There have been from all sides of the House speeches strongly in favour of the terms of this motion. It affords me much pleasure to support the motion moved by Deputy Tadhg Murphy. The enthusiasm of Deputies from various quarters of the House appears to be controlled or damped by one factor alone, and that is the possible financial commitments of a scheme such as one in the terms of the motion. When we come to examine the possible cost of this pensions scheme for widows and orphans, we would require to be in a position to estimate the amount of money already expended in the various forms of relief for that section of the community. There ought not to be any difficulty in ascertaining the exact amount of money expended on home assistance or in institutions such as orphanages, industrial schools, county homes and other institutions availed of by orphan children or by widows.
A greater difficulty will be experienced in arriving at anything like an approximate figure of the amount of money contributed by the ordinary taxpayer and disbursed by charitable organisations. Before we would be in a position to form a reasoned judgment as to whether the resources of the country could bear an additional strain at the moment we would require to have these detailed figures before us. Such charitable organisations as the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Society for Distressed Protestants, and the various other charitable organisations distribute an enormous amount of money that I believe would surprise the members of this House, and probably surprise the Ministers concerned in this particular motion, if we were able to arrive at anything like approximately accurate figures. Personally I believe that when these figures are placed before the House we will come to realise that a State scheme of pensions for necessitous widows and orphans will not inflict the heavy burden on the tax-paying community that some members of this House would ask us to believe it would inflict.
There are obvious disadvantages attached to the various existing forms of relief. The Minister for Local Government, when he spoke on this motion some days ago, seemed to be under the impression that a system of outdoor relief, properly administered, ought to meet all the reasonable requirements. I cannot think that anybody who has any knowledge of the method of administration of home assistance, in rural Ireland at any rate, will agree with the Minister for Local Government that it is a desirable form of relief. There is no doubt about it that the taint of pauperism is attached to this particular form of relief. The fact that circumstances have changed somewhat in this part of Ireland does not remove the taint of pauperism that is associated with the medical charities system, and the system of what was formerly outdoor relief, and which is now called by the more acceptable term home assistance. In most of the areas there are the same relieving officers administering this money that administered the outdoor relief under the old regime. It is a well known fact to anyone who has been in any kind of intimate touch with local administration down the country that this question of outdoor relief is a matter which is very keenly debated at present by public bodies.
I know myself, from Press reports and debates, where one area of a county is compared with another, and the area that has the biggest amount of expenditure in relieving this particular form of distress is held up to public ridicule by public representatives. In fact, in some areas I think they have almost gone so far as to threaten to publish a list of widows and orphans, and such classes of people, who are in receipt of home assistance. I submit that is a disgraceful state of affairs. The disadvantages of the system of relief distributed by charitable organisations are equally obvious to anyone who has examined this question any way closely. I do not think anybody will suggest that charitable organisations do not fulfil a very useful function in this country. I think we would be all very sorry that charitable organisations should cease to exist, but the widows and orphans should be taken out of the domain of public charity. That much at least is due to them. If they were removed from the domain of public charity, there would still be plenty of scope left for the charitable organisations among the remainder of the existing poor. The great drawback I see in this particular method of relief for widows and orphans is that the drain is very often borne by the people who cannot best afford it, the people who are charitably disposed, and who have perhaps more human kindness in them than their neighbours; or people who for one reason or another are in close contact with these charitable organisations, bear the burden of supplying the finances, whereas the materialistic, indifferent and selfish section of the community that perhaps could better afford to contribute towards the upkeep of the widows and orphans are allowed to go scot free.
I think that some form of State scheme that would secure a more universal distribution of the burden is certainly desirable. No matter how well institutions are run, no matter how well these various institutions that are being utilised by the destitute or necessitous orphans at present — no matter how well these are run the result cannot be the same as the result that is achieved in the home. Everybody will, I think, agree that the children reared in these institutions bear a certain hall-mark that is not an asset to them in life. I think every sensible man in this House will agree that the influence of the mother in the home cannot be replaced in any institution. That is an aspect of the question that we ought to keep in our minds when we are considering the possibility of a financial burden that any scheme that we might devise would inflict on the people.
It has been stated in this House that if we adopt a scheme of insurance or a contributory scheme of pensions the burden will have to be borne by the small farmers and small shopkeepers. I would like to say, and I think there are many Deputies in this House on these Benches and on the other side of the House will agree with me, that any scheme of pensions that will have our support will be a scheme that will be for the benefit of the widows and orphans of small shopkeepers and small farmers if they are in distress or if they come under the head of "necessitous." The motion standing in the name of Deputy Murphy asks the Executive Council to present to the House schemes and an estimate of the cost of such schemes, and in that connection I would like to draw the attention of the House to a statement by the Minister for Finance on the 17th October last. The statement appears in column 493 of the Official Report in which the Minister says:—
"I think it would be a good thing for the Executive Council to examine the matter, to get out such figures as could be got out to prepare the best estimates that could be prepared of the cost of applying to the Saorstát the scheme which is in operation in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland, and to examine what modifications, if any, would be necessary to make that scheme properly applicable here, having regard to the fact, for instance, that the proportion of people in health insurance is less here than in the North. I think it would be, as I say, quite proper that the Executive Council should conduct that examination and should lay the results of it before the House so that a motion or a Bill dealing with this matter could be more satisfactorily discussed by the House."
Later on in the debate, in reply to Deputy J.X. Murphy, the Minister for Finance indicated that in his opinion he would require from two to three months to be in a position to put such figures as he mentions here before the House. The Minister for Finance may be deserving of criticism for not having gone into this question during the past twelve months while this motion was on the Order Paper. The fact remains, however, that he did not do it, and that he now admits the desirability of going into this question and putting the figures before this House. Personally I do not think that the detailed information that we would require before we could form an opinion on this important question can be available in a less period than two or three months. Deputy Law professed to be anxious to avoid a party attitude on this question. His own action in introducing the amendment, that will very probably prove acceptable to the Government, is certainly calculated to give this debate a party tone. I am surprised that Deputy Law should lend himself to such a manoeuvre if it would be correct to describe it in that way. If his amendment were carried it would mean that the question was going to be shelved in all probability for the lifetime of the present Government. Deputy Law's amendment requests "that this House requests the Executive Council to take into special consideration whether, etc., etc." Deputy Law requests the Executive Council to take certain matters into special consideration. That does not bring us any further—to take these matters into consideration. What this House requires, and what this House is asked for in Deputy Murphy's motion, is that certain figures be laid before this House in order that this House may make up its mind whether the burden can be shouldered or not. The House is not asked to affirm that anything in particular should be done. It is asked to affirm that it is desirable that a certain thing should be done if it can be done.
We will probably be told that money is not available for this particular object, and, however desirable it might be, that the money cannot be found to give us a scheme as generous as the scheme in existence in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We must face the fact that money in plenty is available for matters that are not as important as widows and orphans. There is no scarcity of money when it comes to supplying pensions to ex members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, to ex-civil servants or ex-members of the Saorstát Army. But when it comes to a question of improving the social conditions of the poor the money cannot be found. That is a state of things that has to be altered. I think we have had ample evidence during this debate of the necessity for a careful examination of this question. Evidence was supplied by the extraordinary discrepancy between the figures placed before us by the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Local Government. The Minister for Local Government and Public Health estimates that a scheme of pensions such as is in operation for the North of Ireland for a particular class would involve a cost of two and a half million pounds——