DAIL IN COMMITTEE. - LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL, 1924.—THIRD STAGE RESUMED.
SECTION 35.
I move amendment 50:—
In line 32 to delete the word "person" and to insert in lieu thereof the word "officer," and to delete the words, in lines 32 and 33, "served as an officer," and to insert in lieu thereof the words "devoted the whole of his time to the service."
This is a purely formal amendment to preserve the continuity of wording and to make the Bill, as it were, consistent. The persons concerned are always referred to as "officers." The section, as amended, would read: "and the said expression also includes any officer who has devoted the whole of his time to the service of one or more committees or joint committees appointed for the purpose of the Agricultural and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899. for a continuous period of not less than ten years." In view of the discussion yesterday evening, the amendment speaks for itself.
I am in favour of this amendment, which restricts pensions to whole-time officers.
Amendment put and agreed to.
I move amendment 51:—
In lines 35 and 36 to delete the words "for a continuous period of not less than ten years."
Deputies who scrutinise this section closely will see that before an instructor or any person engaged under the Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899, becomes pensionable, he must for a continuous period of not less than ten years, serve in a capacity other than pensionable. Deputies will notice that the expression, "pensionable officer," means any permanent officer who devotes the whole of his time to the service of one or more local authorities. We are anxious to find out why there should be this invidious difference in the case of men highly skilled and with high technical qualifications. We want to know why they should be put in an unfavourable position, as compared with men who bring no technical or special qualifications to their work. The Minister spoke last night about county councils, owing to the general poverty of the country, being unable to proceed with some of the technical schemes. That is my recollection of what he said. I hope I misinterpret him, because I think it is a very sad commentary on his administration and on the administration of the councils in the country, if the technical schemes have to go by the board. Remember, that those people who are employed under the Act of 1899, imparting agricultural and technical instruction, are really the best asset the nation possesses. In them, and in them alone-and, without hesitation, I say in them even more than in the Minister for Local Government —is there hope that this nation will pull itself out of the slough. Yet what do we find? That they are to be in an unfavourable position as regards terms and conditions of service.
It is curious that the men whom the nation needs most are to be put in an unfavourable position. They are deterred, as it were—at least the best of them—from finding employment in their own country. While I have every desire for economy in this country, and while I am not anxious to increase the pension list, I feel that the little money that would be given in this instance would be money well spent, and that the opposite course is false economy. Once they are appointed, I contend that these men should become pensionable officers, and that they should have at least equality of status with any official in the Local Government service —any junior clerk, for instance, under a county council. Remember that to become a pensionable officer does not mean that the person will forthwith draw a pension. In other words, this term "pensionable officer" is only a qualifying term. It is a bad thing to put a discount—a very large discount— as the Minister has done, on technical education, which is of the highest economic importance. I ask the Minister to reconsider his attitude, and to make agricultural and technical instructors pensionable from the date of their appointment by the county committees.
I must say that I am astonished to see this particular Deputy come forward, for the first time, I believe, since he entered the Dáil, as the champion of the rights of people who are anxious to make a very liberal use of the ratepayers' money. I do not think the Deputy has a very clear idea of the situation with regard to those particular officers. The ordinary officer of a local authority under this Act and under previous Acts had to fulfil two conditions, in order to become a pensionable officer: he had to be a whole-time officer and he had to be a permanent officer. Those officers, as the the Act stands, are only whole-time officers. They are not permanent officers. If a committee appoints those officers as permanent officers, then they come outside this section altogether. It will no longer apply to them. It is precisely because they are not permanent officers that it is necessary to put in some restriction of this kind, which will enable us to arrive at some definite basis to decide whether or not they are permanent officers. As the law stands at present, those officers are appointed from year to year. Some of them are permanent, but a great number of them are only temporary. If we did not put in some proviso of this kind, it would be open to those officers to come up after a year or two years and claim a gratuity under the Act. They are in no different position from the ordinary civil servant. A civil servant does not acquire pensionable rights until he has given ten years' service. We are putting those officials in exactly the same position. If they are in their positions for ten years, they qualify in the same way as if they were permanent officers. I do not think that can be construed in any way as a hardship on those officers.
There has been considerable activity, I am aware, on the part of those officials to get Deputies to concede this demand. But it would be a very unfair demand. It would put them in a privileged position, if officers who are really temporary were allowed pensionable rights. It would put them in a position which no other officer enjoys at the present moment.
I am surprised that the Minister has resisted this very reasonable amendment. He says it would be unfair and that these men would be put in a privileged position if the requirements of the amendment were conceded. As a matter of fact, it is the other way about. They are only asking what the Minister is giving to all officers of local bodies— even to junior clerks of county councils, as Deputy Hogan has said. They are not asking for any privilege. They are asking merely to be put in the same position as other officers. What is the result of putting in this clause that the amendment seeks to delete? It is that if one of these officers, the importance of whose duties has been so much spoken of, is incapacitated owing to a breakdown in health and has less than ten years' service, he can get no gratuity. There is no question of pension here, because a man under ten years' service does not get a pension; it is a question of gratuity. If a man who is an officer under the Local Government authorities, who is a junior clerk of a county council, for example, breaks down in health after he has given good service—even less than ten years' service—he is entitled to a gratuity. But if he be an officer of a technical committee he gets no gratuity. The Minister has not attempted to defend that position, and surely, the grant of gratuity in these circumstances to these men would not put them in a privileged position.
The gratuity would amount to one-sixth, or one month's salary for each year of service. There is just another possibility that if a man is removed from his office for a cause other than misconduct or incapacity he may be granted a gratuity, but the Minister says it would be open to him to go out after a short service and claim a pension. Surely that is not the case. The Minister founds his arguments entirely on the meaning of the word permanent. The facts are, as the Minister for Lands and Agriculture told us yesterday evening that the officers are, in fact, permanent; everybody knows they are. Technically they have to be reappointed, and the Minister will find that in many cases that technicality is not observed.
There is no question of reappointment year by year, in many cases at all events. That technicality being there, the fact is that the schemes are continuous and have been for the last twenty years with practically no exceptions. We all can see those schemes of technical and agricultural education are and will be permanent, as permanent, at least, as the Minister's provisions in the Bill. I can see no justification for putting these officers in a less favourable position than the less important officers of local authorities. I trust the Minister will see his way to accept this amendment, which is quite a reasonable one.
I have not been approached by any officers of any kind whatever, but I want to give conditional support to the amendment. Though it goes further than I desire, it does get rid of one word in the section that I very much dislike; that is the word "continuous"—for a "continuous period of not less than 10 years." The result of the insertion of the word "continuous" would be to debar from pension or gratuity any of these officers who may have joined the army for service in the European War or for National Army work, even though they did it with the consent of the county committees. Whatever view may be taken of the merits of the European War, I do not think it can be denied that anybody who joined the Army did not do it for their own pleasure or comfort and that they would have a pleasanter and easier life if they remained in their officers. Therefore, I do not think they should be penalised, as this section, unconsciously, I think, might penalise them.
If the Minister will tell me that on Report he will bring in an amendment to meet such hard cases—they are not numerous, I admit—then I will not vote with my friend, Deputy Connor Hogan. I do say this opens rather a wide door to pensions, and I rather wish Deputy White was here in order that we might have his opinion on the subject. In order to get rid of the word "continuous" I shall support the amendment.
There is a further consideration in respect to the phrase, "continuous service." If officers resign from one county and take up service in another county, that cannot be said to be continuous service, I think, under the section. We had better confine ourselves to the question of whether there should be a demand for a ten years' period before making it possible for a local authority to pay to such an officer, who has become unable to carry on his work through sickness, a gratuity. It is not a question of pensions; it is a question of a gratuity limited by the provisions of the Bill, a gratuity which may be granted to a person who ceases to hold office owing to sickness or some other reason which would justify him in claiming consideration, and which would justify the local authority and the Minister in consenting to it. We know from all that has been said, particularly by the Minister for Lands and Agriculture yesterday, the conditions under which many of these men carry on their business. We know the conditions are such as may easily incapacitate them.
Unless this phrase is deleted it will not be possible for a local body to give a gratuity to such a man unless he has had ten years' continuous service. If a man has anything from five to nine years' service, and breaks down in health as a consequence of his work, the local authority would not be able to pay him a gratuity. I think that is decidedly unfair and unreasonable. We should at least leave an officer of that kind in a position to claim some consideration from his employers, even though he has not been in their employment for ten years. I would ask Deputies to think of that aspect of the question.
I agree with previous speakers. It is very unfair to differentiate between this class of officer and other civil servants. If anything, this class of officers should be accorded better treatment. Take the case of county instructors. They have to undergo special training, and have to be highly skilled in the different branches of agriculture and the subjects which they have to teach. It ought to be the Government's aim to attract the very best brains available for this class of work. It is very poor encouragement to ask a young man to take up a position like that with the knowledge that after spending eight or nine years, say, and then having a breakdown in health, he would be discharged without a halfpenny compensation. Some doubt has been expressed as to whether these officers are permanent or not. If they are not, steps should be taken to make them permanent. Otherwise you will not attract the best material to this service.
The Committee can do that.
Yes. I may say, in conclusion, that I thoroughly agree with the previous speakers that this amendment ought to be accepted.
I have tried to make it clear that the committees have power to make officers permanent if they so desire. If they make them permanent they are outside this clause, and they come under a general provision of the section. They are permanent whole-time officers and as such have the same pensionable rights and the same right to a gratuity as any other officer; but there are particular circumstances where a committee may want to appoint an officer. Those schemes are not permanent; they are temporary. Committees may drop the scheme after one or two years. If the amendment is accepted it will mean that whether a local committee desire it or not, they will have to grant a gratuity to this man, even if they have him for only one year. That is what I wish to avoid.
If a man has served with other committees for ten years, then he qualifies for a pension. He is in the same position as if he was recognised as a permanent officer. He qualifies irrespective of whether the committee want him to be a permanent officer or not. That is the sole object of this section. With regard to Deputy Cooper's point, officers of local bodies serving with armies up to the present have been granted special leave, and I am not aware of any circumstances where an officer has not been granted pensionable service, or where the period did not count as pensionable service in cases where he was on active service, whether in the European War or in the National Army. If Deputy Cooper has any particular case——
I have no particular case; I was only apprehensive that it might happen under this section.
Under the law as it stands at present, they get special leave and it counts as service, so I do not think there is anything in that particular point.
I am not quite clear as to the Minister's explanation. He says it is open to any committee to make an officer permanent. If that is the case, was there any necessity for bringing in this at all? Are there any officers permanent, in the sense which the Minister conveys, under these committees? Whatever is done in practice, the theory of the matter is each year those officers are supposed to be appointed as a matter of course. That was the way the law stood from the beginning, when the Act setting up the Department was put in force. If that is the position, what is the point in the Minister's statement about the power of committees to make those officers permanent?
The committees have power to appoint those officers permanently. Their salaries are only from year to year, but if an officer is appointed permanently he will come under the Pensions Act or the gratuity section of that Act in the ordinary way.
Will the Minister say whether, in fact, there is any considerable number of officers under a Department in that category of permanent officers?
Does the Minister say the majority, or any big proportion of them, are such?
The big proportion; I could not say majority.
Does that mean then if a scheme were scrapped at the end of a year, as conceivably it might be under regular arrangements, that the officers would be still permanent officers though the scheme is not carried on?
That could be under the present law.
I think the Minister had better make further inquiries.
Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 16; Níl, 23.
Tá
- Seán Buitléir.
- John Conlan.
- Seán de Faoite.
- David Hall.
- Connor Hogan.
- Séamus Mac Cosgair.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- Risteárd Mac Fheorais.
- Pádraig Mac Fhlannchadha.
- Risteárd Mac Liam.
- Tomás de Nógla.
- Tomás O Conaill.
- Aodh O Cúlacháin.
- Donchadh S.O Guaire.
- Domhnall O Mocháin.
- Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
Níl
- Earnán de Blaghd.
- Séamus de Búrca.
- John J. Cole.
- Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean
- Uí Dhrisceóil.
- John Good.
- John Hennigan.
- Pádraig Mac Fadáin.
- Patrick McGilligan.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- Patrick J. Mulvany.
- Martin M. Nally.
- John T. Nolan.
- Peadar O hAodha.
- Seán O Bruadair.
- Partholán O Conchubhair.
- Séamus N.O Dóláin.
- Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.
- Aindriú O Láimhin.
- Fionán O Loingsigh.
- Pádraic O Máille.
- Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
- Pádraig O hOgáin (Luimneach).
- Seán M.O Súilleabháin.
Amendment declared lost.
I move on behalf of the Minister for Lands and Agriculture:
"To insert in line 36, page 19, after the word ‘years' the words ‘notwithstanding that such appointment was or is renewable periodically.'"
The meaning of the amendment is to put all those men, whether they are full-time officers or men who are renewed periodically, on the one footing.
Does the amendment mean that it will not be possible to make what is know as a temporary appointment?
It means that there are certain men in certain counties whose offices are renewable, and in other places there are men whose offices are not renewable. In my own county there are men whose offices for the last six or seven years have not been renewed.
Supposing an experimental class was tried for one year and it was decided not to continue the classes, what would be the position of the teacher?
Section 35 says "the expression ‘pensionable officer' also includes any person who has served as an officer of one or more committees or joint committees appointed for the purposes of the Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act, 1899, for a continuous period of not less than ten years and the terms of whose appointment do not expressly preclude him from claiming or receiving a pension." The Committee need not have a pensionable officer if they desire.
It would then be possible under the terms of the appointment to exclude a teacher who would be engaged for one year from the pensions scheme.
Notwithstanding the acceptance of this amendment, I am still doubtful about the position of a person whose appointment ought to be renewed periodically but who may have had a gap of a month or two between his service with one county authority and another. For practical purposes it is continuous service, but legally it is not continuous service. There is a break, and that break would debar a man from being eligible for advantages under this provision. The amendment, so far as it goes, is acceptable, but it does not remove the fault that this phrase "continuous service" involves. I would like to hear from the Minister whether it is his intention to debar from the rights under this Bill an official who may have had a break between one employment and another in technical or agricultural instruction, as between one county employer and another county employer. If there is any break at all, apparently, the effect of this section, even with the amendment, would be to debar him. Is that the intention of the Minister?
If there is a definite break in the service, whether of a week or of a month, it would debar him. We must have certain rules and regulations if we are to carry on with anything like efficiency.
Assuming, for instance, that an officer is a headmaster of a technical school under a county committee, and he severs his connection with that committee at the end of the school year, but takes up duty with another committee, say at the beginning of the next school year, in October, will the period that he is out of service break his continuity of service for the purpose of this regulation?
Deputies are now beginning to narrow the point at which we come to a situation in which we would almost want a judge and jury to adjudicate. In that particular case I do not think that it would constitute a break, because he would be giving service at the time that that service was required. I do not think that it would be necessary for him to remain in the service of the authority during the period when he would not be required to give service.
Could the Minister help us in this? I understand that many technical officers are employed at monthly, not yearly, salaries. If there is a break in the receipt of salaries any time within ten years, and if there is loss of one month's salary for any reason, that is a break and nullifies the man's service so far as the section is concerned. I could understand it if such a man was appointed always at a yearly salary, and became permanently appointed, but we are not dealing with permanent officers, as hitherto understood. We are considering persons who have not been classed hitherto as permanent officers. If there is a break at any period after nine years, if there is a break even of one month, there is not going to be any benefit to that teacher under the Bill. The amendment, although it speaks of renewal periodically, has not covered that fault in the section which is a fault that may involve very grave hardships.
