The occasion that this Bill provides for discussing general questions might have been taken advantage of on the Resolution stage, but, by an understanding, it was agreed that at this stage of the Bill we might raise questions of general interest. I gave a kind of informal notice that I intended to raise the question of Unemployment Insurance and economic questions arising out of the unemployment that is rife in the country. The White Paper that has been circulated in reference to the Vote on Account has given rise to a certain amount of misapprehension which, I think, it is well to clear up. Comparisons have been made in the Press regarding the reduction in the Estimates, and while it is true that on the White Paper there is a comparison drawn between the total Estimate for the year 1924-25 and the total Estimate for the year 1925-26, showing a considerable reduction, it has not been noted, though I think it ought to be noted, that the total Estimate, as originally presented a year ago, was considerably less than the total Estimate indicated in the White Paper as having been passed throughout the year. The sum of £1,200,000, or round about it, is the difference, and that is accounted for mainly by Supplementary Estimates. Now we know in the Estimates that have been presented in the White Paper, and in the provisionally detailed lists of Estimates —in the advanced proof of them which is subject to correction—that there is a reduction in the estimate for building houses, in the estimate for unemployment, and in the estimate for relief, and I wonder whether there is any good reason to anticipate—it is this point that I want to dwell upon—that no Supplementary Estimates will be needed in respect of these three classes of services—Unemployment Insurance, relief schemes and housing. Speaking of housing, last year's Estimate showed a total of £587,000, partly accounted for by the balance out of the grant of £1,000,000 to municipal authorities and £206,000 under last year's Act.
Now we know that a great proportion of that sum of £587,000 has not been spent, and that, therefore, it will come back into the Exchequer at the end of this month. The total amount in the present year's Estimates for housing purposes is £330,000. That may be utilised within the year. I think it will, because of the rather generous terms and of the very effective inducement that, I think, there will be to builders to build. In respect of relief schemes, mainly road-making schemes, last year a Supplementary Estimate of £250,000 was voted. This year the total Estimate for relief schemes is £110,000. I think we are entitled to have some information at this stage as to whether it is believed that £110,000 will constitute the total requirements in respect of relief schemes as from the 1st April. If the Minister can give us any satisfactory evidence which will reassure the Dáil and the country that the state of employment and the prospects for employment are so good that none of these Estimates is likely to be increased by a Supplementary Estimate, then we shall all have reason for gratitude.
In respect to Unemployment Insurance, the position as I understand it is that last year there was a total of £329,000 put down in the original Estimate and there was a Supplementary Estimate of £176,000, making a total of £505,000, so that in the White Paper this year's Estimate of £366,000 shows a reduction on the total Estimate of the year of £139,000. I take it that that is made up in the main of the non-repetition of the funds set apart for soldiers who had not been insured—a total of £135,000. I take it that in the working out of the Unemployment Insurance scheme these ex-soldiers, who were not hitherto insured, will now be left uninsured and not entitled to any benefit unless they have had an opportunity of fulfilling all the requirements by paying into an Insurance Fund and coming into benefit.
I was disturbed, and I am not yet satisfied by the explanation given by the Minister as to his views in regard to the Unemployment Insurance Scheme. He said that the fund was in debt to the extent of over £1,000,000, and following on earlier predictions, he appeared to hold the view that it could no longer be considered insurance, and could hardly be considered an advance which might ultimately be repaid. It suggested itself to me that his contemplation was that there was not to be any extension of the Unemployment Insurance provision because of that fact. But, then, he suggested that the state of employment was such as to have brought into benefit a much larger number of insured persons than was the case when the last Act was passed, and that, therefore, there was no necessity, or he hoped there would be no necessity for it, when his figures were made known.
