A Chinn Comhairle, I move that the Unemployment Assistance Bill be read a second time. The principle of this Bill is that all able-bodied persons who are involuntarily unemployed, and have either no means at all or insufficient means to maintain themselves and their dependents, should be given a statutory right to assistance in the manner in which the Bill proposes. I presume that it is not necessary for me to enter into any elaborate or lengthy explanation or defence of that principle, as it is, I understand, fully accepted by all Parties in the House. The question upon which difference of opinion may arise is as to the manner which will prove most effective in carrying that principle into operation. We have had that question under examination for a considerable period, and have arrived at the conclusion that the type of machinery and the mode of operation now enshrined in this Bill is likely to be the most effective in giving early and complete operation to the principle I have mentioned, and which we all accept.
The existing provisions for dealing with the relief of unemployed persons here are inadequate, as all Deputies have agreed. The main provision, of course, the Unemployment Insurance Code. The benefits available, however, under the Unemployment Insurance Acts are subject to two important limitations, and consequently cannot be regarded as adequate for dealing with the unemployment problem as we now know it. In the first place, unemployment insurance benefit is restricted to one week's benefit for each six contributions paid in respect of the insured person; that is, a person must be employed for six weeks before becoming entitled to one week's unemployment insurance benefit, but no matter how long a person has been employed, or how many contributions have been paid in respect of him, he cannot receive benefit of more than 26 weeks in any one year; consequently when insured persons have exhausted their right to benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Acts they are—for a period at any rate— left without any further assistance from that source, even though they may still be unemployed and still in need of that assistance. In addition to the restrictions I have mentioned, it is, of course, common knowledge that the Unemployment Insurance Acts do not apply at all to persons ordinarily employed in agriculture, although it is clear that an agricultural worker, when unemployed, is probably not less in need of assistance than the worker following an insurable occupation.
In cases of actual destitution local authorities are empowered, under the Poor Relief Acts, to give assistance to able-bodied persons. The assistance given by local authorities varies from the area of one authority to another, and is in most cases altogether inaccurate, apart from the fact that there is associated with it a taint of pauperism which has deterred many persons entitled to that assistance from applying for it. In recent years various local councils have, from time to time, passed resolutions setting out the opinion of their members that the relief of able-bodied unemployed persons should not be a local but a national charge. The effect of the Bill now before the Dáil is, of course, to transfer from local authorities to the national exchequer the obligation of providing for the relief of able-bodied persons, subject to the conditions of the Bill. The Unemployment Insurance Acts and the Poor Relief Acts provide at present the legislative provisions for dealing with unemployment, but as Deputies are aware the State has had to supplement the operation of those Acts in recent years by the voting of money for the organisation of public works in various parts of the country, so as to provide employment for persons who are without it. While the organisation of those works served a very useful purpose, and it is proposed to continue them so long as the need for them exists, it is clear that they cannot be so arranged as to deal with all the unemployed. The works themselves must be of a useful nature, and it is frequently not possible to find, in areas where distress is greatest, works which can be usefully carried out and which are of sufficient magnitude to deal with the unemployment problem in the area concerned. In this country, as Deputies are aware, we suffer not merely from the effects of misgovernment in the past and the growth of a defective economic organisation, but also—due to historical causes—from the mal-distribution of our population.
Parts of the country which are richest in natural resources are frequently the least densely populated while the areas which are bereft of natural resources—areas along the Western seaboard and parts of the South—are very densely populated indeed. That disproportion in population as between areas as well as the fact that the most densely populated areas require help most urgently, while at the same time they offer natural difficulties to the affording of that help, make it necessary to have some over-riding provision for dealing with distress which will ensure that any gaps left by the other schemes designed to deal with unemployment will be filled in some manner, and the distress alleviated in consequence. Relief works also provide only for the needs of a certain type of worker. No doubt the workers who find employment upon these different works are the most numerous in the country, but there are other workers who, because of their physical strength or their previous training, or for some other reason are unable to avail of these opportunities of employment. No other provision is made for them, if they are not entitled to benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Acts apart from the provision made by local authorities under the Poor Relief Acts.