I do not think that it is a fault. It happens in the Civil Service. A break of a month is a considerable break.
They are employed on a yearly salary.
That would not make a difference. It would be a break and would disqualify them for pensionable rights.
It would not have the same effect, as civil servants are pensionable from the day they are established, and it will only shorten their service by the length of the break. This, however, is a different position, and I would ask the Minister to look into this question between this and the next stage. I quite see that it may not be possible to give a definite assurance on the matter now, but I suggest it is not at all the same position as that of civil servants, because in this case the ten years' continuous service is necessary to qualify for pensions. A man may have ten years' service, and there may be a break of a month. Then he has to go ten years again before he becomes pensionable, and if there is again a break he ceases to become pensionable.
Is it not his own act that disqualifies him?
Not necessarily. He may have been unavoidably absent for a week.
Is it not a reasonable principle that when a man goes into service as a pensionable officer, he knows whether his office is pensionable? If you broaden it out so that a man is brought in for a temporary purpose, and in the ordinary course of events the temporary position extends over a long time, I say that he never came in with the idea of getting a pension.
Deputy Hewat should try to direct his mind to the section under discussion. We are dealing with the position of employees of a Committee of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, and the whole basis of this discussion is on what has been brought in by the Ministry to allow what might be called a fault in the original purpose to be remedied. When this Act was brought into operation, persons were employed, and it was not known whether they were going to be permanent employees or not. It was purely experimental, and it has been going on in an experimental way for twenty-five years. People have been employed on monthly salaries, say, for a session—employed periodically—but possibly as between one session and another, or one authority and another, and notwithstanding that they have been employed in this national service for quite a long period, there may have been breaks. The fact that there was a break of that kind ought not to disqualify such a person from obtaining whatever benefit it is intended to give under this Bill. Deputy Hewat does not want any benefit to be given, and, therefore, he is against anything giving a pension, gratuity, or allowance, because it is not in the bond. Deputy Hewat will perhaps be reminded of that on some other occasion.
The Dáil has not taken that rigid line. It does not say that because something is not in the bond it cannot consider it. It is agreed, in effect, to bring in these officers of the county committees of agriculture and technical instruction. The proposition before us is to allow benefit to be given to persons whose employment has been renewed periodically, but it still leaves the defect that if there is at any time within a period of ten years a break, perhaps by reason of a change from one authority to another, then there shall be no benefit to be derived. I press the Minister to think of this matter. The period of ten years, surely, is long enough in all conscience, and even if the word "continuous" was crossed out, and the man served fifteen years' non-continuous service, surely you will allow him to be brought in. Under this provision as it stands he will not be brought in.
I am puzzled to know how Deputy Johnson's argument would work out in the case of a man appointed by one authority and working with it for three or four years, but then breaks his engagement and after a month or so is employed by another authority. Is the authority with which he was last working obliged to pay his pension for the entire period of service? If there is a break between session and session with one authority, I do not think that that could be considered to be a break in the ordinary sense.
The difficulty I see is in the case of a man working for two authorities and claiming his pension after ten years. Is the authority for which he worked last to pay his full pension?
I think the Minister for Defence might read the Bill and see the provision made for men who change from one authority to another without any break. The difficulty which he mentions as being likely to arise has already been provided for. The point about which we are speaking is where a break occurs in the service.
I think that the difficulty mentioned by Deputy Johnson is brought about by applying pensions to a system to which it was never intended to apply them. Let me give an instance of that. In every one of these committees there are experimental classes, and additional teachers are brought in each year, and if each one of them is to become a pensionable officer it will be impossible for the committee to continue experimenting.
Yes, but if you bring him in for one year, you cannot fairly dispense with his services at the end of a year if he is a whole-time teacher. It is the same with any other official employed by a local authority, as once he comes in and works for a period he achieves certain rights, and the difficulty is to get rid of him, because the moment you do so you deprive him of something to which he is entitled. I think that that is one reason why it was never intended to apply pensions to these officers. It is only within the last few years that that has been done. I think that in working out this proposal and by trying to benefit the officials you will do a serious injury to educational work. I am certain that that will be the result of the action of the Ministry.
Regarding Deputy O'Connell's statement that there is nothing in this amendment that would not apply to any official under a local authority, an officer under a local authority who has a break in his term has no longer pensionable rights. This ten years is only a test of permanency. If he has not ten years' service without a break, he is not a permanent officer and would not be entitled to a pension.
I have not been approached on this matter by anybody, but I was speaking recently to a man in the County Cork whom I knew to be a technical instructor at one time in Belfast, and later under the County Leitrim authority. He is now under a West Cork authority. Within twelve years, these three authorities have employed that man. He has been continuously working under the schemes of the Department of Agriculture, with possibly, breaks as between one employer and another, because he desired to have wider experience in different parts of the country. Such a man as that I can conceive would be debarred under this section, although his whole service for that period has been as a teacher under the Department of Agriculture schemes. If for any reason there is a break in his employment with the Belfast Technical Instruction Committee, the County Leitrim Committee, or the County Cork Committee, of a week or a month, under this clause he would be debarred, and that is an unfair proposition.
I would like to thank Deputy Johnson for his support in a matter that came up earlier. I think the Dáil will remember I suggested that officials of the Department of Technical Instruction should be brought under the Minister for Education. It seems to me that Deputy Johnson's argument has been strongly in favour of that. Where a man is transferred, if he is under a central authority like the Ministry of Education, from one county to another his service is continuous, but by bringing him under this Local Government Bill you create the very difficulty of which Deputy Johnson has given us an instance.
That is a separate question.
It is pertinent, I think, to what Deputy Johnson said in the matter. If I am out of order in dealing with it I am only following the generally good example, though in this case it must be wrong, of Deputy Johnson himself. Obviously in the particular case to which Deputy Johnson has referred it would be great hardship if the man were not pensionable. The remark has been made that I am out against pensions, but that is not right. I am not out against pensions, but I am out against an extension of the pension system beyond the radius which has been laid down as applying to all the Government officials who are permanent officials. When you begin to deal with the question of a man who is brought into the service in a temporary capacity, and you try to establish a permanent status for him without some regulations, I think you are running a very grave danger of going rather far in the matter.
We are in the peculiar position of discussing an amendment on which there is general agreement, and on that amendment discussing the words "continuous period," which do not occur in the amendment at all. I suggest that we should go on with the amendment, and on the next Stage put up another amendment dealing with these words "continuous period," and on that particular amendment in the Report Stage, come to a conclusion on the different points of view expressed. We cannot get any further now with the discussion on the words "continuous period" apparently.
Amendment put and agreed to.
I move:—
In line 37, after the word "pension," to insert the words "and also includes any employee other than an officer who has been employed by a local body for not less than three years continuously.
The object of this amendment is to give local authorities the right to grant pensions to their employees. Most local authorities would like to give these pensions to employees who spent a lifetime in their service. Some of these authorities have Acts which authorise them to do this. Other local authorities, although they have no special Acts in some cases have given pensions to their employees, and sanction was forthcoming from the old L.G.B., but owing to the new Local Government Department insisting upon the letter of the law in regard to those things, no local authority, even if it wishes to give pensions to old employees, can do so. We all know that in a service such as this men enter the service of local authorities at an early age, and generally work on them some forty or fifty years. At the end of that time, if they leave their employment after a lengthy period of good and faithful service, many of them have to go into the county home. These men who have done their part in building up the country, and have given good service, at the end are forced to go into the county home and associate with perhaps undesirables who were never of much good to the country. That, I think, is a deplorable position. They deserve better treatment than that. We have been discussing pensions for other people for the last couple of days, and I claim that this class of people are as much entitled to pensions as any other official. They do work which is just as necessary as that done by pensionable officials, and give just as good and faithful service. I cannot see why they should be treated in a different manner. Some local authorities such as the Dublin Corporation that was, the Cork Corporation, and a number of others, I think, have a right to give pensions to their employees. The reason that the period of three years is mentioned is that it is necessary to distinguish between merely casual employees and the permanent employees. This three years' period is in practice adopted by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce in granting certificates of exemption under the Unemployment Insurance Act. When that Ministry grants exemption under that Act after three years, I think it is done on the assumption that those exempted can be classed as permanent employees.
I think it is a great hardship on the class of people I have referred to, who give long and faithful service in the employment of public bodies, that they should at the end, perhaps after 40 or 50 years' service, be flung on the scrap heap. Another point of view is that men who grow old in the service of public bodies are not able to give as good a return in work as when they were young. I know that public bodies would like, if it were in their power, to grant pensions to those men, and to take on young men who would be able to give a better return of work. But because they have not a right to do so they retain them as long as they are able to walk. I hope the Minister will see his way to accept the amendment, or, at least, to go so far as he can to meet it.
The Deputy's amendment, and more particularly the words used in introducing it, to some extent amaze me. I think the ordinary workman who is so fortunate as to be able, through influence or otherwise, to get a job under those local authorities is very fortunate. Their terms of service are far better than those of practically any other workman in the country, and I do not see why those people should be put in the privileged position that they could get a pension at the end of their years' service, whether the service happened to be of the best possible kind or otherwise. The ordinary workingman has to take his chance, and so have the ordinary professional man and the farmer. I have no intention of putting an added burden on the ratepayers by accepting a new kind of pensionable officers. If at any future time I wish to do that, it would be necessary to place these pensioners on a contributory basis. That would mean a reduction of the present wages of the employees involving a contribution of, say, five per cent. of their wages. I do not believe that the Deputies on the opposite side would be in favour of that.
LABOUR DEPUTIES
If the Minister will not accept the amendment, would he say that he will bring in a Bill to give pensions to those men on a contributory basis?
Will the Minister say who is to pay all these pensions?
The Minister started off by expressing his amazement of the proposal brought forward by Deputy Morrissey. I could understand him expressing himself like that if we had not been discussing pensions for the past two or three days, and I would like to know how it was that he did not mention the privileged position of officers of public boards during the past few days, just as he now speaks of the unfortunate workingman, and I want to know what more privileged position does he occupy to-day than such officers. I think everyone will agree that his position is a less privileged one. He has not the same salary, week after week, as the officer, and there is very little question at all in this House as to an officer being entitled to a pension. Deputy Morrissey has put it from every point of view, and we are asked who is to provide these pensions. Of course the answer is the ratepayer. Who is to provide the pension for the officer? The ratepayer also. When this Bill was receiving a Second Reading I mentioned the matter of the provision of pensions for the ordinary working-man, and I was told by the President that the council of county councils had turned down that proposal. I made enquiries, and I found that what the President stated was not correct. I drew the attention of the council of county councils to the President's statement, and they immediately contradicted it.
They have since passed a resolution asking the Government to put a clause in this Bill to entitle the workingmen employed by local councils to pensions. Since that the council of municipal councils, which can by no means be looked upon as a Labour body, has asked the Government to permit local authorities to pension their ordinary workers. Deputy Morrissey has spoken on this from every angle, and too much stress cannot be laid upon the point that he made about the provision that should be made for old men who have spent their lives in the service of a municipal authority. You have cases all over the county to-day where old men are employed by municipal authorities. These authorities do not want to throw these men on the scrap heap because of the good service they have given for a number of years, and it would pay the ratepayers better if they were permitted to give them pensions and to employ younger men; it would be found to work out more beneficially to the ratepayers in the end. I do not think that there ought to be any second question about that. The workingman is as much entitled to a pension as an officer, and I do not know what case can be put for the officer that cannot be put for the workingman. I think we ought to ask the Minister to approach it from that point of view, and not to express his amazement at the demand after pensioning all other people who have to do with a public authority for the last two or three days.
I was surprised to hear Deputy Corish speak exactly in that strain, because I gathered from what he had said here from time to time that he has a good deal of experience of the working of local authorities, and he has not shown that same experience on this occasion as we have had from him previously. May I remind him that in the pension scheme we have been considering, a pension is granted when a man becomes incapacitated. There are conditions as to when the pension applies, and these conditions must be fulfilled before the pension does apply. What is the case that is mentioned by Deputy Morrissey? He says that the local authority retains the services of the old men even though they are not able to do the work that they did when they were much younger. It retains them at the full rate. That is quite true. What happens after that? As soon as they are incapacitated the local authority makes a recommendation to the Lord Lieutenant on a medical certificate, that such and such a man is incapacitated. He has been in the service, and he gets his pension, as recommended by the local authority.
I have known cases of this kind. Let me give you now as a parallel what happens in other walks of life. Deputy Morrissey is aware— and if he is not aware, Deputy Johnson will remind him—that in many agreements—I will not say in all—with the different trades there is a condition whereby old men are allowed to work at a reduced rate. Now you see the advantages that the local authority confers on the old man which is not conferred in the case of ordinary industry.
Do you agree that that is right?
I am not saying anything about that at all now; I am only saying what the practice is at the moment. In ordinary industry there is an agreement, signed by the trade unions, whereby old men are permitted to work at a reduced rate. That is the custom in ordinary industry. But under these local authorities old men are never bound to work at reduced rates. There is a considerable advantage that they have, to start with, and as was pointed out before, in many ways they have many advantages right through the terms of their employment. We need not go into them here; we all know them. So that I think if there is any body of men who have not a grievance —and there are few of them in Ireland —it is the employees under local authorities.
Deputy Good is clearly speaking under a misapprehension, and he has gone far to prove the necessity for the acceptance of this amendment. He pointed out that if a man became incapacitated it was within the power of the local authority to apply to the Lord Lieutenant for leave——
An old man, yes— to pay him a certain gratuity, or allowance, or pension. Strange to say, that was the practice. It is that practice that has been found to be illegal, and it is that practice that we seek to reembody within the powers of a local authority, and which Deputy Good is opposing. Let me give an instance. I am glad that Deputy O'Connor has come back to look after the nation's business, because I want to remind him of a particular case in which he will be interested. A certain man had been in the employment of the Pembroke Council for forty years, and during the last several years has been a skilled workman in that employment. William Cooney is his name, and perhaps Deputy O'Connor and Deputy Good may recollect the case. The Council had representations made to them that he had been obliged under doctor's orders to cease work; he was no longer capable after forty years' service. He was 63 years of age. The Council granted him a pension of £2 8s. 4d. per week in accordance with a practice that they had followed for quite a long time with regard to old, incapacitated servants.
Quite a number are continuing to get pensions under the sanction of the old regime. But in the case of William Cooney, the auditor comes along and draws attention to an apparent defect. At any rate, somebody takes the initiative and asks the law officers their opinion. The law officers inform the Minister for Local Government, who in turn advises all the local councils that such a workman is not an officer within the meaning of the Local Officers Superannuation Act, therefore the Council have no power under the law to grant that pension, and that they cannot say anything at all about the illegalities of the old regime. "Pensions granted by urban district councils were formerly subject to sanction of the Lord Lieutenant. The Minister cannot accept responsibility for pensions previously granted with such sanction." Now what has happened to old pensioners I do not know, but here is the case of a man with forty years' service, who has been granted a pension by the Pembroke Council, which has been refused by the Ministry, and that man with a family, notwithstanding his long service, finds himself unable to carry on, and he writes to me: "We are in a bad way at present. What we have is going out of the house; there is nothing for us only the Union. I hope in God we will never see that." That is the state of things that we want to avoid in the future, and to make it possible for an urban, a town, or a borough council, which has not a special Act, to continue the practice which has been operating for many years past.
