Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 23 Apr 1931

Vol. 38 No. 2

In Committee on Finance. - Vote 60—Unemployment Insurance.

Minister for Education (Professor O'Sullivan)

I move:

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £106,874 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1932, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí i dtaobh Arachais Díomhaointis agus Malartán Fostuíochta, maraon le síntiúisí do Chiste an Díomhaointis.

That a sum not exceeding £106,874 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1932, for Salaries and Expenses in connection with Unemployment Insurance and Employment Exchanges, including contributions to the Unemployment Fund.

Mr. Dolan

This is a Vote for services under the Unemployment Insurance Acts. We are in the happy position this year of having a reduction, the net decrease in the Vote being £68,442. That is the result of the legislation passed last year. I think all our statutory obligations were very efficiently discharged. I do not think there is any point likely to be raised on this Vote.

Mr. Lemass

The Parliamentary Secretary has expressed the hope that there will be no point raised in the Vote, but I am sorry to say he will be disappointed. When the Estimate for Posts and Telegraphs was under consideration here some time ago I had cause to complain that the accounts of that Department had not been published for two years. I now have to complain that the accounts of this Department have not been published for three years. I would like to have some explanation as to the cause of the delay. The last year for which the accounts of the Unemployment Fund were published was the year which ended on the 31st of March, 1928.

Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us why the accounts for 1929 and 1930 are not available. It seems to me that the only possible excuse is laziness. Surely the accounts were prepared and submitted for audit, and the audit was completed within the period of three years? It is practically impossible for Deputies in opposition to give intelligent consideration to an Estimate of this kind when the facts that should be at their disposal are withheld from them.

Looking at the Estimate, I note that the estimated reduction in the State contribution to the Unemployment Fund is somewhat higher than that anticipated by the Minister for Industry and Commerce when the Unemployment Insurance Bill of last year was before the House. I take that to mean that the Department anticipate a decrease in the number of people in insurable employment during the coming year. We note from the figures made available that there has been a steady increase in the number of persons registered as unemployed for the past year or two, but hitherto that change in the number of people unemployed did not seem to affect the number of people in insurable employment. It would seem from the figures here, however, that some decrease in the number of people in insurable employment is anticipated in the coming year. I would like to know what is the reason for that anticipation.

I note also that the point which was argued between myself and the Minister for Industry and Commerce on the Unemployment Insurance Bill, 1930, seems to be decided in my favour by this Estimate. The Minister on that occasion argued that the reduction under sub-head G would be the total saving secured by the taxpayer. It seems, however, that the amount to be paid by the State towards the cost of the administration of the fund, and which the State will not recover from the Unemployment Insurance Fund, will also be reduced by £14,500. Therefore, the net saving to the taxpayer as a result of the legislative changes made last year will be this £14,500, plus the £56,000 indicated in the Estimate. That, however, is a minor point.

What I am particularly concerned with now is a statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary when this Estimate was under consideration last year. The statement was that proposals for legislation were under consideration with the idea of reducing the cost of administration. We have, he said, had a Committee carefully examining the existing Acts relating to Unemployment Insurance, and we intend to introduce legislation which will, I think, secure a reduction in the cost of administration. There proposals for legislation have not come before the House. The cost of administration has not been reduced except by a trivial sum. When the Estimate was under consideration last year I pointed to the very high relation which existed between the cost of administration and the total amount available for benefit. The changes effected by the Insurance Bill, which we discussed in December last, have increased that proportion, but the cost of administration remains practically the same. The amount available for benefit and the total revenue of the Fund have both been substantially decreased. The result now is that the costs of administration are more than 25 per cent. of the amount available for benefit, and more than 20 per cent. of the total revenue of the Fund from all sources.

The Parliamentary Secretary apparently agreed with me last year that the costs of administration were excessive, and were capable of reduction. He promised that the matter would be attended to, and that legislative proposals to effect these reductions in expenditure would be brought before the Dáil. Now I know that the Department of which the Parliamentary Secretary is a shining light, has earned, or is striving to earn, the reputation hitherto borne by the Department of Local Government, of being the laziest Department in the State. There is quite a long list of legislative proposals which that Department has promised and has not introduced. One would have expected that where a Bill of this kind is concerned the Minister for Finance would have applied the necessary spur to make the Department move with a little more rapidity than it has moved in the matter of the Food Prices Tribunal, the transport question, the Mines and Minerals Bill, and other matters of that kind. The position is that the Fund is being asked to bear a very large annual charge, and in consequence of that the rate of repayment to the Exchequer is being reduced while the possibility of increasing benefit of effecting a further reduction in contributions is being delayed. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us why his anticipated Bill has not appeared, and if there is any chance of it appearing any time during this year. The Parliamentary Secretary will not, of course, be concerned with it afterwards.

Mr. Corish

I would like to refer to the treatment meted out by this Department to carters employed by the various county councils. When a carter enters the employment of a county council to do road work his contributions for insurance purposes are stopped by the county council in the ordinary way, but in practically every case, if not in every case, it is decided by the Ministry and by the umpire—in some cases, the Court of Referees allows the claim—that these people are not entitled to benefit. It is hard to follow the reasoning of the Department in these cases. Because a poor man is thrifty enough to be in a position to buy a horse and car to enable him to do certain work on the roads, the Minister's Department looks upon him as a sort of contractor, and disqualifies him from getting benefit. Cases of this kind have been repeatedly brought to the notice of the Department by Deputies in all Parties, but with, I am sorry to say, very little result. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary that in future his Department should give a different interpretation to the law from that which has been given in these cases up to the present. These people are workers in the same sense as the men who work on the roads with pick and shovel. In a great many instances they are worse off than the latter. The fact that they have a horse and car should not be taken as any criterion that they are any better off than their fellow-workers who use the pick and shovel. I believe that the Ministry are not treating them fairly.