When one comes to consider the manner in which the principle of State unemployment assistance should be applied, one has to bear in mind the facilities of organisation that exist at the present time and to ensure that any new organisation that may be created will fit as closely as possible into that which is there already. I am sure that Deputies opposite, like Deputies in other parts of the House when they decided that the principle of the Bill was one to be supported, have been giving consideration to questions arising out of the practical application of that principle, and like the Government have decided that the most effective means of applying it in a practical and efficient manner is to use as fully as possible the machinery that is there already. I refer particularly to the machinery established under the Unemployment Insurance Acts. One could conceive various methods of applying this principle which would be somewhat less cumbersome in appearance than that proposed in the Bill and which might be applied in a country where no unemployment insurance scheme operated and where, one might say, the field was clear for the creation of a new organisation. Here in the Saorstát we have got an organisation of employment exchanges and a number of State officers trained in administering a scheme of unemployment relief along certain lines. We decided at the beginning that we would endeavour to model the new scheme as closely as possible on the old one, so that it could be administered not merely through the same offices, but by the same officers as in the case of the older scheme.
The proposal, therefore, is to give to every person in this country who complies with certain conditions, set out in Section 10 of the Bill, the right to apply for what is called a qualification certificate. The person need not be unemployed when applying for that certificate. The certificate is merely an indication that such person complies with these conditions; that he is a citizen of Saorstát Eireann; that he is over 18 and under 70 years of age, that his means, calculated under the Act, do not exceed £52 in a county borough or the borough of Dun Laoghaire or £39 elsewhere; that his parents or other relatives are unable to maintain him, and would not ordinarily be expected to maintain him, or, in the case of a married woman, that her husband is a dependent or that she has one or more dependents and, in the case of a widow or spinster, that she has one or more dependents. The applications for qualification certificates will be examined by unemployment assistance officers to be appointed under the Bill. To prevent misunderstanding, I should say at this stage, that the unemployment assistance officers to be appointed under this Bill will, in the main, be Employment Officers under the Unemployment Insurance Acts or, in certain cases, old age pension officers under the Old Age Pensions Act. The term "unemployment assistance officer" is used, but it does not necessarily imply a separate individual or a separate group of individuals to the group of officers now administering other Acts.
It will, of course, be necessary to give full effect to the scheme set out in the Bill to extend the organisation of the employment exchanges, to open additional branch offices in certain districts and to substitute exchanges for branch offices in other districts. That will involve undoubtedly an increase in the clerical staff, but the new scheme will be fitted into the old so that it will be administered from the beginning by persons trained in the administration of a scheme of this kind. When a person has applied for his certificate the statements of fact, which he makes with his application, are verified by the unemployment assistance officer. If the unemployment assistance officer disputes the statement of fact and refuses a certificate, or in some other way acts contrary to the applicant's opinions of his interests, an appeal lies from the unemployment assistance officer to a committee to be appointed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce, a committee which will be appointed on somewhat similar lines to the Old Age Pensions Committee in the Department of Local Government. The decisions of that committee upon questions relating to the qualification certificate will be final.
One may ask why it is necessary to have these certificates at all; why it could not be possible to devise a method by which a person, when unemployed, would make his claim, establish his right to it and become entitled to assistance forthwith. The purpose of this certificate is to enable the scheme to be brought into conformity with the unemployment insurance scheme. The certificate will, in fact, be similar to the unemployment insurance book. When a person is employed the certificate like the insurance book will be in his possession; when he becomes unemployed and decides to claim assistance or benefit he will lodge the certificate with the exchange in the same way as he lodges his insurance book at the present time. The device of the certificate not merely makes it possible to bring the scheme of organisation into conformity with the unemployment insurance code but it also ensures that no impediment will be placed in the way of workers moving from one part of the country to another in search of employment. The mobility of labour will not be impaired. It also provides a very useful method of preventing fraud and particularly the possibility of a person claiming and receiving unemployment assistance in two places at the same time.
There are provisions in the Bill for the modification of the certificate and for its revocation in certain circumstances. It is not necessary to discuss these at this stage as they will arise for consideration in the Committee Stage. My aim now is merely to give a general picture of the type of organisation which it is proposed to set up in order to implement our common principle in the matter. When a person holding a certificate becomes unemployed certain things happen. First of all, if he is insured under the Unemployment Insurance Acts, he makes a claim under those Acts for benefit and he does not become entitled to unemployment assistance under this Bill until his claim to benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Acts has been exhausted. That affects the majority of industrial workers. The agricultural worker, however, who is not insurable under the Unemployment Insurance Acts and not entitled to benefit under those Acts comes directly to make his claim for unemployment assistance under this Bill.