The Dublin Council has a special Act which authorises them to do so, and the position as regards Dublin does not apply. Perhaps Cork has a special Act. I do not know. But surely it is desirable, notwithstanding the second part of Deputy Good's speech, to allow a Council to pay off a man who has served a long period and to give him a pension. Why, it is put forward as one of the signs of good employment, humane conditions, things to be appreciated, that the private employer has set aside a sum to pension old employees. But now we are told by the Minister that that should not be considered by a public authority, and forsooth in a Bill which he is fathering to the House—and I do not know how many sections are definitely set out by him to us with the object of paying pensions and superannuation—he says that people ought to be able to save up for their old age from the salaries and wages they receive from the public authorities. He tells us on some occasions that they should not be paid more than 28/- or 30/- a week, but in the Bill, of which about fifteen sections are devoted to making provision for the superannuation of employees of public authorities, he tells us that such employees should be able to save enough out of their salaries or wages. I cannot understand that mentality, unless it is born of prejudice against the manual worker. The facts are that under the advice of the late Attorney-General local authorities have been deprived of what they believed to be their powers in the past. This amendment seeks to recover for them the power of which they believed themselves to have been possessed. Anybody who has ever voted for a pension for an incapacitated servant of a local authority is bound to vote for this amendment.
Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 13; Níl, 33.
Tá
- Seán Buitléir.
- John Daly.
- Séamus Eabhróid.
- David Hall.
- Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- Risteard Mac Fheorais.
- Tomás de Nógla.
- Ailfrid O Broin.
- Tomás O Conaill.
- Aodh O Cúlacháin.
- Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
- Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).
Níl
- Earnán Altún.
- Pádraig Baxter.
- Séamus de Búrca.
- John Conlan.
- Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean Uí Dhrisceóil.
- Michael Egan.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- John Good.
- John Hennigan.
- Connor Hogan.
- Pádraig Mac Fadáin.
- Patrick McGilligan.
- Risteárd Mac Liam.
- Seoirse Mac Niócaill.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- John T. Nolan.
- Peadar O hAodha.
- Mícheál O hAonghusa.
- Seán O Bruadair.
- Partholán O Conchubhair.
- Séamus O Dóláin. Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.
- Donchadh O Guaire.
- Aindriú O Láimhín.
- Séamus O Leadáin.
- Fionán O Loingsigh.
- Pádraic O Máille.
- Domhnall O Mocháin.
- Séamus O Murchadha.
- Patrick K. Hogan (Luimneach).
- Seán M. O Súilleabháin.
- Seán Priomhdhail.
- Liam Thrift.
Amendment declared lost.
Might I ask if the Minister would be prepared to introduce a special Bill for superannuation of manual employees on a contributory basis?
Not at the present time, at all events.
Does the Minister say he would be in favour of introducing such a Bill at some future time?
I do not think that is in order.
Amendment 53 not moved.
I move amendment 52a:
"To add after the word ‘accordingly,' line 39, the words ‘and the said expression shall also include that the person holding the office of coroner in the County Borough of Dublin at the time of the passing of this Act shall be deemed to be, and to have been from the time of his appointment, a pensionable officer for the purposes of any Acts relating to the superannuation of local officers.'"
I would ask the Minister to regard this amendment in the same light as he did the amendment touching on compounders of medicine. The present holder of this office has been in it for a quarter of a century, and the number of courts of inquiry that he has held could be ascertained in the Minister's Department. It is no sinecure job by any means, and I do not see any reason why the coroner should not be entitled to a pension. Of course he is a very active man at present and he has no intention of going out or giving up the position. He has the advantage, which I do not suppose the Bill will interfere with, of being able to appoint a deputy if he were ill for a day or two, without any extra expense on the local bodies. He himself understood that under the old regime, as we may call it, he would be a pensionable officer. As he is one of my constituents, I have been asked to put down this amendment. I think it would be only fair to consider the present occupant of this position in the same light as a compounder of medicine.
What were the conditions of his employment? Were they any different from the conditions of employment of the ordinary employee who receives wages and not a salary?
I do not believe he is on the same footing as an ordinary employee in many respects, but I could not accede to this request, even if it were drafted in a form to include all coroners. It would mean creating new pensionable offices, and I could not hear of that under the conditions I have referred to. It makes it doubly difficult when the case is put up for one individual person. It is obviously placing me in a very difficult position to ask me to bring in legislation dealing with a particular case. Although I would like to concede to Deputy Keogh in this matter, under the circumstances it would be in some respects a really ridiculous thing to bring in special legislation for one individual.
May I point out to the Minister there is a special Act of Parliament existing at present that was brought in for this particular man—the Coroners of Dublin Act?
That is not for a particular man; it is for the Coroner of the City of Dublin, irrespective of who he might be.
I would like to ask the Minister whether the Bill as it now stands takes anything from the city coroner that he has secured under any other measure?
Amendment put.
I think the amendment is lost.
How many Deputies are challenging a division? Will those Deputies who are challenging a division stand up?
DeputiesKEOGH and A. BYRNE rose.
Does Deputy Keogh still demand a division?
The amendment is lost.
Amendment 53:—"In lines 46 and 50, after the word ‘salary' to insert the words ‘or wages.'"—(Domhnall O Muirgheasa), not moved.
Question proposed—"That Section 35, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE took the Chair.
I want to mention a matter which is of some importance. The officers who have been transferred from the old county infirmaries to the home hospitals have, of course, been transferred to a different body and there is a doubt in the minds of some of those persons that provision is not made for them under this section. I want the Minister to state clearly whether the term of office they have served under the old county infirmaries will count in connection with their pensions since they have been transferred. It is merely a question of assuring those men that their rights have been transferred and that the time they have spent under the old county infirmaries will be counted, so far as their pensions are concerned, in the service they are now entering upon with the home hospitals.
We will make sure of that on the Report Stage. The matter may not be fully covered under Section 48, but that section is intended to cover them. If it does not I will see something is introduced on Report that will ensure that.
On the section as a whole, I want to point out to the Minister one matter that deserves careful reconsideration. There is need for further enlargement of the definition of pensionable officer. Since the introduction of the Bill in its original form, the Minister has consented to add certain officers of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. He has agreed they should be brought in under the provisions of the section. He has, however, limited their benefit, shall I say, in a manner which appears to me to be quite unjustifiable, and in a manner which will not stand any careful examination if there is any desire to do justice to the persons concerned. I will press on him the necessity for carefully considering, firstly the introduction of the word "continuous"—"a continuous period of not less than ten years"—and secondly the period itself as being altogether too long. I would ask the Minister to consider very favourably between now and Report the acceptance of an amendment or amendments which will be put down touching on those two points.
I want to draw attention then to the fault in the narrowness of the definition which excludes weekly wage-earners, the ordinary manual labourer working for a public body. The intention apparently of the Minister, of Deputy Egan of Cork, Deputy Batt. O'Connor of Dublin, and Deputy Good of Dublin, is to confirm what the Ministry has decided, to change the practices that local authorities have followed in the past, which would allow them to give a pension to an old, incapacitated servant. Those Deputies, and all others who voted against the amendment proposed, have said by their vote that they want to differentiate between the manual worker and the salaried officer, and that they want to prevent the manual worker who has served 30 or 40 years, and has become incapacitated in that service, from receiving a pension. When a case was brought before the Local Government Ministry requesting sanction to a pension granted by the Pembroke Urban Council to an old servant with 40 years' service, who had become incapacitated but who was not yet eligible for the old age pension— following the practice that authority had adopted in respect to previous employees who had gone out incapacitated and to whom a pension was granted —the Minister, relying upon the Law Officer's advice, disallowed the pension, and the explanation lies in this:—
"I am directed by the Minister for Local Government to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 29th regarding the question of the granting of a pension by the Pembroke Urban Council to William Cooney, lately employed by the Council, and I am to state that the primary authority for the granting of a pension by an urban council is derived from the Local Officers Superannuation (Ireland) Act, 1869. A copy of the Attorney-General's opinion is enclosed relating to a proposal to grant a pension in a similar case. In view of that opinion the Minister is precluded from expressing sanction to the Council's proposals. Pensions granted by urban district councils were formerly subject to the sanction of the Lord Lieutenant. The Minister cannot accept responsibility for pensions previously granted with such sanction."
One would assume from that that the Minister was desirous of sanctioning such pensions in such cases, but it seems he was not desirous and that was only a pretence. He has refused to accept the proposition which would bring such persons within the ambit of the Bill and place it within the power of the local authority to grant a pension to an old servant, who had become incapacitated in the service. Deputies who have voted for such pensions on their local councils in the past now say, by inference, that they were wrong in so doing, that they had no right to do so. But the workman, the manual labourer, is of inferior clay to the salaried officer and is not subject to the same human requirements and should not be treated in the same category in regard to old age. Now, the Attorney-General's opinion reads as follows:—
"Superannuation of weekly wage earners of the labouring class"—I hope that Deputy Egan will note that —"In my opinion X. is not an officer within the meaning of the Local Officers Superannuation (Ireland) Act, 1869. The right of the local authority to grant pensions to its employees depends solely on statute, and it is a question of construction in each case whether that particular case comes within the scope of any statute authorising the granting of a pension or superannuation allowance. In the present case, X's employment, though, in fact, it continued without interruption for a number of years, was, in its nature, merely casual, and had no element of that permanency or continuity of duty which would be essential to make it a legal office, and the remuneration which he received for his services could not in any sense be regarded as salary, which is the term used in the Act. Taking and construing the Act of 1869 as a whole, I am of opinion the Act was only intended to apply, and does only apply, to officials holding permanent and formal appointments, or offices specifically mentioned in the statute, and accordingly X's position does not qualify him for a pension. In my opinion, in the absence of a special statute conferring the right, local authorities cannot grant pensions to weekly wage-earners of the labouring class."
As I said, one would imagine from the communication from the Minister that he was very sorry he could not consent to the granting of a pension, but we have given him an opportunity to express that sorrow in legal language in a statute, and he has refused. The big majority of Deputies have backed him up in the refusal, even Deputies who have sought the support of their constituents on the ground that they were prepared to treat men and women on equal terms, irrespective of their birth, social position, and the influence they might be able to bring to bear on authorities. This section fails because it refuses to bring in within the term "pensionable officer" wage-earners who have served for twenty years, and who have become incapacitated. It refuses the local authority power to pay a weekly wage to a pensioner who has become incapacitated after forty years' service, and Deputies have "the face" to say that they will treat a weekly wage-earner on a level with the salaried officer with regard to human needs. The section fails in that respect, and I hope that between now and the Report Stage Deputies will reconsider their decision.
I hope the Deputies will come to realise that they have done that which they did not wish to do and that they have been misled into doing it, and that they will, if another opportunity is provided, agree that the weekly wage-earner, the manual worker, who has served the local authority for forty years, and has become incapacitated in that service, might be granted a pension if—those are the provisions of the Bill—the local authority so desires, and if the Minister grants his consent. That is what we ask should be done.
On yesterday, I heard from the Benches opposite that the reason people should be pensioned was that from their weekly wage or salary, there was something kept back that would, in time, lead up to this pension. Reference has been made to the Pembroke Council. The workers mentioned in the Deputy's speech were labouring men, and if the case that was made yesterday holds, the argument would be that those men are working at a lesser rate of wages than is paid to other men who are getting a pension. The reverse of that is the truth. I have men working for me in the same class of work, and they get five or six shillings a week less than those in the Pembroke Council. The workers in the Council have permanent work and no broken time. If they get ill, they are paid. That is so with the workers in my own employment. Builders' labourers work a good deal harder, but they are paid Trade Union wages. There seems to be no pity at all in this country for the ratepayers or for the public boards. They are looked upon as good old milch cows. In casting my vote, I cast it honestly. I had it in my mind that I could not play fast and loose with the ratepayers' money.
Will the Deputy say how he voted in regard to the pension of William Cooney, of Ballsbridge, who was incapacitated after forty years' service? Did he abstain or vote at the time?
I do not remember that case. As the Pembroke Council was mentioned, I brought it into my discussion. The workers in the Pembroke Council are paid a higher rate of wages than the casual workers in the street.
I want again to refer to the refusal of the Minister to accept the amendment proposed by Deputy Morrissey. He dealt with it in a summary fashion, a fashion which the amendment did not deserve. To my mind, the treatment that anything brought forward here in the interests of the workers receives is absolutely callous.
We are on the section, not on the amendment.
I understand, but everyone else has been allowed to discuss it. The way in which the Minister treated the last amendment was scandalous, and it is not surprising to me that the Government are losing in elections. They began by cutting down pensions and now the Minister does not think it worth his while to answer questions on the amendment.
As one who has voted on this division I think it only right to pass some comments on Deputy Johnson's remarks. He instanced the case of the employee of the Pembroke Council who had a lengthy service of forty years and said that any one of the Deputies who voted against this amendment deprived that employee of getting a pension. If Deputy Morrissey had this in his mind when he was proposing this amendment, why did he not say "an old employee of forty years' service" instead of a service of three years? We voted against the amendment as it read.
What number of years would the Deputy be satisfied to vote for?
That question does not arise at all. When those allegations are made about Deputies casting their votes why is this forty years' limit put up when three years only are mentioned? It means the employee of every county council is entitled after three years to a pension.
The word "may" does not mean "shall," but everyone knows that in practice "may" means "shall."
I think it is necessary that the Minister should explain this section to the Deputies.
With regard to the other question of a pension for urban employees, we know that those appointments are the best class of employment on the market to-day. To get this employment we know that employees have to go and canvass and it is by favour and luck that they get it.
Are you turning down pensions on that account to officers as well?
I am opposed to pensions to any employee.
There are several sections to superannuate officers.
Certain customs have arisen with regard to officers and their terms of employment. The custom has been established, advertisements are published with it, and the appointment is made on those conditions.
You should change it. People accept this employment on the distinct understanding that those conditions exist.
We are not on the amendment. We are dealing with the section.
I voted against the specific language in the amendment.
The only reason which has been put forward by the Minister as to why he could not include in this section pensions for employees of public bodies, is that they are in a privileged position. Much play was made on that by Deputies Good and Gorey. The Minister was amazed that we should have the audacity to suggest that the employees of public bodies should get a pension owing to their privileged position. In other words, the employees of public bodies should go down on their knees and thank God that they got a job at 27/- a week, as laid down by the Minister. Deputies Good and O'Connor, when speaking of conditions, have in mind conditions obtaining in Dublin where men have many privileges and advantages which they have not in the country. Does Deputy Good or Deputy O'Connor know that the employees of several councils in the country are not paid for broken time? Do they know that employees of county councils in most cases walk three or four miles to their work, and if the day is too wet for work they have to walk home again and they get nothing for the day? There is no sick pay and they are not served out with clothes or even with the ordinary oilskins that would keep the wet off them.
Deputy Johnson quoted Pembroke, and that is the reason why I referred to Pembroke.
With regard to what Deputy Gorey has said about his not being able to support the amendment because of the three years' pension, I do not believe for a moment that Deputy Gorey would be in favour of employees of a council being pensioned even if they had forty years' service. I am sure that Deputy Gorey would admit that himself. The net result of the discussion is that so far as the majority of the Deputies are concerned the average wage earners—the members of the labouring class, as they were called in the Attorney-General's report to the Local Government Department —are of different clay and require different treatment. Nobody will deny that that class does give as good service to the public bodies as the officials. I am surprised at the attitude of some Deputies in view of the speeches made on election platforms about equality, and in view of the promises made by a particular Party in this House to have equal regard for the rights of all sections of the community. That is their boast. They say that they represent not one but every section, and we have seen how far that is true so far as the poor are concerned.
