I feel that the impression the Minister has created by his reliance on figures and moneys which have been voted and which he hopes will be expended during the coming financial year, and the figures he has given regarding the unemployment insurance fund, about the condition in the rural areas, show that he has had, perhaps inevitably, to rely upon the mere statistical side of the reports which are made available and, if I may say so, he has failed to realise or to understand the problems that we are trying to raise and put before the House. The matter raised appertains to unemployment insurance, and the Minister, quite rightly, has examined unemployment insurance, the state of the fund, the effect of the very heavy drain upon the fund, the fact that that cannot continue on the present basis— all that, no doubt, is very true, and quite correct as an argument. But unfortunately the unemployed man does not examine finance accounts and does not understand the difference between unemployment insurance funds and payments out of State funds; the man who is unemployed knows he has paid a certain contribution for years and that that contribution was increased and that it remains a very high contribution, and he believes that at any rate the organised community, the State, made provision for assistance to him in times of trouble and in times of unemployment.
Now it is quite understandable that actuaries and the book-keeping department and the Minister reading statistics will agree that the unemployment insurance fund is no longer solvent and that you cannot consider this matter of extended unemployment benefit as insurance benefit. As I say, that is not understood by the unemployed man. But suppose there had been no unemployment insurance scheme of any kind. Supposing it had been maintained in the restricted sense it was when it originally began. I think I asked this question last night: what would be the attitude of the State to large numbers of unemployed men? There would no doubt be some relief scheme and attempts at relieving the pressure of unemployment through relief schemes. Whenever that position had been taken up in the past there was no doubt a great deal of condemnation of relief schemes because of the effect of relief schemes. Some of the wrongful methods of the old relief schemes have been avoided in the recent ones, but notwithstanding relief schemes and the utmost that was done by relief schemes in the days gone by there was always a large number of men who were not able to get any advantage out of relief schemes and who suffered severely from unemployment and who deteriorated morally as well as physically. If the Minister had had that particular kind of experience he would know that in pre-unemployment insurance days in bad times, relief schemes would benefit a certain number, but that very large numbers of other people never got advantage out of relief schemes if only by virtue of their physical incapacity. It is said, of course, with a great deal of force, that all types and conditions of men with all kinds of experience were taken out of trades and called up during the war and put into the trenches and after a few hours' or a few days' or a few weeks' training became competent at any kind of physical labour. No doubt that is true and it teaches a lesson. If you propose to take a clerk or a watchmaker or a bootmaker or a saddler or any one of the various types of skilled workmen, perhaps the man working partly mentally or in a sedentary occupation who has been living at a certain rate and put him to road work, the usual kind of work done in relief schemes, there is hesitation and a natural hesitation on the part of the unemployed man to take that work for a considerable time. That hesitation is natural because the workman feels that he has hope—and a very good thing for him that he has hope, and that if he goes to road-making and hard physical labour he may become fit for it in three or four weeks' time, but the very act of fitting himself for physical labour unfits him for the skilled work that he has been used to. That is an aspect of this relief work that must be taken account of by the Minister, and it is an explanation of why relief work in the past before unemployment insurance was introduced was never fit for a big proportion of unemployed men.
What I want to say to the Ministry is that they have inherited a certain standard of social legislation regarding the State and the individual. One of the expectations is that the unemployed workman would at least be tided over a period of difficulty, and we are unfortunately continuing to bear the brunt of an abnormal period of unemployment which the ordinary insurance scheme does not meet. But the unemployment insurance idea is, I believe, a good one, and we ought not to think of it as being something that should be thrown overboard. I want to suggest that what the Minister ought to do, apart from relief schemes, is to keep this unemployment insurance scheme in funds, to continue unemployment insurance benefit during the period of unemployment, and in order to avoid the risk of absolute insolvency, to make a grant to that fund. I do not know what sum would be required. Perhaps £100,000, perhaps £200,000 would be all that would be required. But if the question of insolvency is the trouble, the insolvency can be got over. I would say that loans to the unemployment fund, even though it will not bear them on the present rates, may have to be repaid at higher rates when prosperous times come. I would go so far as to say it is far better that the present unemployed people in the country should be maintained in some kind of insurance, even if in a year or two years' time, when trade is better, when we hope that the country's condition will be vastly improved, it is found necessary still further to increase the contribution.
