment.
As a layman I may be forgiven if the language I use here is not as competent as that which would be used in a law court. The doctrine of common employment from the layman's point of view would be interpreted to mean roughly this: The master is not liable for injury resulting from the negligence of one of his employees where the injurer and the injured—the one who causes the damage and the one who suffers the damage, respectively—are both servants of his in a common employment and the injury is effected in the course of that employment. Broadly, that is the doctrine of common employment. I should like to make the point that that is not anything but a judge-made law. It has not been passed by any Parliament or has not got the endorsement of any recognised authority speaking on behalf of a people in any country of which I know.
It started in Britain back in 1837 where a decision was taken by a judge at that time. Under the circumstances that then obtained, he gave a certain decision. That was confirmed in 1858 by the House of Lords when Lord Cranworth, in the case of Barton's Hill Coal Company versus Reid, in 1858, stated in his judgment that when several workmen engage to serve a master in common work they know, or ought to know, the risks to which they are exposing themselves including the risks of carelessness against which their employer cannot secure them and they must be supposed to contract with reference to such risks.
Whatever the merits of that decision and whatever the merits of the previous judge's decision in relation to employment at that day, away back in 1837, it can now be said that, with the complete change of industrialisation and where workers are no longer engaged as individuals but are engaged in cooperation of joint work on dangerous machines, common employment as defined away back in 1837 has completely and utterly changed. It can be said that the risks at the present moment are not comparable with those away back over 100 years ago. That has been recognised in Great Britain. In 1948, that judge-made law was abolished in a Bill brought before the British House of Commons.
While not endeavouring to follow any British policy, Labour Party Deputies interested in the care and advancement of workers of this country felt it their duty to introduce this Bill so as to give the Government an opportunity of accepting the principle behind it. I am very pleased to say that the Minister, after consultation with his Cabinet, has seen fit to indicate that they are prepared to co-operate in this object.
I speak as a layman and for the benefit of ordinary laymen. It must be understood that there are certain conditions and regulations such as that it is no defence to plead common employment where any breach of statutory regulations has occurred in the cause of an accident. Nevertheless, there are current cases in this country. In particular, I would mention the building trade. In scaffolding and in various things connected with the building trade, workers have received injury. Because building trade regulations do not govern that type of employment, workers have suffered severe injury which normally would permit them to recover adequate compensation from their employers. However, they have been deprived, because of this judge-made law of common employment, of the rights of securing compensation for their injury due to the fact that it was pleaded that the injury was caused by the careless action of a fellow-workman engaged on the same job and by the same employer.
All that the employer has to prove is that the employee who caused the injury by his carelessness was, so far as the employer could reasonably know, a competent workman. Nevertheless, the fact is that a severe injury often resulting in the loss of a limb, went without any compensation because unscrupulous employers, I might say, availed of this common employment doctrine not to compensate people for injuries received. That might have been all right away back in 1837, or in the years following, but industrialisation has so progressed that it is commonly accepted now that workers have got to be engaged in the handling of dangerous machines in their normal employment. Because of the change in times—with limited companies being formed—it is quite possible that, in law, you could be considered a fellow-employee of a company that was as remote as one part of Ireland from the other.
In fact, in Ireland, within a short time, it has been held that a linesman repairing an E.S.B. defect in County Dublin was in common employment with the driver of an E.S.B. van going out to give assistance of some kind. That is a typical case. In 1947, in the case of Millar versus Sligo Corporation, the conductor of one of two trams following each other up a hill on the same rail line was injured by the negligence of the driver of the other in allowing it to run down the hill and that was successfully pleaded as common employment. I suggest to the Minister that there is a case for following in this respect the example of Great Britain.
It might be said that this may be used only by unscrupulous employers, but that is not so. Sometimes companies are compelled to follow the advice of their legal advisers. In companies or in associations of people you do not get direct personal touch. In their individual rights, the people forming that company may be as human, as sympathetic, as Christian as any other individual in this country but, in their combined efforts, acting on legal advice and acting as they rightly should in the interests of the company in which they have taken upon themselves the position of directors, they must, of itself, follow the advice they have got from their legal adviser. If the legal adviser indicates to them that, under a section of a doctrine that has no legal standing beyond that of a judge-made thing endorsed by the British House of Lords, in this country at the present day a workman who has suffered an injury can be deprived of his income and of compensation because of that law, they must follow his advice.
I feel that in moving this Bill, as a member of the Labour Party and on behalf of that group, I am fulfilling the function for which I am sent here, that is, to remove the injustice inflicted upon those who are employed, to prevent unscrupulous employers exploiting the loophole in the present legislation and to give to Irish workers the right which has been conferred on their fellow workers across the Channel. I welcome the fact that the Government has seen the justice of our claim and is prepared to co-operate with the movers of this Bill, in seeing that it comes back to this House, either in its present form or in an amended form, but mainly with the result that what we seek to do will be carried out.