I agree with the opinion voiced by Deputies Johnson and Morrissey as to the great hardship that this Bill is going to inflict on a very large number of people. I would not go so far as to say that the Minister did not know the exact position that will be brought about by the Bill when in operation. If the Minister had accepted some amendments which were moved with regard to the position of workmen under the different councils, he would have received congratulation. But he has not accepted any of these amendments. No matter how many years a workman may have been in the service of a council he is denied the right of being provided for in his old age. If he has not the educational qualifications to enable him to become an official—it does not matter what his skill is in his own trade—he is not entitled to any superannuation. It is really unjust to have treated people in that way. I quite agree with Deputy Morrissey when he said that the workers were looking forward to something better at the hands of their own Government, which they have looked forward to for many years. The first Local Government Bill passed by their own Government places them in a worse position than any legislation passed by a foreign Government. The Minister has defended the Bill exceedingly well from his own point of view, and I am sure he got valuable assistance from his officials. There is no doubt that it took a long time to draft such a Bill as this, particularly, as the Minister, you might say, was only an infant in his position.
INTOXICATING LIQUOR (GENERAL) BILL, 1924. - LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL, 1924 (FIFTH STAGE RESUMED).
Enfant terrible!
Still, he was so "crabbed" that he was able to defeat every amendment put forward, of course on the advice of the officials who, themselves, are entitled to superannuation under the Bill. I want to tell the Minister that I think, instead of being congratulated, a very small number of the Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies who voted against all the amendments, and in favour of the Bill, will be returned after the next election. It was not a question at all of the poor man; it was a question of catering for a particular class. The Government should have acted in a real democratic manner when introducing legislation that affects so many people. By the middle of January or February, we will have hundreds of people thrown out of employment and without any prospects. Urban councils will be without representation on county boards of health, as amendments providing for their representation were not accepted. The Minister may say that urban districts have representation and that the Bill provides for the representation of each electoral area on the boards of health. If the county council happens to be controlled by a particular party, some districts will not get representation on such boards and poor people living in urban districts will have no one to look after their interests. The Minister would not accept an amendment by which, at least, one member would be appointed to represent urban councils on boards of health. Even at the eleventh hour I would be inclined to ask the Dáil to show what they think of the Bill by rejecting it.
Like my colleagues, I regret that such a Bill as this should have reached the final stage without any serious amendment. Under this Bill the Minister takes to himself powers which he and his colleagues would have condemned in all moods and tenses under the British regime. The Dáil has almost passed a Bill now that, if the Irish Party had acquiesced in five years ago, in the British House of Commons, we would have been using the councils that the Minister has scrapped to condemn. To my mind, it silences the voice of the people. It gives the Minister power to become an autocrat so far as the public boards are concerned. Various amendments were put forward from this side of the Dáil, from the human point of view, because we are in touch, week after week and day after day, with the common people who are at the moment starving. Amendments were put forward here with a view to getting urban representation upon county boards of health, but the Minister scoffed at the idea. He did not appear to give the question the serious consideration it required.
We gave special instances of what, in our opinion, would happen when the new boards of health were set up, and if I am not greatly mistaken the Minister will have these results brought home to him during the next twelve months. I have in mind at present the town of Wexford, where 600 people are receiving home help. I would ask the Minister how he could expect one man, no matter what his ability may be, to cope with the demands for home help made in that or a similar sized town.
An amendment was also sent forward from those benches asking for pensions for workers. We also suggested that workers were prepared to pay a certain contribution week after week while they were working in order to become entitled to pensions, after long service, or when they were incapacitated. The Minister also scoffed at that and said that these people were in a privileged position. I would like to know what more privileged position have these unfortunate people over the privileged position that the officials have? There were fifteen section in the Bill devoted to the provision of pensions for officers, and I want to know what answer can the Minister give as to why he discriminates between the officer and the ordinary working man.