There is another class of case, in which, in my opinion, very harsh treatment is meted out by the Department. I am referring now to road workers who happen to have a couple of acres of land. I know of one case in my constituency where a man was expected to support a family of twelve children out of the four acres of land that he held. He got work on the roads under the county council. When he became unemployed his case went before the Court of Referees, which allowed his claim, but the umpire in Dublin held that the man was not normally unemployed. If to deprive a man in that position of benefit to which I hold he is entitled is the only means the Minstry can find of saving money for the State, then the course pursued in these cases does not speak very well for the State. In the case of men who hold a few acres of land, no effort, good, bad, or indifferent, is made by the representatives of the Department to ascertain whether the land is arable or not. I think that a more careful examination should be made before a man's application is turned down simply because he is stated to hold a few acres. I hope that during the coming year the Parliamentary Secretary and the Department, in dealing with the two types of cases which I have brought to the notice of the House, will give them more sympathetic consideration than has been the practice hitherto. I believe that these people are genuinely entitled to unemployment benefit, and that the strictures of the Ministry are altogether too harsh so far as these cases are concerned.

Mr. Dolan

Deputy Lemass was very much concerned to show that his figures were right in the argument that he had with the Minister for Industry and Commerce on the Insurance Bill that was before the House last year. I think that if the Deputy studies the Estimates and again examines the statement made by the Minister he will find that the Minister was quite correct in his summary of the position as it would be after the passing of the Act.

Mr. Lemass

That is a different point.

Mr. Dolan

The Deputy thinks, because there is a reduction of £68,000 that we are anticipating a decrease in employment. He forgets that there will also be a decrease of £224,000 in the joint contribution from employers and workers. Consequently the State's proportion of that £224,000 has not to be paid. We do not anticipate a decrease in the number of persons employed in the coming year, and are not estimating for a decrease.

Mr. Lemass

The State contribution, of course, is decreased because the contribution from employers and employees is decreased. But the Minister for Industry and Commerce anticipated that the decrease would be only about £46,000, while in fact the contribution was decreased by £56,000. The fewer people there are in insurable employment the less the State pays, so I take it that the fact that the decrease is higher than anticipated would seem to indicate that he expects the revenue from that source to be less than originally anticipated.

Mr. Dolan

If the employers and employees had to contribute that £224,000, the State would have to contribute its portion, and the State contribution would be roughly three-sevenths. Therefore the Estimate to-day is for, roughly, the same number of people employed. The Deputy is much concerned about a statement which I made on the Estimate last year, that I had under consideration the question of legislation, and that we were examining the position in regard to administration to see if the cost could be reduced. We have had that whole position under examination, and the House passed the legislation which we introduced.

Mr. Lemass

That legislation had nothing to do with the cost of administration.

Mr. Dolan

The result of that legislation has been a saving to the general taxpayer of £68,000, and to industry of £224,000 per annum.

Mr. Lemass

There has been no reduction in the cost of administration.

Mr. Dolan

That does not show that we are too lazy.

Mr. Lemass

The statement the Parliamentary Secretary made last year was that proposals for legislation were under consideration with the idea of reducing the cost of administration. The Bill introduced and passed by the Dáil had nothing to do with the cost of administration, and, in fact, the cost of administration has not been reduced.

Mr. Dolan

The Bill introduced and passed through the Dáil was a result of the active work done in the Department.

Mr. Lemass

Or the political exigencies of Cumann na nGaedheal?

Mr. Dolan

Seeing how best we could look after the general interest.

Mr. Lemass

What about the cost of administration?

Mr. Dolan

Deputy Corish raised a point in connection with that hardy annual, the land workers. I want to assure him again that because a man has land he is not automatically deprived of benefit. I want to assure him that there is no definite policy in the Department, or on the part of any officials administering the Act, automatically to deprive a worker of unemployment benefit. They are anxious to help him in every way to get benefit if he is entitled to it, but they have a definite statutory obligation to protect the interests of the people who are entitled to benefit. For that reason, all who are concerned with the administration of the Act must make certain that a person who is not entitled to benefit under the Act will not receive it. The number of applicants for benefit who have been refused is very small. Of the general applications, I repeat the figures I gave last year, that 98 per cent. of the applicants automatically receive their benefit after the one week's delay, and, on the question of the small land owners, I will say that 75 per cent. of them have been allowed after very careful investigation. There is no general rule disqualifying a worker because he has land, but no worker can receive unemployment benefit if he is employed on any other work. He must prove to the satisfaction of the court that investigates his claim that he is unemployed.

Mr. Corish

What about the question of the carters?

Mr. Dolan

You have the position there that a carter may be an employer himself and he may not really be a worker.

Mr. Corish

I am not dealing with that kind of case at all. The Parliamentary Secretary says that there is no definite policy on that. Perhaps I might say that the general practice is to turn down carters altogether. I am not speaking about the man who employs other men as carters.

Question put and agreed to.