It is very difficult to make a case in respect of Section 2 without at the same time introducing Section 4. The principle is the same in each case. What shall a man have to prove or what shall he have to disprove in order to get compensation? It is infinitely more important in the case of Section 4, which deals with a long-service man, up to 50 years' service, than in the case of a short-service man. What I want to put to the House is that there is not a bit of use in laying down a basis of compensation if there is put between the man and the compensation absolutely insuperable obstacles. I say in all sincerity that the Bill as it stands makes it impossible for one-twentieth of the men who may become redundant now or hereafter, or of the hundreds who have already become redundant, to prove a case. The Minister may bring in some other words. It is his business to do that if he seeks to alter the Act in a drastic form.
As it stands the Bill makes it impossible for anyone to bring a case for compensation except, at the outside, one in twenty. Ever since the Railway Commission in 1922 the companies were well aware that either nationalisation or amalgamation was morally certain. They were shaping policy in accordance with that understanding. A number of positions that became vacant were not filled and as a result staffs were being gradually reduced. When amalgamation took place the railways were working with minimum staffs. A number of men were doing superior duties because the posts they were filling were not officially filled and they were carrying on as deputies. The new company started with a skeleton staff. Every man on the railway before amalgamation took place had a practical certainty of permanent employment, if amalgamation had not taken place. The Act merely provides that all these employees and servants of the old companies became automatically servants and officers of the new company. In accordance with such agreements, brought about for the public benefit—and in connection with a Bill which was not asked for by the railway employees—the fundamental principle was observed of either finding employment for them or compensating them on a certain basis.
The basis was not an exceedingly generous one. As I pointed out, a man with 30 years' service to his credit who had 50/- a week prior to amalgamation and who became redundant would get a pension of only 25/- a week. The less service the less compensation. If they dispensed with half the staff they would at all events by that means be making very extensive savings in regard to working expenses. What has happened? Nearly always when there is temporary depression in trade or in traffic companies do not proceed to dismiss the staff immediately. They hold them on for a certain period and gradually absorb them as vacancies occur. They stopped recruiting and made use of the natural wastage, either where men were retiring from old age, death, resignation, emigration, or dismissal for incapacity or misconduct. They gradually absorbed the redundant staff in that way. The amalgamated company could effect extensive economies by these methods. They could hold people who were redundant until sufficient vacancies arose to absorb them and thereby avoid paying compensation or putting them out.
What they are trying to do, unfortunately, according to the Minister's statement, is to dispense with them, by dismissing them forthwith, without paying any compensation and saying that it is not because of amalgamation. I think it is ridiculous to say they are not redundant because of amalgamation but because of reduction in traffic, improved methods of working, or any other economic cause. The man in the first place has to prove that his services are being dispensed with by the amalgamated company on account of having become unnecessary in consequence of changes in administration due directly to amalgamation and absorption of the company, as effected by the Principal Act. He has to prove all that against what the company undoubtedly seek to prove— that his redundance is due to decreased traffic, reduction of renewal or maintenance work, to improved methods of working which would not have been feasible by the smaller or absorbed companies by which the officer or servant was formerly employed, or for any other economic cause.
The railwayman, no matter what his position, who would attempt to try to prove a case of that kind and disprove the other case brought up by the company's experts against him, would be only fit for a lunatic asylum. Let us take a case, say a goods depot like the North Wall. Suppose it is found that there is an annual reduction of 10,000 tons of traffic outwards and inwards to the North Wall Depot; there is a huge traffic outwards to cross-Channel stations and inland, and there is a huge inwards traffic for Dublin from the country and cross-Channel stations. Now suppose there is found to be a reduction of 10,000 tons of traffic in a year; that can be shown not only to affect the employees at the North Wall but, also, to affect the general chain of staffs which handle, either physically or in correspondence, the transportation of that traffic. First, the goods are handled at the North Wall, and they are also handled at the receiving stations. If you reduce traffic at North Wall you reduce the work of the men there, and you reduce the work, to some extent, of the men at the various stations throughout the whole system dealing with traffic from North Wall. You reduce the correspondence at North Wall affected by that traffic, the invoicing and the rest of it, inward and outward, and you affect the work of the various departments in the chief office—the goods department, the statistics department, the traffic department, and the accounts, and the cash department and other departments at the North Wall will be affected by this 10,000 tons of traffic in a greater or lesser degree. You reduce the work of every man who deals with the administration of traffic right through the whole chain.