Some years ago, as Deputy Morrissey pointed out—I think it was in the first Dail—when the President was asked to give an indication of his policy—as anyone who takes the trouble to read the debates will see— the workers were promised everything on God's earth. Now at the first opportunity that the Irish Government gets, it completely ignores the cry of the worker to be treated the same as officials or other classes in this country. I am still waiting for an answer from the Minister as to why he should discriminate between the ordinary worker who has to wield a brush and the man who has to push a pen. I do not think it is unreasonable at this stage that we should demand what the General Council of Municipal Councils —which is by no means a labour body —and the General Council of County Council—which by no stretch of the imagination could be called a labour body—have unanimously demanded that the Government should include ordinary manual workers within the scope of the Bill, so that they may be given pensions.
The Minister ignored that, and as I said he did not make any effort to answer the arguments either put forward by these bodies or by Deputies on this side of the House. As I said, I am sorry this Bill has arrived at this stage without any serious amendment, and I believe that the Minister is going to have great trouble during the next twelve months in so far as the clauses which affect the provision of outdoor relief are concerned. Of course I know the Minister will say that this Bill does not deal with the provision of outdoor relief, but it certainly deals with the machinery to administer that, and in that case I believe I am perfectly entitled to deal with it. I only want to say further, that the abolition of district councils is a retrograde step, and I believe that the Government party, when they face the country at the next election, will feel it.
I agree with what Deputy Morrissey has said in regard to this Bill. At the same time there is one redeeming feature about the Bill and that is the appointment of a whole-time Medical Officer for each county to look after the housing of the poor, but I fail to see or I do not understand what institution he will have to report to, in order to deal with the repairing, the abolition, or the building of houses instead of these old houses. It is a disgrace to the country, bad as the country is, bad as hunger is, bad as want of fuel is, to see people living in houses covered with what? With stuff that is only for manuring crops. This is put on the tops of houses, and conveys water in on top of poor children. What can you expect in regard to the health of the families in these houses? I do not agree with the Bill. I do not agree with the abolition of the rural councils, but at the same time I am forced to agree with the appointment of a whole-time Medical Officer, and the sooner he comes the better and the sooner he abolishes these incubators of consumption throughout the country country the better it will be for the country.
Like many other Deputies, I wish to register my condemnation of this Bill before it passes its final stage. It is, undoubtedly, the Bill of the dictator. It is not a democratic measure, for the very first thing it attempts to do in its first clause is to tear from the people their lawful right, their right to have local representation in accordance with their own will and wish. It is, too, true that if the abolition of rural district councils were attempted during the British regime we would have heard it used as a weapon on every political platform throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, not alone here but in Northern Ireland. When we get rid of that regime or believed that we were rid of it, we discover a far worse administration before us. We find an extinction of the peoples' rights forced upon the people without their consent, and I certainly must say that it was the duty of the Minister or the party of which he is a member, to have put this particular matter before the electorate when they sought election. We cannot view with any great pride administration of this kind, particularly when we look back into what has been known in this country as the darker history of foreign rule, when that foreign authority thought it well to give to the people of Ireland complete control over local administration, and when to-day we find ourselves confronted with the fact that a native Government that has declared itself, time and time again to be a patriotic Irish national adherent of democracy, tearing from the people that right that was given to them by a foreign authority. There is no doubt about it some serious consideration will be given to this matter by the people throughout the Saorstát when the time for the next General Election comes, and I certainly believe, to a large extent, the prophecy of Deputy Lyons will come about. I do not like to prophesy myself, but I believe it will have an effect in that direction.
In relation to the clauses dealing with pensions, I cannot see that anything in the nature of honest democratic administration or legislation is to be found owing to the fact that the manual worker who has been a slave of the public authorities in all weathers, on all days and at all times of the year, is to be left out in the cold while the happy and comfortable, high-salaried official is to receive a pension. I asked during the discussion on the amendment proposed by Deputy Morrissey, that pensions should be paid to road workers, some guarantee from the Minister that the manual worker under the Local Authority should get a gratuity, that legislation would be brought in whereby that manual worker should get a gratuity or pension when his years of toil had come to an end.