Is this in order? I thought we had disposed of Deputy Morrissey's amendment.
You did not try to dispose of it.
I submit that I am perfectly in order. I am speaking against the Minister because he has omitted to provide in the section arrangements to give pensions to employees of local bodies. I submit that I am perfectly in order, and if I am not I am sure that I will be pulled up. Perhaps what I am saying is hurting the Minister and is not suitable to him. The fact remains that the Minister, and the members of his Party, will have to meet that when they go to the country and tell the workers that they will be better represented by the Cumann na nGaedheal than by the Labour or any other Party.
Much has been said by two or three speakers about the question of saving the ratepayers. I think that if the Minister were to give a promise that he would bring in on the Report Stage of the Bill a pension scheme, whereby it would be optional with the local authorities to grant pensions on a contributory basis, the ratepayers' interests would be perfectly safeguarded. I think if the Minister will look over his records he will find that he has received various representations from several councils to be allowed to pension their employees. These representatives know how much the ratepayers burden ought to be. I feel sure that after the next elections, in view of what has been said by the Minister, there will be very capable representatives of the ratepayers on these councils so that there will be no need for the Minister to interfere further with them.
I do not think that it is necessary for me to do that, as I see the cohorts behind the Deputy.
You have not got yours behind you, but they are ready behind the bell.
I am wondering whether the Minister is trying to get the workers back to the state of slavery in which they were some years ago. It does not matter who they are, or what they are, so long as they are not workers or producers, they will be entitled to get pensions. Deputy after Deputy has amendments down trying to secure pensions for everybody, even for the man who probably only lights a candle in a public office, whereas the men who do the important work of the country are to be turned aside and put on the scrap heap, perhaps in a county home or workhouse, while young men, fit and able to work, go round from race course to race course and at the same time draw their pensions. These men never did a day's work for any council, or for anybody else, yet we know that you superannuated a lot of them during the last few years. I say that we should turn them out on the road and make them work for the money they are getting. I say that unless you meet the workers on this point they will turn round and assert their rights independently of the Minister and those behind him.
I have been surprised at the tone of the arguments used by the Minister and those behind him. Some of them in support of the section are prepared to stand up and make statements contrary to facts, and which have no relation to the truth. Deputy O'Connor, in support of the section, told us that the employees of county councils and other local bodies are paid for broken time, and are paid whether they are ill or not. These statements should not be made unless the person making them is prepared to substantiate them by facts. There is no use in any Deputy trying to force such things down our throats by telling deliberate lies. I say that the county council workers are not paid for bad weather or for broken time, nor are they paid while ill, although that illness may be the result of the slavery they have to undergo while working for public bodies. Day after day we hear tenderhearted statements made on the Ministerial Benches regarding the workers, and we hear them outside, particularly in the atmosphere of an election, whether a by or general election. When we get down to earth and try to transact any business in the interests of the toiling masses we find bigotry everywhere on the Benches opposite, and when a Labour Deputy Makes the slightest suggestion or moves an amendment to relieve the distress of the unfortunate workers, whether during his years of toil or after his years of toil, he is turned down, as we are being turned down in reference to this particular section.
All these promises that have been made, and all the propaganda posted on the dead are simply meant to blind the worker, and to make a fool of him in order to bring about, as Deputy Colohan stated, the re-birth of the slave age. If the Minister, or the Party behind the Minister, have the slightest sympathy with the workers employed by local authorities, let us before this section passes ask from the Minister some guarantee that he is going to do something for them in the nature of pensions. We are not tied down to three years, as Deputy Gorey, in his narrow-mindedness, would try to make the Dáil believe.
Of course, he used that as an argument to endeavour to tear from Labour any substantial case made on behalf of the worker. I expect to hear from the Minister before this section passes that he is prepared to give some guarantee that he will, in the near future, bring in legislation whereby pensions, or gratuities of some kind or another, will be given to employees of local authorities when they are passed their period of labour. If he does not do that, I say that all the promises, verbal and otherwise, that have been given, and all the sympathetic utterances that have been made on the Government Benches are all camouflage so far as the workers are concerned. Mark you, although the workers may be branded as being a dark streak of illiteracy and ignorance in the midst of the community, they will realise that the privations and hardships they are suffering during the reign of this Government cannot and will not be allowed to continue.
On a point of explanation, may I say that one of the last speakers referred to me as having brought a reference to the county council workers into my speech. I did no such thing. I only referred to Pembroke because Deputy Johnson mentioned Pembroke specially, and mentioned my name in connection with it. I pointed out that the workers of the Pembroke Council are paid a higher rate of wage than the workmen in my own employment, and that no matter how long these workmen worked for me, I am not bound to give them pensions.
I must congratulate the Labour Deputies on the good case they are making, but I should, how ever, point out that the great bulk of the labour men in the country are not entitled to pensions. The great majority of the men working on farms are not entitled to pensions.
We are not dealing with farms.
The case made here is that because a worker happens to be working for a local authority, he is entitled to a pension. It should be remembered that the local authority is administering money contributed by the ratepayers, and when a ratepayer is not able to give his own men, working in his own interests, pensions, how do you make out that a local body paying away the ratepayers' money could do so?
Fifteen sections of the Bill are doing it.
I think the underlying idea is to pension officers. Take, for instance, a public body. Everybody knows the great expense there is with the amount of low-paid labour. Officers, by reason of their special qualifications, are few in number. We all know that it would be a very good thing if circumstances would allow of giving pensions to everybody, even to farmers, after they reach the age of sixty or sixty-five. But, I put it to members on the Labour Benches, would it be just to the ratepayers to give a pension to a man working for them, whereas the ratepayers themselves could not afford to give a man a pension when in their own personal employment? The proportion of officers to workmen is, I should say, about one to ten.
The officer is there by reason of his particular qualifications, and the rank and file cannot expect, in the present financial condition of the country, to be put on the same footing as those officers.
Deputies very often, and their spokesmen in newspapers and reviews, wonder why people should ever refer to what is called "class war." Whether there is any truth or value in the theory of class war as a means of social development I am not going to argue, but if they want proof of the existence of class war here you have it frankly and plumply laid down before us. You have a Bill brought in by a Minister, supported by Deputies all round, and spoken to by Deputy Wilson and others, selecting out of a body of workers engaged by public authorities, the officer class, persons who do no manual labour who have had a certain education, a certain training, and who come from the farmer, merchant, or the professional classes. You say: "These are the people to whom we agree to pay pensions, after a certain number of years on certain conditions, but the mass of the people who have not had that advantage of birth or education, who do the hard work, and who serve all those years under these public bodies must not be pensioned. We cannot agree to pension these people; we reserve our favours for the professional class, the salaried class, the educated class, for the people who have the higher salaries." That is the kind of thing that gives support to the contention that you people who are supporting this sort of thing are waging against the working class a class war. That gives support to that contention, and every one of you are giving evidence that you are against the common workman.
I, too, must congra late the Labour Party on the very good fight they have put up, but I think Deputy Johnson stressed the last point a little too much, and I am sure, as a fair and reasonable man, he will admit that. The Minister did not approach this as a new question in the first instance and say: "I will select the officers now, and I am going to give them pensions, but the workmen may go outside the door; they will get no pensions." Deputy Johnson knows that is not the case, and that in handling this question he had to deal with a situation created and handed down by men who gave great consideration to the officer class, and had greater preference for them than we have. That state of things existed, and the only way to remedy that would be to take up the working man and give him a pension also. I sympathise with Deputy Wilson's attitude on this question. We, and Deputy Johnson, must look at our means. We have to consider, as Deputy Wilson considered fairly enough, that in giving pensions to the officers there are only a few men to deal with. If there were only the same number of workers the question would be a simpler one, and we would not be discussing it here at all.
I have the honour of being on public boards, and I voted for pensions, but when we have to go to the extreme step of reducing the old age pension, owing to the extremity of the nation's need, this is not the time when any man, no matter how sympathetic he may feel, could support a wide extension of the pension scheme. Nine out of every ten of the people I represent are living on uneconomic holdings, or are not receiving a living wages. Take the agricultural labourers. They are paying their share, and more than their fair share, of taxes on tobacco, porter, tea, sugar and everything else. The employees of urban councils that Deputy O'Connor has described are better off than the employees of private people.
A LABOUR DEPUTY
Did you tell that to the workers in Cork?
We told the workers of Cork that we would do what is fair for them. I am sure the Deputy from Cork is able to answer on that point or any other point. There is no use in personal references; the question is serious enough without introducing them. If the employees of public bodies received less wages a case might be made for them, but, as a matter of fact, they are receiving better wages than the employees of private employers, and have security of employment, and consideration in other ways. How do the employees of the county councils fare as compared with their comrades who are working for the farmers? They are far better off than the average labourer, and how can you make a case for giving them pensions either?
If the times were better I would say with Deputy Wilson that I would like to see those agricultural workers, and the workers in towns who are not working for public bodies, having their case considered, as I think they are deserving of consideration. A farmer is in a different position from an agricultural labourer. When a labourer has worked for 40 years he is at the end of his toil, and he has no resources, but the farmer who has worked for 40 years, even though he is crippled with rheumatism and confined to bed, still has a farm from which to draw his support. If I were a farmer, like some of the farmers in the Dáil, I would have no sympathy with pensions, for I would not want one. But the labourer, whether in town or country, who lives on his labour, is entitled to some consideration, and the State has made a step towards that. I hope in better times we will do what they are thinking of doing in England, lower the age and increase the amount of pension. To ask to differentiate in the way proposed is very unreasonable, and no man could go down to his constituents and say that he voted for special privileges in that way.
The two classes of labourers we are debating cannot be compared at all. One class, whose advocate is Deputy Hall, is the labourer on the road. When such a man ceases to be able to work, he is told to go away, but the farm labourer, to the credit of the farmers be it said, is kept on if he has been a good worker as long as he is able to crawl about the place, or until he dies, and his wages during that time might be called a pension. The man who is getting his wages from direct labour does not enjoy the little perquisites that the farmer labourers do. He does not get the chance of what I have described as a pension. If he is sick he has no one to make an excuse for him, and he has to stay at home and loses his wages. For that reason, I support the claim that the men who work on the roads are entitled to a pension equal to the pension given by the farmers, especially when they are not looked upon in any favourable way for all the good work they have done during their whole lifetime.
I do not think there is much use in discussing any matter relative to the working man in this assembly. That conclusion has been forced on me on more occasions than this, for whenever a reasonable provision or amendment is brought forward from any section of the Dáil that would raise the status of the working man, it is met by a stereotyped reply, as if the decision was taken in advance before the reasons could be adduced that induced the putting forward of the proposition. In this case it is proposed to cut out a certain section of employees, and if we admit the principle at all, we must admit it all round.
I think this discussion is altogether out of order, and I would like a ruling on that. There was an amendment to include them, but that question has been disposed of.
The question of pensionable officers and officers of public bodies has been discussed on the section, and it would be well for Deputies to confine themselves as much as possible to that without going over the ground covered in the debate on the amendment. Of course it is strictly in order to raise the question of the omission of pensions for other employees of councils on the section.
Is it, A Leas-Chinn Comhairle, after that question has been discussed? If that is the case, you could be continually raising the same question all through the Bill.
I submit that the Minister raised a point of order on what I said, that if you admit the principle in one case you admit it all round. The principle is admitted for a certain number of people under that section, so, therefore, I submit that I am discussing what is in that section in discussing a principle that was accepted in that section. Some Deputies on the Farmer's Benches seem to be slaves to custom—Deputy Gorey, for instance. He says that it is the custom to pension officers. It is, and we want to establish another custom——
Because it is just as just, just as reasonable, just as fair, and just as equitable.
Let us consider the two classes that you are contrasting. You say that there are only a select few officers, and therefore there will not be a great deal spent. Will Deputy Wilson tell us if one of these officers does not get ten times as much in the year as one working-man we are asking you to pension? Has he considered that one of these officials gets more salary than the road-worker gets? If he has not he ought to make a calculation, and he would not be long in seeing how far it would get him. I wonder if anybody who has spoken against the inclusion, or the non-exclusion, if that word would be more acceptable to the Minister, of a certain section of people from the terms of the section, understands the real conditions of some of the employees. Have they considered that, after giving 15 or twenty years of hard, laborious work in the service of a public body, they are to be turned out and told that they have no claim upon it? Have they considered the conditions under which that work was done, the housing conditions under which these men have to live, the wretched homes in which they have to live? Yet these are the people who tell us that the working-class is a class not to be relied upon, tell us about the poor standard of education that they achieve.
These are the very conditions that you are seeking to perpetuate, the conditions that are produced, the illiteracy and the desperation that you objected to on other occasions, and that desperation, if driven away further, will find expression, perhaps, in a fashion that will not be agreeable to the Minister or to those who sit behind him. These people are not in a position to fit their families for anything but unskilled labour, therefore you have a surplus on the unskilled labour market to-day, and you have an unemployment problem. That unemployment problem is growing. At one time you said that you would pool the resources of the nation to save the nation. Are you prepared to pool the resources of the nation to save the nation now from the canker that is eating closer to its heart than any Minister that has faced it before knows? The menace of starvation, the menace of want is ten times more wrapped up in the lives of the common people of the country than any other issue, and if you seek to perpetuate the present state of affairs you seek to perpetuate unemployment, and you seek to perpetuate that menace.
The Minister has spoken on that point under the section. He does not wish to traffic on the leniency of An Leas-Cheann Comhairle.
Is the Minister not going to give any explanation in justification of the exclusion of employees of public bodies from the section?
That matter has already been disposed of on the Deputy's amendment.
The exclusion from the section has not been disposed of.
It is precisely because of the exclusion that you moved your amendment.
Question—"That Section 35, as amended, stand part of the Bill"—put and agreed to.
SECTION 36.
(1) If any officer of a local body who is in office at the date of the passing of this Act and at that date has more than ten years service as an officer of such local body signifies in writing to such local body within three months after the passing of this Act his intention not to avail himself of the provisions of this Part of this Act, this Part of this Act shall not apply to this officer.
(2) Any officer of a local body to whom by virtue of this section this Part of this Act does not apply shall remain and be subject to such of the enactments repealed by this Act as relate to the granting of superannuation or compensation for loss of office to officers of local bodies as if this Act had not been passed, save that in the application of Section 8 of the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1919, to the granting of an allowance to such officer by a local body the expression "case of dispute" in that section shall include a dispute of the right to or amount of an allowance raised by an auditor of the Minister duly appointed to audit the accounts of such local body, which dispute such auditor is hereby authorised to raise.
I move:—In sub-section (2), line 6, page 20, after the word "allowance," to insert the words, "granted after the passing of this Act." This section applies only to officers who remain under the pension provisions of the Local Government Act of 1919, which gives the Minister no control over the award of a pension unless there was a dispute between the pensions officers and the local authority. But under the Local Government (Temporary Provisions) Act of 1923, a new method of raising a dispute was created, and the county councils to which the payment of pensions due to officials losing officer under county schemes was transferred from boards of guardians were invited by the Ministry to dispute the amounts. Moreover, under Section 11 (5) of the Act of 1923, local authorities were debarred from granting new pensions under the 1919 Act in excess of the ordinary scale without the consent of the Minister. The position is, therefore, that all these 1919 Act pensions already paid have either been sanctioned by the Minister, in which case no further opportunities for a revision are called for, or else in a few cases the local authority has no objection to paying the pension originally fixed, although it has had opportunities to object. The amendment is intended to provide a re-examination of cases already settled and I think that the Minister will see that there is good reason for it.
