Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 25 Nov 1959

Vol. 178 No. 3

Adjournment Debate. - Stoppage of Unemployment Assistance.

Mr. Sherwin

I thought my question would have been taken last Thursday and I am sorry to hold up the House. However, I understand that the deciding officers and appeals officers have statutory powers and can decide when payment of benefit to a man on assistance shall be disallowed. The Minister is responsible for that administration. My case is that the policy of the Minister in not giving proper notification to those people and in denying them a week's assistance which they have signed for is mean. There is much disquiet on account of this policy of cutting unfortunate people off assistance, giving them no option but to beg, borrow or steal except what they might get from public assistance but that takes time.

When a person is disallowed assistance he can appeal to public assistance officers but that takes days and it can take a week because there must be enquiries. In the meantime, consider the position of those people who have signed three days. Try to understand that, to get assistance, you must sign three days. The days usually are Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday and, on Thursday, they are granted the allowance. They must sign three days to get that allowance. Therefore, in the eyes of those people, the policy of the Minister in disallowing them, having signed for the previous week, is a fraud. They sign to get a week's assistance. They are denied that week's assistance, all due to the fact that they did not receive any proper notification. At the time they are being allowed, they are notified. In other words, those people are then tempted to fight with the officials. I have got it from a Manager of a Labour Exchange that it gives them much trouble. Naturally, those people blame the people in the Labour Exchange. They blame anyone. You know what people are. If they are denied, they are inclined to go berserk. They swear and fight and cause scenes—all because they are not granted any notification.

If those people got their week's assistance for which they signed and were then handed some notification that they were being disallowed they would know that they had a week in which to go to England or to make plans. The Minister probably wants them to go to England and thus save the Exchequer. It would also give them a week to notify the board of assistance, a week to do something. The present policy—it must be the policy because, to my knowledge, it has happened on three Thursdays in succession—is that they are refused what they signed for and they are notified at the same time that they are being disallowed. That is the part I want to object to.

Judging by particulars given by the Minister today, there seems to be a bias in favour of rural applicants. According to the statistics here, out of a total of 374 persons disallowed from 1st September, 291 are from Dublin. In other words, the purge is on now. We can expect more tomorrow. In the last month alone, 220 were disallowed in Dublin and, of the total number disallowed in Dublin, 79 are married men.

Amongst the many people who came to me, one man aged 65 asked: "What chance have I, with all the young fellows?" He is a married man. As I said, the referees and appeal officers have a job to do, but why deny the unfortunate people the assistance they have already signed for? If the Minister does not know it, I know it. I know the people in this city. In numerous cases, especially in married cases, the wives are now queueing up at the pawnshops and waiting for the few bob.

What way must they feel? If there are robberies around the city, is it any wonder? Lots of people steal not just for a good time. They steal out of desperation. That is what this policy will encourage. Coming near to Christmas, a month before Christmas, when all the streets are flooded with lights and the shops are full of toys, and other goods, how can the Minister treat those unfortunate people in that fashion? They are cut off without any notification. They are being cut off for not genuinely seeking work, so they are told. The Minister can bamboozle me with statistics and he has the advantage of speaking last, but he can use all the statistics he likes. I ask him, from the humane point of view, to consider these unfortunate people. No matter what statistics he quotes, he cannot make a case for cutting people off from the date they should be in receipt of assistance.

This is just for the information of the House. I have not the latest available statistics for the number of persons employed in the country but at least the difference between 1957 and 1958 was 15,000 fewer persons employed. Arising out of a Question asked on 4th November, 1959, according to the Minister there were 4,500 fewer employed according to the live register. All the indications are that fewer people are employed. How, then, can he expect people to get employment when there is less employment. Let him figure that out himself. Can it be that it is his policy to drive them to England?

The very fact that those people signed up indicates that they are looking for employment because the Labour Exchange is the biggest source of employment. Nearly everywhere you go, you will be told "We send to the Labour Exchange." Because I am a member of the Dublin Corporation, I am approached. The answer is "All Corporation employees, even for relief works, come from the Labour Exchange. We cannot employ anyone direct." Those people go around looking for employment. Perhaps it is the Minister's policy to condone lies by requesting those people to get fictitious statements about looking for employment. That is what they have to do. I am sure they are browned off getting "No" for an answer. I am sure a lot of them make up some kind of fictitious statements about being here or there for the simple reason that there is no answer to their request.