When the Minister was replying, he nicely and gently evaded that point. He did not say whether he would bring in legislation that would give gratuities or pensions to these unfortunate workers. No, because, they were, as was stated during that debate, made of different clay to the high salaried official who was the son of some well-off farmer or business man, who had plenty of means behind him and who was not at all dependant upon superannuation or pension. The Minister never during the discussion on all the stages of the Bill, declared that he was willing to assist in any degree to lighten the lot of the unfortunate manual worker under the Local Authorities, or gave the slightest hint that anything at all was in his mind in relation to the lightening of that burden. I cannot agree with him either in relation to the administration of home help in so far as he has refused to form Local Committees to advise in the administration of home help to the destitute poor. He has found it convenient to evade that point also, simply because we here on these Benches or I, for one at all events, take it that in his mind the destitute poor are an incumbrance on the nation, that they should be allowed to starve, and the sooner that they are got rid of the better for national prosperity. I take it that is the Minister's idea. This centralisation of administration has been leading us, and will lead us into muddles and difficulties of all kinds.
To-day we find ourselves confronted with greater and more rigid amalgamation, accompanied by the extermination of the people's right to honest and democratic representation. We were told, time and time again, we have heard it on every political platform, that the Government of the present day stood for all the people of the country, not for any particular class or section, but we have discovered that the Minister has found it convenient to administer in the interests of the privileged few, in the interests of a class, to the detriment of the masses, and it is only fair that some protest should be registered on the passing of the Bill. It is also desirable that the Minister would make some announcement as to his intentions in the future in regard to bringing in a measure to make manual workers under local authorities pensionable. Deputies on the Farmers' Benches, who claim to represent the ratepayers, will undoubtedly protest against this. But when their own brothers or sons, who are the officials of local authorities, receiving high salaries, are looking forward to their time of resignation from these important positions to draw superannuation, these Deputies sit mute and say naught.
It appears to me that with the exception of the Labour Deputies there is no one to stand up in defence of the unfortunate manual worker, and the Minister's pledges, I might say the pledges of the Government as a whole, that they were to do great things for the workers, to better their lot, so that they could find an easier and better means of living opened up, and a better standard of education, were all camouflage, and a means to lead them further into misery, privation and hardship. Ministers may laugh; they may smile at these things; privation and hardship do not enter into their homes nor do they affect any of their friends. They certainly affect the people whom I refer to, and they are in the hearts of their homes. It is all very fine to jeer with sneers and cant words at the destitution and suffering of a very large proportion of our people, but I say that it is not gentlemanly nor human, and certainly it is not fitting on the part of any man who declares himself to be a humanitarian. The Minister may sneer at all these things, but let him remember that the people he is now sneering at are not the Deputies on these benches; they are the people outside, and when he gets up again on a platform in the open, I hope that he will say: "Your sufferings, your privations, and your hardships are all the result of my administration, and I laugh, and laugh heartily, at all the sufferings and hardship that you endure," and that he will not try to mislead the people by making false promises.
I do not intend to follow the example set by Deputy Lyons and Deputy Johnson in making Second Reading speeches, or by Deputy Morrissey in making an election address, or by Deputy Hall in preaching a sermon.
What is the Fifth Stage for?
I have too much respect for the time of Deputies to take up so much of it at this stage, on the Fifth Reading of the Bill.
What is the Fifth Stage for?
Deputy Johnson has repeated one of the arguments used against the Bill, that it is centralising all the services under one authority. It is really more a decentralising Bill than a centralising Bill, because it gives more power to the county councils than they had before, and ample provision is made for all local services and needs by the setting up of committees, which will give local people a great deal more control over these services than they had under existing Acts. The one weakness in the Bill, from my point of view, is that it has been too conciliatory in its character; I have tried to please everybody. I have been met very fairly in my attempts to do so by every party in the Dáil except the party on the opposite benches. The representatives of the Farmers, the Independents, and others represented here, have been very fair, and have shown a very reasonable attitude in regard to this Bill, which is really in the nature of a non-contentious measure. A great many things could have been put into it to satisfy the Farming and the Independent interests; I might have insisted upon a limitation of the franchise, or something of that kind, which would be very reasonable.
You might go too far.
