There is an amendment down by Deputy Morrissey to insert in Part I. the National Health Insurance (Prolongation of Insurance) Act, 1921. I would like to raise a point of order with regard to this. This amendment is out of keeping with the spirit of Section 1 of the Bill, and, therefore, it is not proper to be dealt with.
PUBLIC BUSINESS. - EXPIRING LAWS BILL, 1927—THIRD STAGE.
The Dáil went into Committee.
Question—"That Sections 1 and 2 stand part of the Bill"—put and agreed to.
Question proposed —"That the Schedule stand part of the Bill."
Perhaps the Minister would explain exactly what he means.
Section 1 of the Bill does not make any provision for the subject matter of this particular amendment. The Bill, as it passed its Second Reading, did not contain the principle which it is proposed to bring in now under the Deputy's amendment.
The point of order is that Section 1 of the Bill, as read a Second Time, is the main section, and contains the principle of the Bill, and says that the Acts mentioned in the Schedule shall, to the extent specified, be continued until 31st of December, 1928. The principle of the Bill, as read a Second Time, is the continuation of certain Acts mentioned in the Schedule. An attempt to introduce any other Act, not mentioned in the Schedule, is contrary to the principle of the Bill. Has Deputy Morrissey anything to say to that?
I am arguing that the Act should be continued, and the Minister is arguing that it should be continued only to the 31st December. It is only a question of the period of time.
I think the Minister's point of order is perfectly sound with regard to any ordinary Bill. There can be no doubt about it if you construe it strictly, What the House has agreed on in principle is the continuation of certain Acts mentioned in the Schedule of this Bill; therefore, to bring in on Committee an Act not mentioned in the Schedule of this Bill on the Second Reading is strictly out of order. At the same time this particular Bill, the Expiring Laws Bill, involves a procedure which has been adopted for a great many years, but which I think is such as to make it difficult to rule out an Amendment of this particular nature. The Bill is an omnibus Bill. It is proposed to continue certain enactments. This Act which the Deputy seeks to continue by this Amendment—the National Health Insurance (Prolongation of Insurance) Act, 1921—has, I think, been heretofore continued by means of the Expiring Laws Bills. That being so, I think I would accept this Amendment. But I think if an Expiring Laws Bill were read a Second Time and an endeavour was made in Committee to introduce an Act in it by way of Amendment, an Act which had never been continued by this process, a different set of considerations might arise. The situation is that technically the Minister's point of order is absolutely sound, but in view of the procedure under the Expiring Laws Bills, this Act being an Act which has hitherto been continued in force by this process, the Amendment may be moved. I will take Deputy Morrissey's amendment.
That is a point I wished to make, because if you were to rule that the Minister's point of order was to stand I do not see what steps I could take to ensure that this particular Act should be re-enacted.
The Deputy could bring in a Bill of his own. That would be the remedy.
I do not want to take up the time of the House on this matter, but this is a very important Act. The original National Health Insurance Act of 1918 was passed in the British House of Commons and that extended insurance for twelve months. Then we had the 1921 Act, called the National Health Insurance (Prolongation of Insurance) Act. That Act, both in Great Britain and the Free State, was due to expire in 1922, but it has been continued to the present date. If it were necessary to continue it from 1922 until now, I would like to hear what case the Minister has to make as to why it should not be further continued? If it is not continued it will certainly place another hardship upon the unemployed man, because men who are unemployed are naturally more subject to illness than men who are employed, and as a consequence able to obtain food. By the termination of this Act you are simply shifting the responsibility from the insurance societies to the local authorities or the county boards of health.
The Minister has tried to make a good deal of the point that the Commission of Inquiry recommended that this Act should be allowed to lapse. Might I remind him that the suggestion that the Commission should make that recommendation came from the Department. He also stated that all the approved societies in the Saorstát were in favour of its discontinuance. That is not so. The commercial societies are in favour of it, the societies in which the workers have very little say. But the Trades Union Approved Societies are certainly in favour of its continuance, and it is not true to state that all the approved societies agreed to the dropping of this Act. If it is necessary to continue it in Great Britain and in the North of Ireland it is surely equally necessary to continue it here, because the same conditions that made its continuance necessary from 1922 to the present, both in Great Britain and here, still obtain. I would like to hear the Minister make his case as to why the Act should not be continued. As the Commission has presented a Report to the Minister's Department I suppose we can assume that there will be legislation arising out of that Report. Therefore I would suggest that this Act might be continued until that legislation is introduced. We could then have it argued as to whether or not this Act should be continued.
