It is very difficult to understand the unnecessary haste displayed in rushing through a Pension Bill which concerns only two individuals. It is all the more difficult when we observe there is a great deal of reluctance on the part of the same Minister to bring forward a Bill, which he promised a long time ago, to provide pensions for the dependents of those who lost their lives defending the State. I have been told—my information may be wrong—that one of the individuals this Bill concerns, who would be entitled to a pension if he looked for one, is a very disobedient citizen of the Government. I cannot conceive a man who does not recognise the present Government looking for a pension from the State. I would like to know if that is the actual position regarding one of the two individuals concerned, and what is the attitude of the Ministry going to be if such individual makes a formal application for a pension.
I think the Minister who wields the sledge-hammer so far as finance is concerned, should offer to the men who risked their lives under exceptional circumstances—qualified men, I am sure— positions under the Government. He might have saved the money that has been spent in the printing of a document like this Bill, which deals with such a small number of persons.
Not many months ago I spoke in favour of paying pensions to people who risked their lives and lost their jobs defending the State. They have not jobs even yet to go into. I was told in a callous manner by the Minister for Justice that many of those people were lucky they did not get 6 feet by 2½ feet. I wonder if his mind travels in the same direction with regard to the individuals he is now pleading for, or is his argument in favour of paying pensions to people who are professional men—and who ought, if they are qualified, to have a practice at the Bar today—simply because they are belonging to a professional class? He is, if he proceeds on that line, advocating pensions on a class basis.
The Minister for Finance really based his whole case for this Bill on the statement that these men's services to the State cannot be well estimated. Surely, the service given by the men who lost their lives, or risked their lives, in defending the State, should be entitled to greater consideration?
I think it speaks badly for the Minister, who is holding up at the present time a Bill that should have passed through this House, that he should ask the Dáil now to pass a pension Bill for one or two individuals who are in the prime of life, while we have, as many Deputies know, the widows and children of men who lost their lives in the service of the State starving or depending on charitable institutions. I think that is not a state of affairs that can be commended to the Minister. In other Bills that were brought before this House the basis of pension, so far as the mind of the Ministry went, was that no man, particularly in the case of the Local Government Bill and the Railways Act, was entitled to a pension unless he had ten years' actual service. If he had ten years, or over, of actual service, so many years were added for pensionable purposes.
I assume that the actual service of the individuals who are likely to be concerned with the passing of this Bill does not exceed two, three or four years, perhaps two years. Clause 2 of the Bill states:—"(1) The Minister for Justice may, with the sanction of the Minister for Finance, grant to any person who held office as a judge of the Dáil Supreme Court a pension for life at such rate as the Minister for Justice shall, with the sanction of the Minister for Finance, think proper...." I wonder what is in the minds of the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Finance as to what is a proper pension for a person with two years' actual service in these circumstances. I think we are entitled to know whether it is the intention of the Minister to give two-thirds of the salary which was given for a life position, as a pension to people who will still have their practice at the Bar and who should be eligible for positions under the Free State Government as Circuit Court or Supreme Judges. If these individuals were qualified and willing at a particular time, at great risk, as the Minister stated, to undertake these duties, surely they are equally willing and should be as well qualified to take positions under the Free State Government that they, perhaps, more than anybody else, helped to set up. I think the whole principle of the Bill is bad, and I think the Minister, if we are to rely on the statement he made on moving the Second Reading, has not justified the Bill so far as the Dáil is concerned.