None of these Deputies had attempted to hold up the Bill and to harass me because I did not meet them on every point on which they considered they had a claim to insist on my meeting them, and the only party that tried to hold it up was the party opposite.
On a point of order. Did we try to hold up the Bill? We only tried to amend it.
That is a question of fact, and not a point of order.
I will leave that to the judgment of the people in the House, and outside the House.
Who read the debates.
They are quite capable of forming a judgment on that matter. At all events I have tried to be reasonable. I have conceded more to Labour Deputies than to any others, and I have received very little thanks for doing so. One matter is commented upon more than any other, and that is with regard to not pensioning ordinary workers under local authorities. I explained, at the outset, that this Bill was an attempt to codify the law with regard to superannuation. There was no attempt in the Bill to bring in new classes of officers, or to make people pensionable who were not pensionable at the time of the passing of the Act. The reason it was absolutely necessary to insist on that——
The Minister has made a statement that the Bill was not intended to make pensionable anyone who heretofore had not been drawing pension. What about the officials of the Technical Instruction Committees?
Those officers were pensionable heretofore. There was no breach of precedent in that.
Were they pensionable under the local authorities?
Yes. Owing to the position of the ratepayers, I could not agree to increase the pension list. Deputy Morrissey has attacked me rather bitterly for not bringing forward some scheme of superannuation for the ordinary workers. If Deputy Morrissey can formulate such a scheme himself on a contributory system—it will take a great deal of time and quite a lot of ability on the part of himself and his colleagues to do so—and if he will bring in that Bill under circumstances that will not increase the present unemployment in the country and will not put such a burden on the ratepayers as will make it impossible for them to carry on, I would be prepared to receive his proposals very favourably.
You ask me to bring in a Bill and you proceed to make it impossible for me to bring it in. If the Minister says he will give the Bill his support, I will bring it in.
The Deputy is not prepared to do that himself, but he is anxious to throw on me all the odium for not doing a thing which he knows in his heart is absolutely impossible. Those people were not pensionable in the past, for the good reason that it was not possible to make them pensionable. It is not fair to hold me responsible for the state of affairs which existed and to accuse me of making invidious distinction between those who labour with the pen and those who labour with the shovel.
Is the Minister prepared to alter the law, in fact, to what it was believed to be before the special opinion of the law authorities of the Government was received, so as to allow councils to pension incapacitated and aged servants?
The Deputy refers to a point which only affected seven employees during a period of 60 years. The law, as administered in those particular cases, was submitted to the highest judicial authority and it was found to be unsound. It is outside my scope altogether to deal with that decision.
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Earnán de Blaghd.Seoirse de Bhulbh.Próinsias Bulfin.Séamus de Búrca.John J. Cole.Máighréad Ní Choiléain Bean Uí Dhrisceóil.Patrick J. Egan.Desmond Fitzgerald.John Good.John Hennigan.William Hewitt.Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.Patrick McGilligan.Patrick McKenna.Ristéard Mac Liam.Seoirse Mac Niocaill.Liam Mac Sioghaird.Liam Mac Aonghusa.John T. Nolan.Michael K. Noonan. |
Peadar O hAodha.Mícheál O hAonghusa.Criostóir O Broin.Seán O Bruadair.Risteárd O Conaill.Conchubhar O Conghaile. Séamus N. O Doláin.Mícheál O Dubhghaill.Peadar S. O Dubhghaill.Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.Eámon S. O Dúgáin.Donchadh S. O Gúaire.Séamus O LeadáinFionán O Loingsigh.Pádraic O Máille.Risteárd O Maolcatha.Pádraig O hOgáin (Gaillimh).Aindriú O'Shaughnessy.Caoimhghín O hUigín.Liam Thrift.Nicholas Wall. |
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Séamus Eabhróid.David Hall.Séamus Mac Cosgair.Tomás Mac Eoin.Risteárd Mac Fheorais.Pádraig Mac Fhlannchadha.Ailfrid O Broin. |
Liam O Daimhín.Eamon O Dubhghaill.Seán O Laidhin.Tadhg P. O Murchadha.Domhnall O Muirgheasa.Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár). |