This is a reasonable amendment. As the section stands, it hangs like the sword of Damocles over the heads of officers of local authorities, and it is only reasonable that this amendment should be accepted.
Amendment put and agreed to.
On behalf of Deputy Colohan, I move:
To add at the end of sub-section (2) the words "on the occasion of the audit of the accounts for the period in which the allowance is first paid, but not afterwards."
There are two or three amendments that are more or less affected by this. There is a certain minimum scale provided. The original Bill did provide such a scale in the Fifth Schedule, but the revised version fixes simply a maximum of two-thirds of the salary, and gives no indication of what is to be either the normal or minimum scale. Obviously an officer is entitled to know what pension he may expect at the end of his service, but as the Bill stands the local authority might give him, after 40 years' service, a pension of only one-third of his salary. The amendment meets reasonable objections. It does not say that the authority must give a pension, but only if it does that the pension must be at least according to the scale, which is the usual one-sixtieth for each year of service. Provision is also made for cases of unsatisfactory service, where there has been ground for complaint not amounting to cause for dismissal without pension at all. In such a case the authority may reduce the pension below the scale minimum. The whole matter rests under the supervision of the Minister. I think that the Minister will see the reasonableness of this.
I am willing to accept this amendment, but I think that Deputy Johnson has gone astray somewhere in it. I do not think it achieves the purpose which he lays down. It is an amendment somewhat similar to Deputy Nagle's preventing the auditing of accounts with a view to affecting the pension of the local officer detrimentally, which is the same as the other amendment restricting the exercise of the functions of the auditor with regard to the officer of the local authority to a pension fixed after the passing of this Bill. It is quite a reasonable amendment and I agree to it.
Amendment put and agreed to.
Question proposed—"That Section 36, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
I grant at the moment that the Minister showed very great consideration to representations that were made to him with regard to the matter contained in this section. At the same time, it has been suggested to me that I should ask him to make some slight changes which I hope he will do. Officers who would be in office at the time of the passing of the Bill consider that there should be deleted from the section the words "and at that date has more than 10 years' service as an officer of such local body." In other words, an officer who is in office at the date of the passing of this Bill thinks that he should be entitled, if he wishes, to have the right to signify "within three months after the passing of this Act his intention not to avail himself of the provisions of this Part of this Act," so that "this Part of this Act shall not apply to such officer." That is to say, anybody who has over ten years' service who does not wish to remain under the provisions of the Bill when it becomes law may, as it were, place himself outside that and rely upon previous Acts as far as his pension is concerned. Some of the men think that it is not quite fair that after being, say, eight or nine years in the service they should not be allowed to opt out, as other men who have longer service are allowed to do, and I think the case they make is a fairly good case. If there are any better terms in Section 8 of the Local Government Act of 1919, and these better provisions are available for men with 15, 20 or 30 years' service, I think it is hardly fair to place men with a lesser number of years' service in an inferior position.
Another point is with regard to the time during which these men shall have the option of opting out. The time given here is three months; they must make up their minds within three months after the passing of the Bill as to whether they will remain under its provisions or whether they will opt out. It was put up to the Minister, by a deputation when I was present, that they should get six or nine months at least before making up their minds as to which Act they wished to remain under, and as far as I remember, the Minister said that he would consider the matter and that in all probability he would agree to an extension of the time either to six or nine months. I think some of the deputation wanted him to extend it to a year. Those are the two points I want to make, and I hope the Minister will give them favourable consideration.
With regard to this provision disallowing officers with less than ten years' service to opt out, I think it is a very reasonable proposal. Section 8 of the Act of 1919 was a very ill-considered and hastily conceived provision. It had a political origin. At that particular period there was a struggle in this country between the old Dáil and the British Authorities in power at the time. One of the weapons used against the British Authorities was the control of the Local Government bodies in the country. In order to secure the loyalty and support of the officers of these bodies against the National authority, the British Government at the time conceded a very liberal pension scheme. Amongst other things, it granted an extremely extravagant scale of gratuities to officers with less than ten years' service who should lose their offices as a result of their positions being abolished, or for any other reason which might have a political complexion. Under that section, an officer with nine years' service would get a gratuity on the basis of five years' salary. This, of course, was an extremely extravagant concession to make to those officers and we could not, under any circumstances, stand over it at the present time. Provision will be made for them in the Act, but instead of getting this grossly extravagant rate of compensation, they will be only compensated on the basis of one-sixth of their yearly salary and emoluments. There is one particular class of officers in a different position from the others —solicitors. They are expressly mentioned in Section 8 of the Act of 1919. Solicitors who have more than ten years' service can opt out under this section, but those who have not ten years' service cannot opt out under the section. Neither will they be pensionable officers under the Bill. Accordingly they have a grievance, and I undertake to remedy that on the Report Stage. There is no other class of officers that comes under that category. I could not agree to the great burden that might be put on local authorities if officers were allowed to opt out under this Bill and get the huge gratuities they would be entitled to get under the Act of 1919.
What about extending the time?
I will consider the point about extending the time up to six months.
Section put and agreed to.
SECTION 37.
(1) A local body may, with the consent of the Minister, grant to a pensionable officer in their employment, who either—
(a) has attained the age of sixty-five years and has at least twenty years' service, or
(b) becomes incapable of discharging the duties of his office with efficiency by reason of permanent infirmity of mind or body, or of old age, and has not less than ten years' service,
upon his resigning or otherwise ceasing to hold his office, an annual allowance for his life not greater than two-thirds of his yearly salary and emoluments.
(2) A local body may, with the consent of the Minister, grant to a pensionable officer in their employment who has at least ten years' service, and
(a) who is removed from his office for a cause other than misconduct or incapacity, or
(b) whose office is abolished, or
(c) whose position has, in the opinion of the Minister, been materially altered to his detriment owing to changes in the conditions of his employment made without reasonable cause, and who resigns his office with the consent of the Minister,
an annual allowance for his life not greater than two-thirds of his yearly salary and emoluments.
(3) A local body may, with the consent of the Minister, grant to a pensionable officer in their employment, whose service is less than ten years, and who ceases to hold his office in such circumstances that if his service were not less than ten years an allowance could have been granted to him under the foregoing sub-section, a gratuity not greater than one-sixth of his yearly salary and emoluments for each completed year of his service.
(4) Subject as hereinafter provided, in ascertaining for the purposes of this part of this Act, the service of an officer at the date when he ceases to hold his office, the whole of the period during which on such date such officer has held a pensionable office or offices continuously under any local body or bodies shall be reckoned;
Provided that—
(a) the period during which such officer has held office under any local body other than the local body granting an allowance or gratuity to him or a committee thereof shall not be reckoned unless it exceeds two years, and
(b) no period of service shall be reckoned in respect of which the officer has received an allowance or gratuity under this or any other enactment.
(5) If an officer of a local body is aggrieved by the neglect or refusal of the local body to grant him an allowance or gratuity under this section, or with the amount of any allowance or gratuity granted him by the local body, he may within six months of his ceasing to hold his office appeal to the Minister, who may thereupon grant to such officer any allowance or gratuity which in his opinion should have been granted to such officer by the local body under this section, and such officer shall thereupon be entitled to receive such allowance or gratuity from the local body.
I move amendment 56:—
In sub-section (1), line 9, sub-section (2), line 20, sub-section (3), line 33, and sub-section (5), line 60, to delete the word "may" and substitute the word "shall."
I made the point during the Second Stage that if a man is entitled to a pension there should be no doubt whatsoever in his mind or in the mind of the local authority, to whom he would look for the pension, as to the granting of it. With regard to the section of the 1919 Act that the Minister referred to, the word used in that section is "shall"—"an officer shall be entitled..." I should like to see this wording continued so that there would be no misconception on the part of the local bodies in regard to the granting or payment of the pension. Applicants for any position under the local authorities will feel more secure if they know that they will be pensioned at 65 years of age. Another point I desired to make was, I think, being referred to by Deputy Johnson when I was entering the Chamber—that a person upon resigning, or otherwise ceasing to hold office, shall be granted an annual allowance for life of not more than two thirds of his yearly salary. It has been pointed out to me that local authorities, under this clause, might give a pension of any amount provided it did not exceed the sum stated. That seems to the medical officers to be a very retrograde step indeed. I do not think it is right that a maximum amount should be fixed and that there should be no minimum stated. I desire to draw the Minister's attention to these points.
Deputy Sir James Craig has drawn attention to the fact that the word "shall" is used in Section 8 of the Act of 1919. That was an Act, as I have explained, passed in a political emergency and to achieve a political purpose. In no other Act of the Superannuation Code is the word "shall" used in connection with pensions. I should also point out that under this Bill pensionable officers are in a very much better position than they were previously. Heretofore, a pensionable officer had no redress if the local authority did not grant him a fair pension. If, because they had a spite against him, or for any other reason, he was not treated fairly, he had no redress and he had to put up with what he received. Under the present Bill he has an appeal to the Minister. In the circumstances, I think it is not likely that he will be treated unfairly. In case of an appeal, if the Minister should not be disposed to treat the officer fairly, he (the Minister) would be subject to pressure in the Dail, and questions could be raised here about his action. I think that is a sufficient safeguard.
The putting in of the word "shall" would not improve the position of the officer in any way. The officer already has his appeal to the Minister, and accordingly the only person that could be coerced by the word "shall" would be the Minister. It would not help the local officer to have the word "shall" inserted, because it would be quite possible for me, under the present Bill, to grant him only a nominal sum. By doing that, I would be keeping within the scope of the Bill. Deputy Sir James Craig further suggests minimum pensions. That is a principle that has not been adopted in any superannuation code up to the present, and I will have to adopt a very firm stand against accepting any amendment which would give effect to the principle of minimum pensions.
It has been put to me that unless this matter is definitely settled and men are secured these pensions now, it will lead to a great deal of canvassing and corruption and other things which went on in the past and which one would rather see stopped. It is for that reason chiefly that I have put forward this amendment, and I am very sorry indeed, for these reasons particularly, that the Minister will not agree to the substitution of the word "shall" in the Section.
Amendment put and declared lost.
Amendment 57.—To add at the end of sub-section (1), line 19, the words "and unless the officer has failed to give continuously satisfactory service, not less than an allowance calculated in accordance with the scale laid down in the Fifth Schedule to this Act."—Liam O Daimhín.
On this amendment, which is in the name of Deputy Davin, I want to refer to a very wonderful thing that happened. The age of miracles is not passed. A few moments ago, on behalf of Deputy Colohan, I moved an amendment. In support of that amendment, which I did not understand, I read certain notes which I had before me. Those notes persuaded the Minister to accept the amendment, but those notes had nothing to do with that particular amendment. Yet the Minister accepted it!
On a point of order, I think I called Deputy Johnson's attention to the fact that it was not the notes that influenced me. Perhaps I was a little bit too discreet and did not take full advantage of the opportunity he gave me. I did not force the thrust home, but insinuated what was in my mind in a very gentle way.
What is the miracle? Is it that there is something which Deputy Johnson does not understand?
The miracle is that the Minister was persuaded to accept an amendment by a speech in favour of another amendment. I acknowledge with gratitude the generosity of the Minister in not thrusting a very palpable point into my ribs.
This amendment, as well as a few other amendments which have been sent in, had reference to the Bill as originally introduced. The fifth schedule was a scale of tabulated allowances, and the amendment, in the form in which it appears, refers to the fifth schedule. It is obviously impossible to have this amendment accepted in its present form. But I would plead for the principle embodied in it—that officers who are pensionable and whose retirement is not due to unsatisfactory service, shall be entitled to a pension on a definite minimum scale. That is the proposition—that the scale shall be fixed on the minimum side, and not merely on the maximum side. I think the scale in the original draft of the Bill is now embodied in the section, and that, therefore, the phraseology of the amendment which I am moving on behalf of Deputy Davin is not fitting. But I would urge upon the Minister the desirability of accepting the principle involved in this amendment and in subsequent amendments dealing with the same matter.
In this amendment is introduced the principle of minimum pensions, which, when speaking on a former amendment, I mentioned I had a strong objection to. "Unless the officer has failed to give continuously satisfactory service." In the ordinary course of events all those matters are taken into consideration, but if you insert that in an amendment it will mean the whole career of an officer in a local service will have to be certified and weighed up in the light of what kind of service he gave the local authority.
The only effect it might have would be, perhaps, to rake up some indiscretions, or some act the officer committed a long time back, that he might be very sorry to have brought into the light of day. It would not help the officer in any way. In actual practice he gets fair treatment from the local authority, and if he does not he can appeal to the Minister. I think his case is amply covered by those two facts. It is a very serious thing to introduce this question of minimum pensions, because it is only right that local authorities and the Minister should be allowed fairly wide discretion as to the compensation an officer would be entitled to receive.
I want to ask a question which is not, perhaps, quite in order on this amendment. Will the Minister say who will be the local body granting the pension? The district councils will be abolished, but is it intended that before they are they will grant the pension, or will it be the county council?
It will be the county council.
That is what I want to clear up.
I am not pressing this amendment. Because of its phraseology, it is quite unfitted, and with permission I will withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I beg to move the following amendment:—
To add at the end of sub-section (1), page 20, line 19, the words: "This sub-section notwithstanding the date of the passing of this Act may apply to any "existing" officer of a local authority within the meaning of the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, who may have ceased to hold office at any time subsequent to 6th December, 1921."
I have an idea that the Minister is willing to accept this, at least in principle. If that were so, there would be no need to go into the reasons that prompt me to propose it.
I agree to accept this amendment in principle. It is one that will probably have several consequential amendments, and it will have to be re-drafted. I think we will have to find a place for Deputy Nagle in the Parliamentary drafting office, he is so successful in hitting upon amendments that can be accepted.
Will the Minister explain what exactly does it mean?
It is not a very easy thing to explain. In some counties, I think in County Cork, you have officers who are at the same time officials of the county council and the urban council. On a technical point they have been ruled out as whole-time officers; they could not be whole-time for the two offices, although they were doing the same class of work. This has worked out as a very great hardship to a few individuals. They were only very few.
Does it mean now that from each of these bodies individuals will be entitled to a pension? Were they entitled to any pension at all as things stood? What will the alteration be? Will it mean that they will be entitled to a pension from each of the two bodies by whom they were employed?
They can get it from the urban district with respect to their services under that body, as matters stand; but this will enable them to get it from the county council in proportion to the service they gave the county council.
In view of the Minister's undertaking I will withdraw the amendment.
It is accepted in principle.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I wish to propose:
"In sub-section (2), line 22, to delete the word ‘ten' and substitute the word ‘twenty.'"
That amendment means, if accepted, that a pension will not be granted to any officer who retires, because of the three reasons stated, unless he has twenty years' service. The idea is to prevent what may be likely to happen. Officers of, perhaps, not more than thirty years of age may desire to retire on a full pension of two-thirds of their emoluments. This question of giving pensions to retiring officers on local bodies is becoming almost a scandal.
Men retire from one position, and in a short time those positions have to be filled by other men; the retiring man has to be paid his pension and full salary has to be given his successor. It is not unreasonable to propose an amendment of this sort. A man of thirty or forty years ought not to expect a pension of this kind. Officers should have at least twenty years' service before a two-thirds pension is granted. I do not know if the amendment meets the case exactly; there may be circumstances not governed by the amendment. If the principle were accepted I am sure it could be afterwards put into some other portion of the Bill.
