I wish to refer to the section of the Social Welfare Act of 1952 which operates to deprive workers of their rights to unemployment benefit when they are out of work due to a trade dispute or when they are locked out. It would seem that under that Act trade disputes, even when they occur outside the State, may cause Irish workers to be deprived of unemployment benefit. I refer to the so-called neutrality provisions contained in section 17 (2) of that Act. The workman contributes 25 per cent to his stamps and provides another 25 per cent through various forms of taxation. These neutrality provisions, which the Minister inherited through the first Social Insurance Act of 1911, cause injustice to workers. The principle of neutrality should act in a neutral sense and my suggestion here is that the worker should get at least 25 per cent and possibly 40 per cent of the benefit, as of right, if and when he is on strike and that he should not be deprived of benefit at all if he is locked out. I suggest the Act should be amended to meet these points.
The Minister will be aware that the National Insurance Act, 1965 has eased the position for workers to some extent and I think the Irish Congress of Trade Unions have been in touch with the authorities seeking amendment of the 1952 Social Welfare Act by substituting for section 17 (2) of the Act the provisions in the British 1965 Act which removes disqualification for unemployment benefit where the worker can prove, among other things, that he is not participating or financing or directly interested in the trade dispute which caused the stoppage of work. The considered opinion of the trade union movement is that the amendment referred to with the deletion of the words "or financing" would be fair and reasonable to the workers involved. The Labour Party would wish to table amendments on the Committee Stage to bring about this alteration of section 17 (2) of the 1952 Act as it affects workers generally in a trade dispute.
I should like also to refer to the rates of benefit in section 3 of the Bill now before us. The definition of rural area, which, by the way, formerly appeared on Form UA 19 but seems to have been deleted from the latest version, stated that for the purposes of unemployment assistance the urban areas are the county boroughs of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford, the Borough of Dún Laoghaire, the urban districts of Athlone, Bray, Carlow, Clonmel, Drogheda, Dundalk, Galway, Kilkenny, Sligo, Tralee and Wexford. It is also arranged under the Act that residence in a house owned by the local authority of an urban area but situated outside the urban area is deemed to be residence in the urban area. A person living in Dublin city suburbs or Dún Laoghaire suburbs in the county area, is deemed to be in a rural area, and qualifies only for the lower rate of benefit, yet those two areas have population figures far above many of the areas classified as urban where a higher rate of benefit is payable—for instance, Dún Laoghaire suburbs, 20,309 and Dublin South City suburbs, 54,553.
These figures exceed, with two exceptions, the named places in the regulations, most of which are considerably lower than those population figures. In the case of an unemployed person drawing unemployment assistance and residing in Stillorgan, he is paid the lower rate set out in section 3 of the Bill, yet the population in Stillorgan, 13,000, is higher than many of the urban districts set out in the regulations. The same applies to Milltown with 9,487 population and Dundrum with 15,125. As I have said, these different areas are not urban areas for the purposes of the Act. They are rural areas, and people on unemployment assistance can only draw the much lower rate for that category of worker. It is surely necessary that there should be a revision of the grading of those areas for the purpose of paying the higher rate of unemployment assistance, and I should be very glad if the Minister would look into these things and see if he could do anything to put a more reasonable interpretation on what are rural and urban areas.