I said that the Ministry had entered into an inheritance, and part of that inheritance was the unemployment insurance scheme, that system of social legislation which included unemployment insurance. I think it is very regrettable that we are steadily throwing overboard the advantages in the matter of social legislation that accrued to the working people and the poor. It is said, of course, that the country is not fitted to bear the cost of this social legislation which we inherited; that it is too expensive, that the country cannot afford to be as liberal in regard to social benefits as was possible when Ireland and Great Britain were legislatively united. Of course it is said that there are many other aspects of social and political life which have been at too high a standard, but I think it is not unfair to draw attention to this, that in the sphere of legislation, in so far as we have interfered with the social legislation that came down to us we have only interfered in the way of cutting off benefits that affected the poor. Perhaps I am going a little too far. We did pass a Rent Restriction Act which was a better Act than we inherited for the householder and the rent payer. That is undoubtedly a fact. We have legislated in respect to poor law. Some claim that that was a benefit to the poor. The belief however is very widespread that so far from that being a benefit to the poor it was a disadvantage. It took away from the poor much of that benefit which they had hitherto been able to look for. We altered the pensions for the old and blind to the detriment of the poor.
We are now altering the social legislation respecting unemployment, or, shall I give way to the Minister and say that we are refusing to continue the extensions which, had we not had the political changes that have been made, would have been continued. So that in respect to the aged, in respect to the poor, working through the poor law, and in respect to unemployment insurance—those three departments of social life which affected the poor people, the working-class population—we have legislated and are legislating to the detriment of the poor as compared with that which they were able to command or, if one might say, which they enjoyed in pre-Treaty days. That is not anything to be proud of. It is certainly something to be sorry for when one looks at the effects of our legislation and that we have not legislated to deprive, to anything like the same degree, any other section of the community of the advantages of pre-Treaty legislation. A good deal has been said about unemployment and the remedies for it, and the absorption into occupations of the unemployed by the promotion of industry, the expenditure of moneys in one direction or another. One or two Deputies have attempted to allocate the blame for the present state of the Labour market, the glut of supply, shall I say, or the absence of the demand for labour. With regard to the question I have raised I am not going to contend with anybody at this moment as to whether employers are responsible to any greater degree than the trade unions, whether the investing public are responsible to as great a degree as either, whether trade unions or employers, or both are equally responsible. I am not asking in this matter for any allocation of blame. I am prepared to say, if you like, and if it is worth anything, "let us put the whole of the blame on to the trade unions." Supposing that were true, still there are unemployed men in large numbers, and we as a legislative assembly, particularly the Executive Council, have some responsibility, I submit, for caring for the livelihood of these men who, from the fault, if you like, of the trade unions, or the employers, or anyone else, are not in a position to be masters of their own destiny in the matter of employment. They cannot go to a factory and say, "I am going to work on this job." They cannot go to a farm and say, "I am going to work this land for myself." As I said last night, they are disinherited. They have no resources except employment, and I submit that we are bound to make some provision for maintaining them. The question, then, is what provision? Is it to be through the poor law system? I wonder does anybody maintain at this time that that is the best system to rely upon to ensure the maintenance of physical health, as well as the self-respect of men who have been unemployed for a considerable time? As a matter of fact, the system that has been introduced is quite clearly not designed to meet that particular type of citizen in these circumstances.
As to relief work promised, I do not mind whether it is called relief work or not. I do not want to cavil over names or descriptions. It is work which is to be set in operation of a useful kind, but admittedly it is not going to be carried through in the most economical fashion, as the best fitted men are not going to be employed on the job. Presumably that is a fair description of what is usually called relief work. Unfortunately it is usually used for reducing the general standard in regard to pay. For the sake of this discussion at any rate I do not want to cast any slur on relief work, in any manner, but the whole of the provision made for relief work according to the statement of the Minister, even though it were capable of being done by every unemployed man who is willing and if it were well divided right through the country, could not meet the requirements for more than two, three, or four weeks of the 30,000 men at present on the live register. There are 30,000 men at present on the live register, and two or three weeks' work is all that is contemplated for unemployed persons.