I do not think it is advisable for the Deputy to press this amendment. It would very likely result in severe hardship to individuals. In practice we would usually give effect to something similar to what the Deputy aims at. Under no circumstances would I grant a two-thirds pension to any officer the Deputy has placed in the category for only a one-third pension—any officer coming under the one-third clause.
If you draw a hard and fast line of demarcation in that way it might result in very severe hardship to cases on the border-line. For instance, a medical officer with nineteen years' service could only have one year added to his service for the purpose of a pension, whereas a medical officer with twenty-one years' service could have nineteen years added, and perhaps that medical officer might be one who had given not nearly quite so valuable service as the medical officer who had only one year added. The Deputy would be well advised to withdraw this amendment and leave it to the discretion of the Ministry, so that service, ability, capacity and all other considerations that weigh in those matters can be taken into consideration when deciding on a pension.
I do not fully understand what the Minister means to convey. My amendment does not make reference to one-third. Is the Minister referring to another amendment further down? My amendment states that unless an officer has twenty years' service he will not be entitled to two-thirds pension. There is an amendment further on dealing with a one-third pension, but I am not taking the two amendments together. At present, as I see it, the Minister has no option but to grant a pension where an officer retires who has more than ten years' service, and who retires because of any of the three reasons given.
I am not under any obligation to grant a two-thirds pension. That is the most I could ever grant, and I do not grant that. It is the maximum.
I took it that in all cases that was granted. In view of what the Minister says, I do not see that my amendment fulfils any useful purpose and I will withdraw it.
In the working out of the Minister's veto, would there be any guiding principle, or is every case to be considered anew and separately without any guiding principle? Is it possible under the section that extraneous influences might be brought to bear, even on the Minister? I can understand the difficulty, but I am inclined to agree some less elastic provision should be made. Ten years' service and two-thirds salary and emoluments are the limit. They are optional to the Minister and the local authority. Conceivably within that option very great extravagance might arise, and as the general opinion seems to be that it is undesirable to allow Ministers and local authorities to have power to grant pensions beyond what they have been in the habit of granting, or, rather, even to restrict what they have been in the habit of exercising, I think some restriction upon the option within which the Minister might agree to a pension should be inserted here. Within this the Minister may grant a pension of two-thirds salary for life to an officer who has had ten years' service.
The Minister says that would not likely happen while he retains his present state of mind; but he may be persuaded against his better judgement. All kinds of influences may be brought to bear. In the case of A, for instance, by virtue of his public service of one kind or another, or private service under the name of public service, he may be entitled to two-thirds pension for a ten years' service. In the case of B, who has not given that particular kind of service, he is only entitled to one-third of his salary as pension for a similar period of service as A. I think the limits are too wide, and I have sympathy with Deputy Heffernan's attempt to restrict those options.
The general principle on which those pensions are paid is on the one-sixtieth scale, that is, an officer gets one-sixtieth of his salary and emoluments for every year of service which he has. That principle is not departed from except in exceptional cases where an officer is injured in the course of his duty, or where he went through particularly hard circumstances in carrying out his duty, or where other exceptional circumstances of one kind or another arise. In those cases a number of years is added on. Those things are governed by Departmental precedents which are never broken away from. I agree that it does open the door to possibilities, but on the other hand, you cannot make everything watertight in matters of this kind. In practice I do not think there has been any abuse of the elasticity which this scheme permits, and Deputies have always an opportunity of raising any matter of this kind if they think there has been any abuse of this power by the Minister. It would be a difficult thing for the Minister to stand over any irregularity when the matter can be raised in this House.
Will the Minister mention the schedule of the number of years' service which are usually added under the precedents heretofore afforded in the case of those officers? Ten years' service at one-sixtieth per year would be one-sixth. The Minister can give two-thirds, which is forty-sixtieths. He says he can add a certain number of years. I want to find out from him under what scale those years are added, or what is the usual number of years to add.
It is practically impossible to answer that question which Deputy Wilson has put, because each case has to be considered on its merits, and without a definite case it is impossible to say what the allowance is to be. Furthermore, an addition to the number of years is recommended by the local authority in practically every case and approved by the Minister. The local authority, in my experience, always considers the case on its merits and makes the recommendation accordingly. As far as I know the working of the Department there is no hard and fast rule there.
The Minister says there is.
Before I finally withdraw my amendment I would like more information on the matter. Deputy Wilson points out that on twenty years of service the pension would only be one-third. The Minister has power to grant two-thirds, and also power to add years of service. My understanding is that the pension is fixed by the local body, and if it is not fixed with the approval of the Minister, there is a row between the local body and the Minister. With regard to the adding of years of service I am not sure that this is the section to discuss that. My little knowledge is that it is not often done at all according to the good services or the ability of the man. I understand they add all the years they are entitled to. I would like to see the power of fixing the pension in the hands of the Minister, subject to the advice of the local council. In actual practice it is in the hands of the local council, subject to the confirmation of the Minister.
The Deputy says there is a kind of tussle in this case between the local authority and the Minister. Local authorities are generous in granting pensions, and they leave the dirty work to the Minister. As a matter of fact, the Minister always wins in those cases, and the Deputy can be reassured on that point.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move Amendment 60:
In sub-section (2), line 22, after the word "service" to insert the words "and not more than 20 years' service, and who at the time of retirement is less than 40 years of age," and in line 31, after the word "than" to delete the word "two-thirds" and substitute therefor the word "one-third."
The other amendment had somewhat of the same effect. It means that a man may not get his full two-thirds pension unless he is at least forty years of age. I think there is something in the idea that a young man going out and doing work should not get a full two-thirds pension. We should recognise facts as they are in other countries. In our own country a man working in a business house may possibly lose his job when he is about thirty-five years of age, and gets no pension. But this man who gets his job abolished under the local authority gets a pension, then comes out, and is able to earn another income.
I think this is really a question of whether I should have discretion in those matters or not. Often an officer might become infirm for one reason or another, and it is only right that there should be some latitude in those matters to enable a pension to be fixed in cases of particular hardship. In actual practice that would be taken into consideration. If he were a young man and capable of carrying out work he would not have years added.
Sub-section 1 of this section governs that. I did not take that into account. I take it for granted that a man is in a good physical condition. I think it might be well that the Minister should be bound in this regard. It might strengthen his hand. If he accepts this he will have power to prevent any official under forty years of age from getting a full two-thirds pension.
The point raised by Deputy Heffernan is especially important with regard to sub-head (c), whose position has, in the opinion of the Minister, been altered owing to the changes in conditions of employment. It is a common thing for young men from 35 to 45 years of age to have their offices abolished. They will be abolished under this Act. Surely a young man is able to go out and take his share in the battle of life. They get pensions, and in addition, they take on jobs when they go out. Some attention should be paid to the capacity and age of the individual going out. It is quite a different thing for the old men. I think the Minister should take exceptional notice of this amendment.
I will look into this matter, as it is rather different from the other amendments. We can consider it on the Report Stage. I may be able to bring in some amendment that will meet the Deputy's view on that point. I rather like the principle myself.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment 61 is consequential on 57.
I move:
In sub-section 3, line 33, page 20, to delete the word "may" and substitute the word "shall."
The object of this amendment is to stop canvassing. I would like to leave it in the power of the Minister either to give the power or not to have it at all.
This principle has been decided already.
On a point of order, does it follow necessarily that because an amendment to introduce "shall" instead of "may" in the earlier Stages has been defeated, that to introduce "shall" instead of "may" in a later sub-section also is defeated? The principle may be the same with regard to the preference for "shall," making it mandatory, but surely there must be an opportunity given to allow discussion apart from the merits of the case. I think if "shall" were introduced it would make the section read foolishly.
It is the same section and affects the same principle.
On behalf of Deputy Sears, I move:—
Before sub-section (4) to insert a new sub-section:—
(4) A local body may, with the consent of the Minister, grant to a pensionable officer in their employment who is a woman, and who elects or is compelled by the terms of her appointment to retire on marriage, a gratuity not greater than one-twelfth of her yearly salary and emoluments for each completed year of her service.
In view of Deputy Sears' action on a previous amendment, I would like to move this on his behalf. It is to give power to a local authority to grant to a woman who is a pensionable officer, but who prefers to get married, a gratuity not greater than one-twelfth of her yearly salary.
It is fairly usual. I think it is a Civil Service provision and it will probably be acceptable to the Minister. I would like if Deputy Sears had been here to support this proposal. I urge it upon the Minister for his acceptance.
If the amount were more than one year's salary and emoluments I would be prepared to leave the matter to a free vote. I could not undertake to allow a larger amount than that. I do not think that it would help the romantic object which Deputy Johnson has in view, because, I am afraid, if we allowed ladies with service of thirty or forty years to be pensioned on that service, they would have other objects in marrying than a romantic one. As I say, I will leave it to a free vote, provided the amount is not more than one year's salary and emoluments.
Would the proposal of the Minister be to insert his limitation on the next Stage?
Is the amendment withdrawn?
I understand that the proposition is that we should accept the amendment on this Stage. Is that so?
I think that the amendment would have to be withdrawn, and I will produce an amendment on the next Stage in a limited form.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move:—"In sub-section 4, line 44, after the word "bodies" to insert the words "(including a local body or bodies in any part of Ireland not at present within the jurisdiction of Saorstat Eireann)." The object of this amendment is to secure that service under any local authority will be counted, even though it is a case of service outside the authorities now under the jurisdiction of the Saorstát. I think that this is a reasonable amendment. There may be a few officers who, before 1922, did give service in that portion of Saorstát Eireann which is for the moment outside its jurisdiction. It may be that even still there are officers serving in those counties which a local authority would be glad to appoint. I think it would be well to secure that such officers would not have their pension rights decreased by the fact that they came from the Six County area or northern area.
I am in agreement with the object the Deputy has in view, but I am afraid that the insertion of the amendment in the Bill would not achieve it. Those parts of what formerly was Ireland, which I suppose the Deputy has in view, could not be brought under the scope of this Bill by an amendment of this kind. If those areas became portion of the Saorstát by means of any other Act they would automatically come under this Bill, and there would be no necessity for having such an amendment introduced With regard to officers serving local authorities in what was at that time part of the same country, and has since been separated from it, we could not arrange to have such officers compensated without some convention with Northern Ireland, and I could not undertake to introduce such a matter in a measure of this kind.
The point which I want to secure is that if you have an officer who served, say, in County Antrim for six or seven years, and who served for the remainder of his time, say, in County Cork, the years which he served in County Antrim should be calculated in fixing his pension.
Who is to pay for that? I have no power to compel Antrim to pay for it, and it would not be fair to saddle the expense on Cork.
My point is that Cork should pay, because I assume that Cork in making a selection from a large number of applicants would choose an officer who would have special qualifications, but if they did that they would do so knowing that they would have to pension him, and that his pension would cost them more than if he had served within the twenty-six county area.
Consideration should, of course, be given in granting pensions to the special qualifications of officers, but there is no provision by which an officer can retain his pension rights if he goes from one county authority to another.
Would it be in the power of the local authority with the consent of the Minister to add on a number of years of service, if a man had special qualifications?
That is one of the matters taken into consideration when granting pensions.
Amendment put and declared lost.
I move:
To add at the end of sub-section (4) the words "Provided also that any period immediately prior to the appointment of an officer to a pensionable office during which he acted as clerk or assistant to an officer of a local body and was paid out of moneys provided for the purpose by the local body shall be reckoned as service in a pensionable office."
It is a common thing for a local authority to employ some of its minor staff indirectly. Superior officers are paid an allowance for clerical assistance, and the experience persons acquire in that way and the service they give often result in promotion to established posts. The amendment proposes that in such cases of promotion to established rank the whole period of employment, direct or indirect, should be considered for pension purposes. In Waterford County Borough there are four clerical officers in the Borough Treasurer's office who were brought in in this indirect way. One has twenty years' service, but if he were appointed to a pensionable position, and if he retired in twenty years' time, his service would only be reckoned as twenty years though his actual service was forty years.
I am afraid that the amendment is rather far-fetched. I think that such officers as those mentioned are fortunate in finally becoming established with pensionable rights. It would be impossible for me to decide whether they gave satisfactory service at the time they were not directly employed by the local authority, and I think it would be ridiculous to grant pensions to men in unofficial positions. It would be just the same as if I had a secretary or typist in my private capacity and, if he were afterwards appointed to a position in the Civil Service, that I were to insist that he should be made pensionable from the time during which he was doing private work for me. It is the same with this amendment, which asks that officers of this kind should receive pensions for service given in their private capacity.
Does the Minister not see that the phrase is "paid out of moneys provided by the local authority"?
I do not think that that makes any difference.
I suggest to the Minister that the amendment is not at all as far-fetched as he imagines. It would remove a real grievance. I have a case in mind where a man gave eleven years in devoting his whole time to the position of assistant to a clerk of a rural district council and a board of guardians, and after that period in that position was appointed master of the union and served in that capacity for ten years, up to the time of the amalgamation scheme. I think it is a hardship on that man, who entered the service young and gave twenty-one years' service, that his pension should be calculated only on ten years' service. Credit should be given for the eleven years which he spent in the service in his other capacity. I am informed that there is a precedent for this suggestion and that in Baltinglass such service on behalf of an official there was recognised by the old Local Government Board. I am not sure how long ago that happened, but I am informed that it is not more than five or six years ago.
The provisions are sufficiently elastic as they stand to enable such extreme cases to be taken into consideration, but such cases would be exceptionally rare. I do not, in fact, know that there have ever been such cases.
As the section stands, I understand the Minister to say that he will have power in certain extreme cases to allow for the service they had in the unestablished position.
I think it is correct to say that there were cases of a local authority appointing a chief officer at a certain salary, such salary to cover the service of an assistant to the clerk, and it has been quite clearly understood that the officer appointed by the clerk would be his servant. These assistants were directly paid out of the moneys provided by the local authorities. The real difference in the position of a clerk appointed by and serving the chief officer, and a clerk appointed by the council is that one name appears on the pay sheet in the former case instead of two. The amendment rather specifically and clearly points to the position of an officer who was paid out of moneys provided for the purpose by the local bodies, and it is to meet some cases whereby arrangements were made in the past that an officer was to take on a person for special service and have the appointment for the person, but the payment was to come directly out of public funds. To all intents and purposes such assistant was an employee of the local authorities, because he was paid by the local authorities out of moneys provided for the purpose. Such a person is reasonably entitled to be considered an employee of the local authorities, and in such cases as that the amendment would cover and bring them into a category with those who had been appointed more directly, and whose names appear on the books of the council.
Many points have been raised by Deputy Morrissey, but he forgets one important point, and that is that the Local Government Department has power to consider each case on its merits. That is a very valuable point to bear in mind in this discussion on the pensions. If the Minister has to put all this class on a level with the others, it would be an additional burden on the ratepayers. You have cases of an assistant clerk appointed by the clerk and paid out of the clerk's salary. The clerk has brought that assistant into the service of the guardians or district council, as the case may be, and he pays him out of his salary, and after a short time the guardians appoint him as an assistant to help the clerk in doing his work, but he is practically in the employment of the clerk, and are you going to put him in the same position as a man who has been appointed in the usual way by the council? The Minister for Local Government has the power to discriminate, and that power being there, if I were Deputy Morrissey, I would not press the case.