In the first place this question of prolongation of insurance is not a material part of the National Health Insurance system, and really did not come at all within the terms of reference of the Committee that went into the matter, because normally the prolongation of insurance like this would not be part of the National Health Insurance scheme. But the reaction of the Act on the general finances of the insurance scheme were such that apparently the Commission had to take cognisance of it, and in their Final Report, page 10, paragraph 12, they say: "The Insurance Commissioners and the Approved Societies generally maintain that this measure, which was designed largely to meet a British emergency and was of a temporary nature, should be continued no longer in the Irish Free State," and in portion of the evidence given on behalf of the Association of Trade Union Friendly Societies in Ireland it was stated: "Prolongation, in our opinion, should be reviewed at an early date and should apply only where there is evidence of actual unemployment." But the scheme, by which a check should be kept upon unemployment, and which should duly pass persons from under the Prolongation of Insurance Act, was a scheme that could only be applied to the societies themselves. It was stated quite plainly and it was quite generally known that the societies were not able to apply the tests that were necessary, and the evidence given on behalf of the Trade Union Societies showed that people were evading their obligations and taking an unfair advantage of the provisions of the Act. It is impossible to cure the situation, and it is because of that that we are dealing with it now.
On the question that this places an additional hardship on the employed man, as far as the unemployed man is concerned, as I explained on the Second Reading of the last Act, if a man during an insurance year pays one contribution, he can be held in partial benefit for the ensuing benefit year through the operation of the National Health Insurance Bill, 1927, the Second Reading of which we have just dealt with. If at the end of this particular year during which the Prolongation of Insurance Act operates a person is drawing benefit, whether sickness benefit or disablement benefit, the dropping of this Act after the current year will not stop the payment to that man of either class of benefit. The fact that people are drawing benefit on the 31st December, 1927, will mean that as long as they continue sick or disabled they will continue to draw it, even though this Act is dropped now. So that the hardship on the unemployed is practically negligible, because there is ample provision for dealing with them otherwise.
But the dislocation of the funds of the National Health Insurance scheme itself will be very material if we maintain 90,000 fictitious people on the records. The finance of the National Health Insurance scheme is based actuarially on the assumption that the contribution a man or a woman is called on to pay is the contribution that would be actuarially correct if he or she had entered the scheme at the age of 16. Many people enter the scheme when they are in the twenties and thirties, and the amount of benefit normally derived in their later years would be greater than would be actuarially warranted by the contributions they give. So that the State had to step in and a scheme of reserved values was organised by which, when a person entered the scheme after the age of 16, reserved values are placed to his or her credit. It is simply a paper credit, but it bears 3 per cent. interest, and that 3 per cent. interest on the paper credits is paid annually to the credit of the approved societies. At present the reserved values per person in the National Health Insurance scheme are about £7, and you are paying 3 per cent. on seven times 90,000 into the credit funds of the different insurance societies. That is one piece of expenditure that is unnecessary.
And the reason why you want to get rid of the Act.
The reason why we want to get rid of the Act is because it is upsetting the whole financial basis of the scheme. You have the 3 per cent. paid to the funds of the society, and any money left over goes to the redemption of the reserved values, so that you should not be piling up annually an increased amount of paper credit behind the scheme. But because you are paying out that amount of money, in respect of a fictitious 90,000 people, into the credit of the societies the reserve values are not being wiped out, because you have not sufficient money to wipe them out, and the whole scheme of reserve values at the back of the National Health Insurance scheme, that makes provision for the fact that people enter the scheme after the age of 16, is prejudiced. In addition, the State provides two-ninths of the amount of benefit paid out to persons drawing insurance, and two-ninths of the cost of administration to the societies. So that there is paid out from State funds for carrying on the administration of the different approved societies two-ninths of 90,000 times 4/5d. a year. That really is not necessary, because to a large extent these 90,000 people do not exist. Still that money is going out and is probably being used on wasteful and unnecessary administrative expenses by the societies, and there is a considerable dislocation of the whole financial state of the insurance societies. Benefit is being paid out to people who have given no contribution of any kind for years, and if the Act continues you have this position: that a person who has been employed during 1924, 1925, and 1926, but who went out of employment at the beginning of 1926, got his free year during 1926, and if he falls sick in 1927 he is supposed to come into partial benefit. On what ground? On the ground that between 1918 and 1920 he paid certain contributions into the scheme. It is unreasonable and absurd, and considering the arrangements that are made under the National Health Insurance Act of 1926 and now under the Bill of 1927, it is unnecessary.
Does that affect the administration of the friendly societies?