Well, I do not know on what he is basing his expectations. It may be that the relief schemes and their operation have affected the financial situation of the insured persons very greatly, but I want to restate what I stated before, that the residue of persons who are going to be out of benefit, even though it is reduced very considerably, is just going to suffer as much from the horrors of continuous unemployment, and if the insurance scheme is not bettered, not altered, and not increased in respect to these persons, their state of want will be just as great even though they are smaller in number than was the case six months ago. A man is just as hungry standing alone as he would be if he were in the company of twenty-five others in the same position. I want to impress upon the Minister that this question of the reinsuring—I am not now speaking in a technical sense—the bringing into benefit and making available for benefit moneys to meet the cases of men who have been continuously unemployed and out of strict benefit under the present Act, is important and urgent, and it ought to be faced at once, if provision is to be made for that class of person.
Undoubtedly we are all anxious that people should not have to rely on Unemployment Insurance, whether it is strictly insurance, or whether it is uncovenanted benefit. We do not want that to continue for any person, or any group of persons, any longer than is absolutely necessary, but it is the lesser of two evils. It is much better than that thousands of men should be left without either insurance or employment, and while we are all anxious that the provision of employment should be the first aim, then failing the provision of employment, we must provide something in the nature of insurance. The Minister admitted, in the discussion six months ago and also within the last few days, that it is very difficult to understand the real position regarding unemployed persons and their relation to insurance, the amount of benefit that they are entitled to, the numbers of persons who have a claim upon the funds, and the number of weeks which that claim will be valid. We had some figures a week or two ago from the Minister with respect to the number of persons unemployed on the 23rd February this year. The number of persons registered for unemployment was 53,000; that is to say, 43,700 men, 7,900 women, 518 boys, and 882 girls. That gives a total of 53,000 persons in the Saorstát registered as unemployed, but the figures are not available giving the number of unregistered wage-earners who are unemployed, and there is not sufficient material to get an estimate of their number.
I am not going to lay any stress upon the numbers that may be unemployed, but not registered as such. Let us take the figure of 53,000 in relation to the total number of insured persons which I put at 265,000 or thereabouts. We have a total of 20 per cent., one in every five persons registered as insured who were, in fact, on that date out of employment. That is a very terrible state of things, no doubt, and we have not had any information to give us any reassurance that would be needed to justify our assuming that those provisions contained in the White Paper are going to be sufficient. If the Minister could give us an assurance in that respect, I think it would be well that he should give it. The fourth benefit year expired on the 25th of this month. From now onward insured persons will be entitled to the maximum benefit of fifteen weeks out of the twenty-nine weeks up to the 16th October. That maximum can only be received provided that there is a sufficient credit on the insured person's card to entitle him to that, and he will have to have had a considerable reserve accumulated during the war period to entitle him to that maximum benefit. It was, I think, suggested some time ago that possibly one-half or two-thirds of the insured persons might be entitled to that amount of benefit if they were continuously employed, but that left one-third, or roughly about 20,000, who could only claim benefit for varying periods of from one to ten weeks, and there has been a continuous state of unemployment and very many thousands of people, unfortunately, have been unemployed continuously, and unless we can see definite signs of renewed activity they will continue to be unemployed for some time. Many men may run out of benefit in two or three weeks, but in three or four or five weeks' time, we will find complaints that, for some reason or other, they have run out of benefit, that they are not now getting any benefit, and consequently that they are left stranded, and are unable to maintain themselves and their families out of any remuneration they may receive from any source, because they have no benefit accumulated. That simply means steady deterioration in physical ability and in moral strength; it means the steady depletion of such home reserves as many men may have had; it means the gradual increase in the number of visits to the pawn shop, and in every way leads to demoralisation and to the sapping of the physical and moral strength of that element of the community.
I believe we ought to make sure, and we ought to face it at this stage, that there will have to be further provision made to keep men in benefit. On this question of unemployment, and the number of unemployed, I want to refer particularly, because of the matters that we were discussing in the course of the Housing Bill debate, to the number of persons unemployed in the building trade. I have some figures which show that in December last, notwithstanding the Housing Act of last year, there were in the Free State, amongst the various trades, 2,221 skilled men unemployed out of a total of 8,900, or 25 per cent. —plumbers, carpenters, painters, plasterers, bricklayers.