To put that in concrete form it may represent the work of ten men for a year, but you cannot show in that way that ten men are redundant at any one station as a result. You can show that there is a fraction taken off the work of a great many men. You have five or six thousand men affected, and you cannot select ten men and say these men are redundant. What you can do is if you have 200 or 300 men redundant and if you can prove that this decrease of traffic takes something off a man's duties you establish the case that redundancy is brought about by a decrease in traffic, and the claim of the men for compensation fails. And if that fails you can say there is a reduction in renewal and maintenance in connection with locomotives and permanent way, owing to improved methods of working, and you can bring forward officials from the statistics and accounts departments, and so on, in support of that statement. If, after that, you feel you still have a weak case you can say that the redundancy is due to improved methods of working brought about by the genius of the new management. If after that you still feel shaky you can plead some other economic cause. You can prove that there is a depression in trade, and consequently that there is not the same amount to be handled, and there is no need to have the same amount of people employed now as when trade was booming.
What chance has one individual, whether he be a porter or a permanent way man or a senior clerk, to disprove all these various things that can be advanced in a scientific way by facts, figures and argument put up by the company's experts if the company seek to make a case against him? He has none. You may as well say the work in this House is looked upon as not affording sufficient employment for 60 Senators, and consequently it is decided that 10 were redundant. But who are to be selected as redundant? It may be supposed, perhaps, that you could easily select them in the present circumstances from among the absentees. But suppose all Senators attended here, and it was still contended that there was not enough work for 60, and the numbers must be reduced by ten, then whom would you select? You might say some Senators talk a lot and generally do not do a lot of work; others come here and obey the party Whips and vote for the Government and they may be held to be doing more useful work than those who hold up the House talking. You may be able to prove that the reduction of work affects every Senator, but how can you make a case against any one of these if they claim compensation for redundancy? It is as difficult for a railwayman to prove that he is not one of the people affected by the various clauses set out in the Third Schedule.
It is for us merely waste of time to talk of discussing the subsequent sections of the Bill if 2 and 4 are allowed to remain, postponing aspirations which nineteen-twentieths of the people can never hope to attain.
A great deal of heat was brought into the discussion of this Bill in the other House. The Minister in charge of the Bill made the extraordinary statement here the last day that my opposition to the Bill was actuated by the fact that I wrote him a certain letter which he characterised as absurd, and that, arising out of a feeling of pique, as a result, I opposed the Bill. He must know very well that from the day the Bill first saw the light I publicly denounced it, and that, long before that letter was written, and before any of the debates in the Dáil took place, he must know that somebody, with some sense of justice, would have to make an appeal for elementary justice for the vested interests of 17,000 railway employees.
It has not been found necessary to introduce these provisions into the British Act at all, and for that reason, notwithstanding what Senator Bagwell says, there is not one iota of difference governing the position in this Bill and in the British Act. How can there be? The principle is the same: neither party asked for the Bill; it was forced upon them. I appeal for serious consideration for my amendment, and I appeal to the Minister to come down from the hard, antagonistic attitude he has taken up. If he has any grudge to satisfy in this matter, let him deal with us. It is not right that people outside —honest working men, some in very responsible positions, some in very humble positions, but nevertheless all entitled to Justice at the hands of the Oireachtas—should suffer because the Minister may have a score to settle with somebody else in this House. The Minister knows that amendments No. 2 and 5 are absolutely essential, or something comparable to them, before any man can possibly get compensation. His advisers admitted, privately, that if the company want to take advantage of this, no compensation need be paid. And they have said: "Surely Mr. Keogh is not going to take advantage of such a position." That is a deplorable position, but it is a fact. I do not suggest mala fides on the part of the railway companies, but I suggest that men should not be placed at the mercy of one side in this business, but that they should be protected by the law and not have to appeal for mercy. If that is a good principle in one case it is good in another. I have tried, as far as possible, because of the technical nature of the case, to put the position before the Committee, and if they take the view I tried to impress upon them I feel they will accept this amendment, or one that will enable those concerned to have a reasonable chance of establishing their claims to compensation when they lose their employment.