It does, and it is because of that that the evidence given before the Commission was such that they were able to say that the approved societies generally maintain that this measure should not be continued. As to comparing our situation with that in Great Britain, the Chief Actuary, Sir Alfred Watson, who is also, I understand, the Chief Actuary to the British National Health Insurance, has stated that this Act was never required here in the manner in which it was required in Great Britain, and he realised and stated that it was quite a gratuitous act to extend the benefits of this Act to this country, as it was not necessary. I feel that Deputy Morrissey realises that, as far as the finances of the National Health Insurance scheme are concerned, the drop ping of this Act is imperative.
I do not agree at all.
If the Deputy would go further into the matter I am sure he would agree that, in so far as depriving the unemployed of any benefit that they might reasonably get under the National Health Insurance scheme, the National Health Insurance Acts of 1926-27 provide all reasonable facilities that persons going out of benefit owing to unemployment can expect. If they had paid one contribution during a contribution year they are kept in benefit by the funds drawn from the unclaimed stamps account during the benefit year that corresponds.
Will the Minister tell us how many societies were represented by those witnesses who spoke on behalf of the approved societies?
I could not really say that, but there are 81 assured societies in the country as a whole, and the evidence is very voluminous. The representative speaking for the Association of the Trade Union Approved Societies in Ireland, said: "I am giving evidence on behalf of, roughly 100,000 insured persons who are members of one or other of the Trade Union Approved Societies forming this organisation."
If the Minister's argument with regard to the Prolongation of Insurance Act being responsible for the dislocation of the funds of the societies be true, then, there must be more societies on the verge of bankruptcy than I thought there were. As a matter of fact, my information is, and I am connected with one society myself, that for several years they have been amassing large surpluses, and are paying increased benefits. A small society with which I am connected is paying benefit to males at the rate of 18/- per week, plus 80 per cent. for optical and free medical treatment.
At the expense of piling up paper, paper as reserved values.
I am afraid if the Minister's statement is true, the National Health Insurance Act, like all the other Acts that Mr. Lloyd George had anything to do with, passes the comprehension of the average man. There is one matter I would like the Minister to explain. He said the State was paying so much for 90,000 people who mainly did not exist. There must be something wrong. Why should the State do that? Why should it pay money to any body for people who do not exist? Has the State any way of checking that?
None, except through the approved societies.
Does the Minister maintain that these societies take on that liability and provide benefits for these people unless they feel they are compelled to do so? Why should they assume that liability? Why should they take on that burden? Why should the Minister's Department allow approved societies to embezzle the funds of the State or to obtain them by fraud? That is what it amounts to. If that is so, the whole system must be very wrong. I cannot see why there should not be a check. There are frequent audits of the different societies, and surely the auditors ought to be able to discover how many persons are entitled amongst a society to the benefits of the Prolongation of Insurance Act. If they are not able to determine that now, then the machinery should be so improved as to enable them to determine it. The Minister should not allow the position to continue, whereby the State is paying so much money to approved societies for people who do not exist. It seems to me that that is the case in the mind of the Ministry for wiping out the Act—that, so that they will not have to pay, let us say, ten or twenty thousand people who, he says, do not exist, they are going to victimise fifty or sixty thousand people who do exist. I agree that what the Minister stated about a person, with one stamp paid, being continued in benefit, makes somewhat of a difference. Certainly I would like to get the point about the 90,000 people cleared up.
This is, perhaps, really a sample of the difficulty of trying to retain an Act like this by an amendment that does not come from Government sources, and where you cannot have a decent sit-down to Committee Stage of a Bill dealing with the matter.
In paragraph 12 it is pointed out with regard to the 90,000 people here:
In the Saorstát at the present moment there are on the Societies' books some 90,000 persons whose insurance is kept alive by the Prolongation Act. It is stated that generally Saorstát Societies do not apply the tests prescribed in that Act, with the result that in this figure of 90,000 are included many persons who have died or emigrated or have otherwise passed out of insurance.
One of the principal ways is to enter uninsured occupations.
These 90,000 persons do not themselves contribute anything towards insurance funds.
As long as this Act is allowed to exist the difficulties go on increasing, because a person may this year or next year come on as an addition to the 90,000, by going out of his employment at a particular date, and, having a certain number of contributions during the years 1918, 1919 and 1920. That certainly is unreasonable and absurd.
Amendment put and declared lost.
Schedule, Preamble and Title agreed to.
The Dáil went out of Committee.
Bill reported without amendment; Report Stage to be taken on Wednesday, 9th November, 1927.