The Minister made a good deal of play over figures. I am prepared to take the very lowest possible figure that the Minister likes. He does not know, and I do not know how many unemployed men there are. He has records of 30,000 still on the register, which is a reduction of 10,000 in two months. But strange as it may seem, and yet familiar as it ought to be, there have been reductions of a similar kind regularly for the last year or so as the benefit year passed by. It is in consequence of that fluctuation and the unreliability of the figures on the register that the Minister ceased to publish the figures. He knows that the live register figures are not reliable as an index of the actual number unemployed, or even, shall I say, the comparative number, because as benefits cease men cease to register. Suppose there were only 10,000 unemployed men, and that 5,000 of these still have benefits to draw for a few weeks, and if over 5,000 was the maximum number which, within the next few weeks will be disentitled to benefit, the fewer the numbers then we assume to be in this position the less reason there is for a refusal to extend unemployment insurance, or to extend some means of payment, whether you call it insurance or not—individual subsidies, or whatever description you like to give it—to extend those payments during unemployment. The more effective schemes of employment are for absorbing unemployed the smaller the charge will be upon any insurance fund or any fund out of which unemployed persons will be paid.
The Minister may have statistics showing that there is a reduction in the number of unemployed in this, that or the other trade, or in this, that or the other town or county; that trade is improving and that unemployment is reduced. I should be very glad to think that that is a fact. I believe, and I think I said so last night, that undoubtedly in some trades there has been a big reduction of unemployment. But we know, notwithstanding the statistics that might be accumulated pile upon pile, of large numbers of men who are in this position of being out of employment, who have been out of employment for a considerable time, whose benefits are exhausted and who are now without any prospect of work or pay or remuneration or assistance of any kind except through poor law.
The Minister may as well understand that statistics, while they may be very useful to him as an index, and as a pointer as to whether things are getting better or worse, and while they may be valuable from that point of view, as a measure of the pain and suffering that the community is undergoing they are not of the slightest value whatever. The proposals of the Minister regarding relief schemes will presumably be distributed to different parts of the country. At least the schemes will be spread over different parts of the country, and one department or another will have the disposal of the fund or charge of the schemes and in so far as it is effective, then the charge upon any insurance fund, or if the Minister does not like the term, subsidisation fund, will be so much less. But we ought to recognise that there is a responsibility lying upon us, lying upon the State to maintain these men while employment is not available. Put any test you like. We may have, and almost certainly would have, differences of opinion as to the validity of the terms and conditions, and details of the schemes and proposals of one kind or another. We may be critical, we may oppose, we may have the most acute differences regarding the terms under which schemes of work or relief and the conditions under which men are employed and the conditions under which the moneys would be received out of the funds are concerned. But I plead with the Minister at least to maintain the principle that men who are thrown out of work through the social and the economic forces of which they are not, and cannot be, controllers, that the men should not be forced back into feeling themselves Ishmaelites cast out by the community and having to rely upon their cunning and strength as individuals and not as part of a social fold.
That is what we are doing; we are throwing upon men the responsibility as units, as individuals absolutely on their own, and you are saying that "We are no longer in any way responsible for your well-being. We have done our part in facilitating employers to employ you. We have done our part in saying to corporations and councils ‘Here is money for your assistance, here is money for this, that or the other thing'" But do not let us be charged with having said to the individual workers who have not an opportunity of getting employment and who are denied an opportunity of getting employment; "You are thrown now upon your own resources, you are individuals against society, and, as self-preservation is the first law of nature, you must use your natural strength and cunning to obtain the means of life." It is the case of meeting the fundamental needs and I say that we, as representing the community, are reverting to the position of saying that there is no responsibility on the part of the community for the saving of the life of the individual who is denied an opportunity of participating in the upbuilding of the community.