There is no employment for men. There may be some employment for girls but there is no employment for men. There is less employment; therefore, how can those people get employment? The labour exchanges are the biggest employers. Surely if it can be proved that they were offered employment and refused it, that would be a good and valid reason for denying them unemployment assistance, but to suggest that because they cannot get what does not exist would not.

I feel very aggrieved about this business because I represent Parnell Street, the corporation buildings and the poorer areas, and they nearly all come to me and I have to listen to them. I have been in the labour exchanges a few times in the past fortnight and I know the situation. The Minister may say that some of them are swindlers, as he did last year, but there is an old saying that it is better that some who are guilty should go free than that one innocent person should be wrongly convicted. It cannot be said that 291 people are swindlers. Whatever the Minister thinks or does not think, I would ask him to change his policy of notifying people on the day they call for the assistance that they will not get it, and to give them at least a week's notice, unless he wants people to rise in mutiny as any man will if he feels as these people do about these miserable few shillings. If the money involved were the same as that paid in England or in the North, I could understand it, but to suggest that where 30/- or £2 is involved, a man is not looking for work is not right. I ask you, Sir, to allow Deputy Ryan to say a few words.

Mr. Ryan

I wish to draw the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the fact that he did not answer one portion of my question which asked what available work there was for the persons who are now drawing unemployment assistance. To my mind, it is most unfair to victimise a man for not obtaining work which is not there, and I can only assume that the reason he has not answered that question is that he knows, and the Department of Social Welfare knows, and every labour exchange knows, that the work simply is not there. These unfortunate people, who wear out the soles of their shoes walking three times a week to sign on, are expected to walk for the rest of the week from door to door and to get refusal after refusal.

I speak from my own personal experience. After a few short months, I have at home 300 unemployment cards belonging to men who are looking for employment. The files of the Parliamentary Secretary's office must be full of copies of replies from him and from his office to me, only one of 147 Deputies, saying that there is no employment available but that every effort will be made to put people in touch with employment. Within the past month, in the second smallest constituency in Dublin which I represent, 20 men have come to me complaining that they had been struck off the list of those entitled to receive unemployment assistance. Compared with two or three years ago, there are now 36,000 fewer people employed in this country. There are 36,000 fewer jobs available and that direction has gone out from the Parliamentary Secretary's office saying: "Strike them down." Why? Because in the past month the number registered as unemployed in the rural areas has gone up, so Dublin is again victimised. Out of a total of 291 disallowed in the whole country, 220 unfortunates have been chosen from the streets of Dublin to be victimised because they are unable to get the jobs they want to get.

I say it is the deliberate policy on the part of the Department to try to keep the unemployment figures down which has compelled them in these few short weeks before Christmas—the season of goodwill, plenty and fruitfulness—at the time when they should be with their wives and children, to emigrate to our traditional enemy across the water. Everyone knows that this time of the year, October, November and December, is the slackest time for employment, except in the case of shops which distribute goods around Christmas where employment is increased at this time of the year. This is the slackest period from the employment point of view, but it is also the season when there should be a little goodwill and charity on the part of the Government.

I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to reply to that portion of my question which asks him to indicate what jobs those people can get if they genuinely want to get work. If those jobs are available, his files and mine will be reduced substantially within the next few months. I join with Deputy Sherwin in the very strong case he made that more adequate notice be given to those unfortunate people before they are struck off the list of those eligible to receive unemployment assistance. Goodness knows, they are living on a pittance and to subject them, without warning, to further suffering savours not only of a lack of charity but of deliberate mean cruelty.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Welfare (Mr. Kennedy)

I do not wish to minimise the question of any man being unemployed but the whole problem being debated by the two Deputies who have spoken is being exaggerated by them. In the course of a supplementary question today, stress was laid on the fact that the wives and children of the unemployed were involved. I do not say Deputy Sherwin made that point but it was made by another Deputy.

The figures I gave today indicate that only 27 per cent. of the people who have been disallowed unemployment assistance are married and a number of the remainder have their families reared. Furthermore, Deputy Sherwin gave the key to the whole problem when he mentioned one citizen who is 65 years of age. If we make a close analysis, we find the majority of those people in that age group and we further find that some of them have been for two, three, and four years, signing on at the labour exchange and they have given no indication that they are seeking work and no evidence that they are looking for a post of any kind.