If Deputy D'Alton refers to the amendment he would see that it does not cover the case he puts forward where the clerk is paid by the officer out of a salary which the officer receives. That is not the case provided for by the amendment. It is the case of an assistant to an officer who is paid out of monies provided for the purpose by the local authorities, and not out of the salary of the officer concerned, but out of monies specifically provided for this assistant, although the assistant is, in fact, the servant of the officer himself.
But his years of service as an employee to the clerk should not count for him as pensionable.
Behind this there is a principle which, to my mind, is rather dangerous. Deputy Johnson wants the years of any man while training or getting qualifications to hold a position to be taken into account when pensioning that official. I think no one sees better than the Deputy the danger of the principle he is advocating. If he were to apply that in other respects he might argue that during the time a tradesmen is serving his apprenticeship and qualifying to hold a subsequent position he is on the same basis. Deputy Johnson might fairly argue that his years of apprenticeship should be taken into account in pensioning him. The proposal is far-reaching, and the Minister would be wise to consider it carefully before assenting to it.
I think the Deputy, in putting his case, had in mind the case of an assistant succeeding to the officer. But take the case of the man who spends 11 or 12 years under the clerk of a rural district and who subsequently becomes a master of a union. You would not contend that the 11 years he had given as assistant to the clerk was in preparation for his position as master of the union?
Without it he would not have had the qualifications to hold the position.
To my mind, the mere fact of appointing an assistant clerk or any other official in a public body makes him part and parcel of a pensionable office, and the years he spent as an assistant should be taken into account when he was afterwards definitely appointed a pensionable officer. I hold that when an assistant clerk of a union spends his time in serving the clerk, who could not carry on with his duties without the help of that assistant, he was really on the same footing as the clerk himself.
I do not think anything has been said in favour of this amendment that would induce me to change my mind. The reason in many cases for not having an assistant was to avoid putting additional pensionable liabilities on the local authorities. That was the object in having these unofficial assistants, and presumably when they decided on having such unofficial assistants when fixing the amount of their salary it was taken into consideration that they would not be pensionable officers. In a good many, if not most, cases they were only part-time officers, and it often suited them to be part-time officers. They went into the matter with their eyes open. It was purely a case of contract between employer and employees, and I think it would be ridiculous to go back on that situation now years after the contract was entered into, and greatly improve the position of the employees to the detriment of the local authorities. I think it would be very detrimental to the interests of the community in general to give way to the principle which this amendment raises.
Amendment put, and declared lost.
I move:—
To add at end a new sub-section as follows:—
"Where the officer has prior to his entering the service of a local authority obtained professional or other qualifications not usually acquired in the service of the local authority he shall be entitled to have added to his actual service such further number of years' service not less than five or more than fifteen as the local authority with the consent of the Minister may determine."
I submit that it would be in the public interest to have the amendment accepted. One can easily imagine a number of appointments for which it would be difficult to get suitable men in the locality. Let me take an instance. Supposing that the county councils determined to make concrete roads, as I hope they will some day, they might not be able to get engineers qualified to carry out the work of making these roads in their own service, or in the present Local Government service, whereas outside that service there might be men available who would be very competent for the work. These men would not come perhaps unless they were offered reasonable inducements. Supposing they had spent five or ten years in another employment, and gained the knowledge necessary for that work, if they knew those years would be counted to their credit for pension they would be induced to take up the position. I am giving that only as an instance, but there are other cases which I have in mind at present where men qualify for positions under local councils, and where they get their knowledge outside the service of the local bodies. For the sake of the councils themselves, and in the public interest, I think it would be wise to accept this amendment.
I wish the Deputy would tell us the cases he has in mind, and explain the wording of the amendment. I may be very dense, but the wording seems to me to convey no meaning at all. I cannot read much into the first three lines of it.
I will read the amendment again (amendment read).
What is the meaning of the words "not usually acquired"?
I will give an example. Rathmines Council decided upon a public library, and they advertised for a man with experience of librarian's work—which is a very difficult class of work—to take charge of the library. There was no such man in this part of Ireland at the time. They got a man from another part of Ireland, who had experience under another local authority. One can imagine other cases of this kind, and if there is not such a provision as this in the section, you will be depriving the councils of the chance of getting first-class men. I think Deputy Gorey will admit that that is plain.
I do not think this amendment is really necesary. Presumably, when the local authority would be looking for such a man they would take all those facts into consideration in fixing his salary. If they found that they had got an exceptionally qualified man, they would be willing, I am sure, to pay him a higher salary. When adding years, exceptional qualifications—professional and otherwise—are always taken into consideration. A person possessing such qualifications is treated more liberally in regard to "added years" than a person who has no such qualifications. Accordingly, I do not see any necessity for inserting this amendment in the section.
Amendment put and declared lost.
Amendment 67 falls with No. 65.
I withdraw that amendment.
I submit that Amendment 67 deals with a matter altogether different from Amendment 65.
It is withdrawn in any case.
It was ordered to read similar to Amendment 65.
Amendment 67 not moved.
Question—"That Section 37 stand part of the Bill"—put and agreed to.
SECTION 38.
(1) Where the yearly salary and emoluments of an officer of a local body include a temporary increase or addition (in this section called a bonus) granted to meet the increased cost of living, calculated according to the amount of the remainder of his salary and emoluments and variable from time to time in accordance with the average cost of living in Saorstát Eireann, such bonus shall not be taken into account in fixing the amount of any allowance granted to such officer.
(2) Where in a case to which the foregoing sub-section applies an allowance is granted to the officer there shall be added to such allowance an increase or addition calculated on the amount of the allowance and variable in the like manner in all respects as the bonus payable to such officer immediately before he ceased to hold office was then variable.
On behalf of Deputy T. Murphy, I move amendment 68:—
"In sub-section (1), line 3, before the word ‘granted' to insert the words ‘which was expressed at the time of granting to be.'"
I would like to know if the Deputy has anything to say on this amendment.
The amendment is not in my name. I am moving it formally on behalf of Deputy Murphy. Perhaps the Minister would give us his reasons for not accepting it.
This is rather an obscure amendment, and I was waiting for some light to be thrown on it before saying what my attitude would be.
I think the question that is raised in this amendment is connected with war bonuses. (Section quoted.) There may be disputes as to whether a bonus was a war bonus intended to meet the increased cost of living or whether it was an increase, irrespective of that question. To avoid possible disputes as to whether a bonus was a war bonus or not, we ask that it should be inserted that such bonus should have been stated at the time to be a war bonus to meet the increased cost of living.
I will accept that amendment. I wanted to know what was the exact idea behind it.
Amendment put and agreed to.
Amendment 69 not moved.
Question—"That Section 38, as amended, stand part of the Bill"— put and agreed to.
SECTION 39.
Whenever an allowance or gratuity is payable by a local body (in this section called "the paying body") to any person under this Act in respect of his ceasing to hold office under them, and in ascertaining the service of such officer at the date of such cesser any service under another local body (in this sub-section called "the contributing body") has been aggregated and reckoned, the contributing body shall refund to the paying body a part of such allowance or gratuity reckoned according to the service and pay of such officer under the contributing body and to the circumstances under which he has ceased to hold office under the paying body, and such part shall be settled by agreement between the two bodies, or in default of agreement by the Minister.
As continuous service under different local authorities will count for pensionable purposes, it is necessary that some provision should be made whereby the whole onus of paying the pension should not rest on the last local authority who had the services of the officer in question. This section is inserted with a view to enabling the last local authority to be recouped a portion of the pension from the local authorities who were previously served by the officer in question.
Would the Minister say whether the contributing body will have any voice in the fixing of the pension? The last local authority which the officer served will have the fixing of the pension, but the other people whom he served will have to pay a share of it. That, I take it, is the meaning of the section. Will those other bodies whom he served have any voice in fixing the amount to which they will be afterwards called upon to contribute?
I presume those pensions will be granted in consultation with my Department, and it will be finally decided by us what the pensions will be and how they shall be allocated.
I did not refer exclusively to the question of the proportion to be borne by the bodies. The question of giving special treatment to a man may arise on a question of pension—added years and so forth.
It seems to me that in this case we are almost forced to consider the whole question of a national civil service for local administration which was once a prominent plank in the platform of Sinn Fein. If there were such a civil service suitable for local authorities, this matter might easily be arranged to the satisfaction of everybody. I think there is something in what Deputy O'Connell urges —that the final authority, which is paying off the employee and which may have had only a few years of his service, may apply for a considerable pension for him and add a certain number of years for special service. The other bodies will be contributing to that pension. Can the Minister give the Dáil an assurance that the other local authorities that are likely to be called upon to contribute will be taken into consultation before finally approving of the pension? It seems to me that unless there is some assurance that that will be done, the local authorities which were the prior employers may have ground for complaint. While I think it is a very good and necessary thing that the services rendered to local authorities outside the immediate paying body should be taken into account in fixing the pension, still unless there is some fixed scale or clear understanding of what the pension rights are, there must be a promise given that the contributing bodies will be taken into consultation before finally deciding what the amount of pension shall be.
I would like to know from the Minister if there are any precedents for such a section as this, and how they have been found to work?
I do not think there is any precedent for this section, but we consider that it will be of very great help to local authorities. I think it is highly desirable that it should be left in the Bill. With regard to Deputy Johnson's point, presumably the ordinary course will be followed, and the last local authority will be the authority to fix the pension. It would come up before me for sanction or on appeal, and, before sanctioning the pension, I will consult with all the local authorities concerned. I can give the Deputy an undertaking to that effect.
In the absence of a formally established Civil Service, to embrace local as well as national authorities, that method may be satisfactory.
Question—"That Section 39 stand part of the Bill"—put and agreed to.
SECTION 40.
The holding by an officer of a local body of the office of Clerk to an Old Age Pensions Committee or a National Insurance Committee, or any office under a School Attendance Committee under the Irish Education Act, 1892, shall not be deemed, for the purpose of this Part of this Act, to deprive him of the status of a pensionable officer, but the salary or emoluments of such office shall not be taken into account in ascertaining the compensation which may be granted to such officer under this Part of this Act.
Amendment 70 not moved.
I beg to move the following:
In line 31, after the figures "1892" to insert the words "or the office of Superintendent Registrar or Registrar of Marriages."
I think the Minister will accept this amendment. There is nothing revolutionary in it. Obviously you cannot keep a man all his time registering marriages. Therefore, there is no reason, when a man undertakes it as subsidiary employment, he should be done out of his superannuation. This is an occupation usually undertaken by clerks of boards of guardians, or rural district councils, and it is to safeguard their interest, because they are appointed registrars, and because they should not in consequence cease to become pensionable officers, that I am putting forward this amendment. I think the Minister will have very little difficulty in accepting it.
I am agreeable to accepting the amendment, but I think it would be better if the Deputy altered it to read: "Or the office of superintendent registrar of births, deaths and marriages, or the office of registrar of marriages." It would be more inclusive.
I have no objection to accepting the alteration suggested by the Minister.
Amendment, as altered, agreed to.
Question:—"That Section 40, as amended, stand part of the Bill"—put and agreed to.
SECTION 41.
(1) Whenever, under this or any other Act, an officer of a local body, on the ground of incapacity to perform his duty, is entitled to receive or has been granted an allowance in respect of his ceasing to hold his office, the local body shall, until such officer attains the age of suxty-five years, satisfy themselves, yearly or otherwise, that the incapacity continues.
(2) In the event of the incapacity ceasing before such officer has attained the age of sixty-five years, the local body may cancel such allowance and may require him to resume his office, or any like office, at a rate of salary and emoluments not less than the rate which he received before he ceased to hold such office.
(3) When an officer resumes his office under this section, the provisions of this Part of this Act shall apply as if he had not previously retired, save that the time which elapsed between his former retirement and such resumption of office shall not be reckoned as service.
I beg to move:—"To delete the section." I consider that this is a ridiculous section and is quite unworkable. When an officer has retired through incapacity his place is filled, or else the office is abolished and it will be impossible, except extraordinary expenditure is involved, to recall a man to his old office; on the other hand, it would be very difficult to find another office for him. One wonders if an officer has to retire at the age of thirty-five years because of incapacity, and someone is appointed to replace him, if that officer is recalled at the age of fifty or fifty-five years, what will become of the man who succeeded him? The evil which the section aims at seems to be the granting of pensions because of a plea of incapacity, but that should be dealt with at the time the pension is granted. All pensions are subject to the sanction of the Ministry. Surely before the Minister sanctions, he makes exhaustive inquiries? That has been the experience of public boards. I think the Minister will find this section unworkable.
It is a section that I was never keen on. It is an attempt to meet a situation where an officer might possibly be pensioned for incapacity or ill-health. Afterwards he might recover, and it would be only right under those circumstances, that he should be taken back into the service. The objections against the section outweigh the arguments in favour of it, and accordingly, I am willing to have it deleted.
I wanted to support the amendment, but as the Minister is going to withdraw the clause I am quite satisfied.
Congratulate me, because that is the first amendment I have succeeded in getting accepted.
This deals with a difficulty that arises occasionally, and there ought to be some provision made. I quite agree it is a difficult matter to legislate for, but there are cases that occasionally arise and it might be useful to have such a clause as this in the Bill. If the Minister, between this and the Report Stage, would see if a clause in some amended form could be incorporated, it might meet the difficulty. I have known cases where very eminent members of the medical profession have certified that such and such an individual could not live more than a few years, and probably only a few months. Accordingly, they suggested that the individual should be pensioned off. One individual I have in mind was so certified and pensioned a number of years ago, and he lived up to a few months ago. Deputy Sir James Craig will tell us there are exceptions to every rule, but it is extraordinary how some of those pensioned officials have continued to live. Whether the changed circumstances or the change of air have prolonged life, I do not know; but it is extraordinary how long they lived after being pensioned.
It is only Providence knows the future—and Deputy Good. Of course, he might probably venture to state what was going to happen a man, even though that man might be in ill-health. Because of Deputy Good's statement, I will now make the points I was going to make on the amendment. It would be almost impossible—even Deputy Good would find it so—to prove that incapacity had disappeared. It would be a far more serious matter if a man who felt he would be pulled up after a time through health were kept trying to do work which he is incapable of doing. Take the case of a doctor; it may be he is attending poor people, and if he were incapacitated and still kept working the poor would suffer accordingly. It would be much better to get rid of a man who would be incapacitated than to keep him at work at a time when he is unable to work. A doctor who found himself incapable of doing the arduous duties attached to a dispensary district would, possibly, on retirement, seek lesser work, and he might recover fairly decent health. It would be, in such cases, very difficult to get anyone to certify that he would be capable of resuming arduous work again. I observe smiles on the faces of several Deputies when I speak of the arduous work of a dispensary doctor, but that does not detract from the fact that the duties are arduous. The dispensary doctor is never sure whether he is going to spend the night in bed; many Deputies now smiling are always secure in having a decent night's rest. The clause would be quite impracticable as far as medical men are concerned.
I assure Deputy Craig that our smiles had no relation whatever to the arguments he was putting forward.
The Minister is willing to have the section deleted.
Question—"That the section stand part of the Bill"—put and negatived.
SECTION 42.
