The pensions officer estimates a half acre of oats and a half acre of potatoes or roots at so much. He estimates that a cow is worth so much a year, and so on. If the claimant does not know exactly the values put on these by the pensions officer under these various heads he cannot satisfy the Local Government Department that the pensions officer has made a very serious error in his calculations. I think it will be conceded at once that a very great difference exists in the value of crops owing to the conditions under which the crop was put in or a difference in the variety of the land. It very often happens that poor people have to wait until their neighbours have put in their own crops before they can get assistance from them in the putting in of their crop. It sometimes happens that a crop is put in late. These are matters, of course, that are not brought before the Appeals Tribunal.
In the same way cows are sometimes kept at an actual loss to the claimants. Poor people cannot afford to change their stock. A cow is kept on as a rule until she dies of old age. Claimants usually occupy a small holding of inferior land, and even if they could afford to change the old cow and get a better breed, which might be a source of income, it would probably not thrive in the new surroundings. The same remark applies to a claimant that may have a horse which is necessary to work a little holding. That holding cannot be worked successfully without such a quadruped. He is certainly a loss, but the amount of loss which the claimant is allowed for is a point which I have not been able to get clear on. It is put down in many cases as an asset. I think it would be a simple thing for the Department to supply the claimant with a copy of the pension officer's estimate of the claimant's means when there is an appeal. If that were done the claimant would be in a position to put forward various points that should be put forward. That would show that the pension officer cannot apply anything like a universal scale as to the value of cattle or a half acre of oats or potatoes.
The administration of the Blind Persons Act has been mentioned by Deputy MacEntee. In regard to that, there certainly is a much more liberal interpretation of the Act now than was in operation some years ago. In my experience it is no longer necessary that the claimant should be stone blind to get a pension. So far as my experience goes, there has been a considerable change on the part of the Department in administering the Act. Why the age limit is maintained at 50 I cannot understand. I do not want to be called up by the Chair for being out of order, but I would like the Minister to indicate whether there is any likelihood of the age limit being reduced to 30 or 40. I want to draw the Minister's attention to the attitude of the British War Pensions Department in regard to old people in this country in receipt of British war pensions for their dependents who lost their lives in defence of the Empire. It is the practice when these old people reach the age of 70 to discontinue their war pensions. I think that the Minister ought to protest against that action of the British War Pensions Department. If they are bound to give these people a pension up to the age of 70, they should not hand them over to Irish taxpayers when they reach that age, but should continue to bear the burden and discharge their moral obligations to those people who have given their bread-winners in the Empire's defence.
There is what appears to me to be an extraordinary interpretation put on some of these Acts, and great injustice is being done as a result. Under Section 7, sub-section (1) of the Act of 1924, a person can assign his property three years before he applies for a pension. No matter how valuable that property may be, such person on reaching the age of 70 becomes entitled to a full pension. It has been held that if a claimant applies one month before the three years has expired the claim is disallowed for all time, and can never be established. It is a matter, I understand, of interpretation, but in cases where a person who is in possession of a small holding of a little over £10 valuation, assigns the holding and leaves himself almost destitute, and also if he applies before the three years have expired, he will never get a pension, no matter how great his destitution may be. I would like to see a more liberal interpretation of that particular clause. It was not intended that a man who was really wealthy, who knew the law, and who rid himself of his possessions, should after three years get a pension; neither was it intended by the Old Age Pension Acts that if a man assigned a small holding and did not know the law, and applied for a pension before the three years had expired, should be deprived of a pension. As the Acts are being administered, a small farmer who has not assigned his place to anybody, but who has improved his holding by a strenuous life of toil and hardship, and who has got a home which is a credit to him, is sometimes deprived of his rights under the Acts. On the other hand, a person who allows his place to go to ruin, and the land to run wild, is awarded a pension in proportion to his carelessness. I do not think that that was the intention of the Acts. The interpretation put on Section 2, sub-section (1) (d) of the Act of 1911 is one which I think cannot be justified. This paragraph enacts that in calculating the means of a person account shall be taken of the yearly value of any benefit or privilege enjoyed by that person. As that section is interpreted by the Department, a Christmas box, money received in charity, or food received from the St. Vincent de Paul Society must be reckoned as income under the heading "benefit or privilege." If that interpretation were followed to its logical conclusion, no one would be entitled to a full pension unless he or she was found on the road-side without food or shelter. I know no person, however destitute, who is not in receipt of privileges in excess of the value of 6/- per week. Anyone in receipt of over 6/- a week, or benefits or privileges estimated as being worth 6/- per week, if the Act is interpreted in that sense, would not be entitled to a full pension. I think it is obvious that such interpretation was never intended. I submit that the Act intended that account would be taken of any yearly income from any benefit or privilege enjoyed by a claimant in his own right, but it was never intended to include under the heading "benefit or privilege" such benefit or privilege as is derived from charity. The interpretation of that clause causes, I think, more hardship than any other clause in the Old Age Pensions Acts.
In the case of an old person who has a son or daughter, perhaps in fairly comfortable circumstances, and who goes to live with that son or daughter in his old age, who gets his food and is kept free, he is deemed to have a privilege, though he has no legal right to it, estimated from 10/- to £1 per week. Similarly, in the case of sons or daughters coming home from America, who take the old people to live with them, these sons or daughters may have made some money, and take their parents to live with them. The very fact that such old people are not turned out on the road and left destitute, and that their friends or relatives provide them with food or shelter, is, under this section, interpreted as a barrier to obtaining a pension. I submit that that was never intended by the Act. Similarly it very often happens that an old servant has been in a place for a number of years, practically all her life. She reaches a certain age, and her employer does not like to turn her out on the road. If such persons are kept, although they receive no wages, if they are not turned out destitute on the roadside, the pension authorities hold that they are in receipt of privileges or benefits sufficient to deprive them of the old age pension. If they get any pension at all it is only a matter of a few shillings.
I would urge the Minister to look into the interpretation of this particular paragraph, and I think if he examines it he will conclude that it has not been interpreted in accordance with the intention of the Act. For the purposes of comparison, I would refer him to Clause B of the same sub-section. Clause B states that account shall be taken of the income which that person may reasonably expect to receive during the succeeding year in cash. It cannot be argued under that paragraph that a beggarman must keep account of the pennies he gets from house to house. If that were the accepted interpretation of the clause, that the income which that person may reasonably be expected to receive during the succeeding year in cash should be taken into account, then a beggarman would not get a full pension if his accounts showed that he received more than 10d. per day. The Act never intended that. If it was not intended that such cash received as charity should be included as income under that particular section, it was not intended that benefits or privileges received in charity should be estimated as income.
I would like also to refer the Minister to Section 7, sub-section (1) of the 1924 Act again for the purposes of comparison with this obnoxious interpretation of the sub-section to which I referred. Under Section 7 a person can render himself entitled to an old age pension by assigning away his property. It has always been held that if such a person has left himself without any property or without any legal right to maintenance he will be entitled to a pension.