The officers of the Department are as humane as any other persons examining this problem but the officer in the Department has a duty. His duty is to satisfy himself that the claimant for unemployment assistance has complied with the statutory conditions for the receipt of assistance. When, as a result of his inquiries, the official satisfies himself that the applicant has not complied with the statutory requirements he has no option other than to strike him off as a recipient of assistance and that citizen has the right of appeal.

In these cases quoted today, in Gardiner Street, there were 161 disallowed and the Department received 106 appeals. Twenty-nine of them were allowed, 40 of them disallowed and 37 are pending. In Werburgh Street 39 were received; four were allowed, one was disallowed, and 34 are pending. The claimants for unemployment assistance are well aware of their rights and they exercise these rights.

Deputy Sherwin complains about the lapsed period between the register on a Tuesday, a Thursday and a Saturday. A concession was given, with one or two exceptions, to those who signed the unemployment register in the labour exchange. The concession was —following a request—that instead of signing every day they would have to sign only three days a week, and if they cannot be notified on the Tuesday they are notified on the Thursday. If the examination is not complete, and the decision of the deciding officer is not arrived at, they will not be notified until Thursday and he, under statute, is the officer to deal with that. If the claimant appeals the case then the decision of the Appeals Officer is final and the Minister has no statutory right or power to interfere with the appeal.

Deputy Ryan referred to the number of people employed in this State. This is a democracy and the number of people employed by the State is only a small portion of the total number employed in the whole country. Talking about work, the Government have provided relief schemes for Dublin City, and for the other cities, around the Christmas period and the labour for these schemes is recruited from the labour exchange. Deputy Sherwin referred to the fewer number employed at that time than there were at some time in the past. There are fewer employed on the land but there are more in the urban areas and the Taoiseach referred to that today. There is an increase in employment in industry and that refers to Dublin City.

Mr. Sherwin

The Parliamentary Secretary means girls.

Mr. Kennedy

No. If the Deputy likes to look at the statistics, he will see that more men and women are employed in the extra industries that have been created in the last two years. We have made fairly good provision for unemployment schemes for this Christmas, to which Deputy Ryan referred. We did not cut them by 50 per cent. as the previous Government did in 1956.

Mr. Ryan

There are 36,000 more unemployed.

Mr. Kennedy

I cannot argue the rights and wrongs of that as I have not got a set of statistics at my disposal.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

There were 100,000 unemployed in January, 1956.

Mr. Kennedy

As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach said, when we came into office in 1957 we had an unemployment register of 96,000 or 97,000. That is not so today. The unemployment register is much smaller. This idea of pretending that there is a bias in favour of the rural unemployed as against the urban unemployed, and as against those unemployed in the city, is wrong and I do not accept it. As I said at the beginning, the officers do their duty conscientiously and well.

Unfortunately there is a problem here. There is a problem of the unemployable man. There is the problem of the man who is signing for years and has not gone to work, and it is the bounden duty of the officer of the Department, over which the Minister has charge, to carry out these duties to see if the person concerned is genuinely seeking work. It is not alone State work; there is work of other kinds. If that citizen is not genuinely seeking work then there is no option but to deprive that citizen of unemployment assistance. As I said, and as I now repeat, he has a citizen's right to appeal against that decision.

Mr. Sherwin

How does he live in the meantime?

Mr. Kennedy

He will not be short.

Mr. Sherwin

That is the question.

Mr. Kennedy

The Dublin Corporation and the Boards of Assistance are humane institutions.

Mr. Sherwin

But there is a gap between the Thursday when he is cut off and the time he gets the assistance.

Mr. Kennedy

There is a gap between the time the man goes off unemployment benefit and goes on to unemployment assistance.

Mr. Sherwin

Three days.

Mr. Kennedy

There is also a gap for the man getting his qualification certificate and signing for the first time. There is that inevitable gap when you are dealing with a big problem and when you are dealing with a large group. When you are dealing with 500,000 people who are registered you must have a proper approach to the matter so that there may not be abuses. Therefore I think the Deputies have exaggerated this problem. We are as much concerned in seeing that these people have their rights as any Deputy. The whole framework of social legislation in the 1952 Act, and the other Acts, in 1933 and 1935, was designed to cater for the rights of these people who never had any right before that. As regards practice, the same practice is used now as was used from 1933, 1934 and 1935 and under the limited benefits that existed under unemployment benefit before that, under the British Act, which applied only to tradesmen and the like.

The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 26th November, 1959.