(1) Whenever a person who is in receipt of an allowance from a local body under this or any other Act on account of his having, whether before or after the passing of this Act, ceased to hold an office (in this section referred to as "the former office") under a local body, or under a committee of a county infirmary or fever hospital, is or has been appointed to any office or employment (in this section referred to as "the later office") by any local body, then—
(a) if the annual amount of the profits of the later office are equal to or greater than the yearly salary and emoluments of the former office, the allowance aforesaid shall cease to be paid so long as such person continues to hold the later office, and
(b) if the annual amount of the profits of the later office are less than the yearly salary and emoluments of the former office, no more of the allowance aforesaid shall be paid to such person while he continues to hold the later office than, with the annual amount of the profits of the later office, will be equal to the salary and emoluments of the former office.
(2) Where an allowance is reduced under this section, the amount (if any) contributed thereto by any local body other than the local body by which the allowance was granted shall be reduced in the same proportion as the total allowance is reduced.
Amendments 73 and 74 appear to cover the same subject.
I beg to move amendment 73:—
To add at the end of the section the words: "Provided always that such officer shall be entitled to be paid reasonable remuneration for any new or increased duties that may devolve upon him under this or any subsequent Act."
Section 42 is a very drastic section. It discourages men already in receipt of pensions from taking other positions. I am quite in sympathy with the section, and I wish it were more widely applied. I think, at the same time, it is only fair that if the pensioner who gets another position gets increased duties, reasonable remuneration for any such increased duties should be given him.
I do not think the Deputy and myself see this section in the same light. I think it is a very valuable section, and I do not think it curtails the right of officers in any way. The object is to prevent an officer, who is changing from one local authority to another, from drawing a pension and salary at the same time. If an officer who has a pension under one local authority gets a position from another, and if the salary combined with the pension brings his remuneration to a higher figure than it formerly was under the position he previously held, then his pension has to be deducted until the salary, plus the portion of the pension left him, equals his previous salary. There is no hardship at all. If an officer prefers to retain his pension and not take up a new position, there is no obligation on him to do so. It is unfair that an officer should be pensioned off under one authority, get a position under another, and then draw a salary and pension together, both being greatly in excess of his previous salary. That only deals with the position at the time of the passing of the Act. If more duties are added to his office his salary, of course, will be increased accordingly, irrespective of whether it brings his salary to a higher figure than what he previously had. It only deals with the transition period at the time of the coming into operation of this Act.
This section takes no account of an officer who, instead of getting a pension, receives a lump sum of, say, £600. That is a very considerable sum, and yet he would be entitled to take up a new position under this Bill. There is nothing suggested to make him pay back the £600. Some provision should be made to reduce the amount of his salary in proportion.
If the combined ingenuity of the Farmers' Party could devise a system whereby we would get back the £600, I would be delighted.
All right; wait until the Report Stage.
Refer it to the Income Tax Commission.
Under this section, suppose an officer who receives, say, £300 gets a position under another local authority worth £200, will that amount be deducted from his superannuation? In Westmeath we have a case of a doctor receiving £600 a year as superannuation. He has had that for the last ten or twelve years. Take the case that such a person has another position, how will he be circumstanced? Will the amount of salary a person earns be deducted from the amount of superannuation he receives? If an officer was in receipt of £300 per year, and got a position at £200, would the local authority only give £100 superannuation instead of £300?
I will feel obliged if the Deputy puts up the full particulars of the case. It is an interesting one.
I think the Minister has taken my illustration as a Chinese puzzle. I want to ask the Minister if an officer who is in receipt of a certain amount of superannuation from a local authority only gains the same by working as by walking around, will he do any work? If an officer is in receipt of £400 a year according to the section, will the amount of money he earned from any other local authority be deducted from the superannuation he receives? In connection with Deputy Wilson's argument to pay the £600 back, I would remind him that anyone who gets a gratuity and is out of employment will spend the gratuity.
Amendment put and declared lost.
That disposes of 73 and 74.
Question:—"That Section 42 stand part of the Bill"—put and agreed to.
SECTION 43.
(1) The amount of any allowance or gratuity granted to an officer of a committee of a county council, an urban district council, or a borough council, or to an officer of a joint committee of any two or more of such councils under this Part of this Act, shall be paid to such officer by such council or councils out of the county, district, or borough fund, as the case may be, and in the case of an officer of a joint committee in such proportions as may be agreed upon, or, in default of agreement, as may be determined by the Minister.
(2) Any sum payable under this section by a local body to an officer of a committee of that local body or of a joint committee of that and any other local body or bodies on account of any allowance or gratuity granted to him shall be raised by means of the same rate, and shall be charged upon the same area as the expenses of such committee or joint committee, and such sum shall not be reckoned for the purpose of any enactment limiting the amount of such rate.
This is an important section and provides for the funds out of which officers of committees are to be paid. It is a straight section.
Arising out of a discussion which took place here yesterday, I think sub-section 2 ought to be amended so as to make it mandatory that in the case of officers of the technical instruction committee, the allowance or gratuity to be granted shall be raised out of the same fund as that from which their salaries have been paid. It seems to me that in passing this section we can amend an omission of the Bill. Sub-section (2) says that the local bodies, paying the allowances of gratuities, shall raise such monies by means of the same rate to be charged on the same area at the expenses of such committee or joint committee. If we were to amend it so as to allow pensions or gratuities for technical officers to be paid out of the same fund from which their other charges and expenses are paid, then the objection that was raised yesterday against charging those officers' fees out of the local rate will fall. I would like to ask the Minister if he will agree to an amendment being inserted here which will have that object in view. We might do it at this stage by general consent, with the Ceann Comhairle's permission, or we might do it on the Report Stage. If we can get some expression of opinion from the Minister we would know better how to proceed.
Would the Deputy put his suggested amendment in some form of words? I am inclined to think that it would involve more than the consent he says. It would include the Minister for Finance.
The words to be inserted in Sub-section (2) are: "Or in the case of officers of any agricultural or technical instruction committee shall be charged out of the same funds as the expenses of such committee." If those words were inserted, I do not think there would be any more obligation on the Exchequer than there is in connection with any other expenses charged on that fund. It would be simply adding to the normal expenses of the technical instruction committee. They were considering those pensions and allowances as deferred pay. An annual recurring sum, paid for wages and salaries would be increased by an annual recurring sum paid for by pensions, and there would be no necessity to come for further permission to the Treasury. It is a local fund once it has reached the local body.
I do not think I can agree to that because it would be anticipating the arrival of a certain fund which varies considerably every year, and which, perhaps, might not arrive at all. I could not anticipate anything of that kind in legislation dealing with local government exclusively.
I am sorry the Minister could not see his way to consider some such proposal as Deputy Johnson put forward, because it is obvious to everyone who heard the discussion here yesterday afternoon, that it is unfair to throw the whole of the pension of the individual on to the local authority when the local authority only pays 25 per cent. of the salary. The local authority at the moment in connection with those technical officials does not pay in many cases even 25 per cent. of the salary. The effect of what has been carried will be that those local authorities will refuse in order to get out of the liability to carry out the Technical Instruction Act. Instead of any advantage accruing from the proposal, a serious injury will be done to education. That will be unfortunate. I am satisfied, as I had an opportunity of consultation with some of them since the debate yesterday, that that will be the line. They say they are empowered to devote so much to technical education. If, as a result of the passing of this measure, that money is all absorbed in providing pensions for officials engaged in technical education, there will be nothing left for technical education.
They would not strike any rate.
This is really a matter that should engage the Minister's consideration. It would be a course that would have the approval of the Deputies. The result of yesterday is going to cause grave injury to technical education.
I support this idea and I think every word Deputy Good has said is true. It is unfair to throw the full charge of the pension on the local bodies, and the effect will be that when those pensions are to be paid the fund available will be swamped. You will have all the agricultural officers coming on the local fund, and it is only reasonable that the fund which pays a certain proportion of the salary should pay also the same proportion of the pensions. I think the matter is not understood fully down the country and that the ratepayers do not know that they are liable for this impost at all.
I would also impress the Minister with the necessity of getting this paid out of the joint fund. Those technical committees down the country are apart from the elected bodies, even though they are appointed by them at first. The elected representatives do not know anything of what is going on at the meetings of the joint committee. I believe there will be an outcry all over the country if the local ratepayers are asked to pay those pensions, and I think the Minister should give an assurance to the House that he will consider this on the Report Stage.
This section dealing with technical and agricultural instructors was inserted following the wishes of the Minister for Agriculture. I do not believe he will be responsible for putting forward any suggestion that would militate against the efficient working of those officers, as he has their interests very much at heart. I realise there is a difficulty about the incidence of this particular pension, and between now and the Report Stage I will consult the Minister for Agriculture as to whether any more popular arrangement can be come to. Deputies must be aware, as I mentioned when we were discussing the principle of those officers being made pensionable, that the local authority has a choice in the matter.
Would the Minister for Education want to be brought into it?
It seems to me it is a matter for finance, and I would not like the Minister for Local Government to give a promise that a decision would be come to before the next Stage. It might involve large sums to the Exchequer. If arrangements of this nature were come to hurriedly there might be thousands of pounds expended which need not be expended, if a well-devised scheme was adopted. As far as the Ministry of Finance is concerned, it has had no opportunity of considering pensions which would be largely State-contributed pensions for those teachers.
I presume there are not so many of those going to get pensions immediately and it is not impossible to have the matter considered on another occasion. I think it would be an unsatisfactory procedure if a matter involving large financial considerations was to be put up and if people whose business it is to consider financial proposals did not have an opportunity of considering them. I think this is a matter that can be threshed out on another occasion, but I would not like to bring in a financial resolution at a few days' notice. I know people who want expenditure put through, decide the whole scheme, and send it up to the Department of Finance with the request that sanction should be given within an hour. I resist that, because where a hurried financial sanction is given, larger sums may be involved than were at first intended.
Might I point out in reply to the Minister for Finance that education is a national charge and it has been decided that technical education should become part of the work of the Ministry of Education? Why should the pensions of teachers in one department of education be paid by the State while those in another department of the same system of education are paid by the local authority? The thing is wrong in principle. I agree with the Minister that in the present straitened conditions of the finances of the country one does not want to add to the burdens if it can be avoided, but this, to my mind, is wrong in principle —putting on the local authorities a charge which we all agree should fall on the State.
I think it would be a most undesirable form of procedure to rush a charge like this on to the National Exchequer by, as it were, a side wind without it being considered by itself and found to be satisfactory. There are other teachers also under the Ministry of Education for whom we provide a graded salary scale but for whom we do not, at any rate for the present, provide a pension scheme. I think that everybody would feel that it would be unsatisfactory if in, say, a Compulsory School Attendance Bill some pension scheme for secondary teachers was rushed. I think it would be a sounder procedure to decide that the whole matter of pensions should stand over and be considered fully and completely on its merits and not brought in in this way without consideration. That sort of procedure would make it impossible to keep control over expenditure and over the balance at which we ought to aim.
I think that there is some misapprehension about this matter. As I understand the position it is this. Certain funds coming from the State and certain funds coming from the local authority go to meet the costs of agricultural and technical instruction in particular districts. If it is decided that in those particular districts certain persons should be pensioned, according to the proposal of the Minister it would seem that a new rate would have to be levied in these districts to provide pensions. The natural thing that should occur is that the additional sum of money available would become a burden on the State. I agree with the Minister that it would be foolish to say that the whole expense should be borne by the State.
Will the Minister tell us whether in the case of technical instruction expenditure it is necessary for him to sanction all the items in the same way that he would sanction the expenditure of any other Department? I am surprised if that is so. I am surprised if the Minister for Finance is called upon to sanction the expenditure, say, in salaries of the officers of the Department of Technical Instruction. If that is not so we are not asking him to introduce any new principle or at least, he is asking us to introduce, or he is taking upon himself the power to introduce, a new principle that is to interfere with the expenditure of the joint committee, the local authority, and what was the Department of Agriculture. The proposals in the Bill surely are to be considered in the same light as salaries and payments given to officers of that department, and, if in the apportionment of a scheme of working for a particular year, their salaries, travelling expenses, and various other items that go to make up a scheme of expenditure, and if the addition to that is a certain sum for pensions, surely that would not bring it into the purview of the Ministry of Finance if all the other items have not already been within his purview.
The case for putting down the funds to be locally expended by these authorities seems to me to be unanswerable, and why it should require special sanction by the Minister for Finance, when the salaries themselves do not require that special sanction I cannot understand.
I am not raising the question of the sanction of the Minister for Finance, but I think there ought to be fair consideration allowed to the Minister for Finance for all proposals involving expenditure. It is only by giving such consideration that that expenditure can be controlled. A proposal like this, putting a heavy charge on State funds, ought to be reasonably considered. The endowment of the Department of Agriculture does not meet the expense of the activities that stand against it. That endowment fund has to be supplemented. Any general charges laid on this fund will have to be met ultimately by an increased vote of the Oireachtas. If you have a pension charge there is not going to be a reduction of other expenses, as that charge would be an additional one. I think, as a matter of fact, it would be a much more satisfactory thing to postpone the consideration of pensions altogether, and let this be considered fairly and squarely as a matter by itself, rather than have it prejudiced by having it brought forward as a side line.
Question—"That Section 43 stand part of the Bill"—put and agreed to.
SECTION 44.
(1) This Part of this Act shall apply to any officer of a local body who is or was after the 6th day of December, 1922, appointed to a permanent situation in the Civil Service of the Government of Saorstát Eireann, the duties of which relate to the same matters as the duties of his office under such local body, and who thereupon resigns or resigned such office, as if such officer had resigned such office after attaining the age of sixty-five years, and having at least twenty years' service; but any allowance granted to such an officer by virtue of this section shall not be paid unless and until such officer is removed from the said Civil Service for a cause other than misconduct or incapacity or resigns from the said Civil Service with the consent of the Minister for Finance.
(2) The powers of a local body to grant an allowonce by virtue of this section to an officer who resigned his office before the passing of this Act may be exercised at any time not more than three months from the passing of this Act.
I do not think that there will be much discussion on this section. The object is to ensure that where the State finds that there is a servant of a local authority who can give conspicuous service to the State in any capacity, as a result of his experience with the local authority, such officer should be available to the State. The State could take him without depriving him of his pension rights. In many cases it was found that men with such experience would lose their rights to pension if taken over by the central authority, and that that prevented them giving service to the State. I think it is in the interests of all parties that this difficulty should be got over and that officers who leave local authorities to take service under the State should be allowed to get pensions under the local authority. This section provides for that, but, of course, they do not become pensionable until their term of office under the State has expired. Then their pensionable rights under local authorities will be revived.
Will the Minister say why it is thought necessary to put in the limit of the 6th December, 1922? I understand that there are some officers in the service at present who were taken over a few years before that. Is there any reason why these officers would not have the right given to those taken over since the 6th December, 1922? I know that there are two or three agricultural instructors who were taken into the central office before that date.
The Constitution came into effect on that date.
Does the Minister say that he could not go back further than December, 1922? I do not see that it would be contrary to the Constitution if he did so, and I would like the Ceann Comhairle's opinion on that.
The Ceann Comhairle has no opinion on that.
Do I understand that the position is that an officer with long service, before being taken over under this section, will not get any credit for service previous to December, 1922? Does an officer, say, with ten years' service get no credit?
If he is taken over after that date all his previous service would count for pension rights.
There was an argument a little while ago put up by the Minister on the question of a servant under a Northern authority being taken into the service of a Southern authority. The Minister in that case said that the new authority would take into account his qualifications in fixing the salary, but that his service in the Northern authority ought not to be considered in fixing his pension. Surely that will apply in this case? Surely the central authority taking over the service of a man from the local authority will take into account his service with that body?
I think we will leave the Minister to answer that to-morrow.
Progress ordered to be reported.