When a person insured under the Insurance Acts has exhausted his right to benefit and makes his claim for assistance or when a person not insurable becomes unemployed and makes his claim, he has to establish certain things to the satisfaction of the unemployment assistance officer. The first is that he has been continuously unemployed for at least six days. We have inserted in the Bill a provision similar to that which exists in the Unemployment Insurance Acts which provides that two days employment or two periods of unemployment of not less than two days each separated by two days during which the person has been employed is regarded as a period of continuous unemployment. In other words, if a person while waiting the six days to become entitled to assistance succeeds in getting one day's casual work, he does not have to start the six days all over again. The six days are regarded as continuous for the purpose of Section 15. Having established that he has been unemployed continuously for six days in accordance with the definition in the Bill he must next satisfy the officer that he is capable of work. In other words, this Bill applies only to able-bodied persons; persons who are prevented by physical or mental infirmity from earning their livelihood are not affected by the Bill. The Bill is designed only to ensure the provision of assistance for persons who are capable of work. He must also satisfy the officer that he is available for and genuinely seeking but is unable to obtain employment, that is, suitable employment having regard to age, sex, physique, education, normal occupation, place of residence and family circumstances. If a person leaves his employment voluntarily or loses his employment through his own fault or refuses an offer of employment when an offer is made to him he becomes disqualified from receiving assistance under this Bill for the period set out therein.
A person may refuse an offer of work on the grounds indicated in paragraph (b) sub-section (1) of Section 15 that the work is unsuitable for him having regard to age, sex or physique, education, normal occupation, place of residence or family circumstances, but a decision, in the case of a dispute between the officer and an applicant, given in the appropriate manner against the applicant would debar him from receiving assistance. He must also satisfy the officer that since the qualification certificate was issued there has been no change in circumstances or no other event has happened which has invalidated the certificate or which would, if known to the officer, have disentitled him from receiving the certificate. There is another provision which at the present time is merely a pious hope but which we will endeavour to translate into reality at some later stage. It is, that a person receiving assistance under this Bill must, if required to do it by the Minister, attend at a course of instruction appointed or approved by regulations under the Bill. That proviso is put in there so as to ensure that there will be no legal barrier to the adoption of some scheme of training unemployed persons in skilled or semi-skilled occupations.
There is another provision which is important and it is that nobody can get unemployment assistance in any of the county boroughs, in the borough of Dun Laoghaire, or in any of the towns over 7,000 in population unless he has been either residing in these areas for one year or has had not less than three months continuous employment in them. The necessity for that provision is obvious. The rate of assistance payable is higher in the cities than in the smaller towns and higher in the smaller towns than in the rural areas, and there must necessarily be some deterrent to people travelling from rural areas into the cities in order to get these higher rates of benefit, and the deterrent is that they do not become entitled to benefit at all unless they have resided in one of the towns or cities for at least 12 months or have had three months continuous employment there. If there is any feeling amongst members of the Dáil that the periods specified in that paragraph are not sufficiently long we can consider extending them.
Persons are disqualified from receiving benefits under other circumstances which need not be debated at length now; when they are out of Saorstát Eireann, when occupants of a prison or occupants of an hospital, infirmary, lunatic asylum or anything of that kind. Similarly they are debarred from receiving Unemployment assistance when they are entitled to unemployment insurance benefit under the Unemployment Insurance Acts. A person who is convicted of an offence under the Bill or who is convicted of any offence involving not less than two weeks imprisonment becomes disqualified from receiving assistance under the Bill for a period of three months.
I mentioned that one of the conditions for receiving a qualification certificate was absence of means exceeding £52 per year in the county boroughs, or £39 per year elsewhere. If a person has means less than £52 per year in the county boroughs, and £39 per year in the rural areas, he is entitled to get only the rate of assistance set out in the Schedule of the Bill, less his means, the first 2/- in the weekly valuation of his means being ignored. In other words, a person entitled, according to the Schedule, to 15/- weekly and having means of 10/- would get the 15/-, less 8/-. In calculating the weekly value of a person's means the nearest shilling only is taken into account. There are various provisions providing for the payment of assistance to persons entitled to it, all of which are similar to those contained in the Unemployment Insurance Acts.
In addition we are providing that a person dissatisfied with the decision of the unemployment assistance officer as to his availability for work, as to the reasons why he left employment, and as to his claim under the Bill, or in similar matters, may appeal to the same courts of referees and the same Umpire as operate under the Unemployment Insurance Acts. As Deputies are aware, under these Acts there is an appeal from the Employment officer to a court of referees and, under certain circumstances, from the court of referees to the Umpire. We propose to use the same machinery for determining appeals under this part of the Bill, now before the Dáil, in relation to appeals from the unemployment assistance officer. An appeal as to the qualification of a person to hold a certificate is, however, taken to an appeals committee similar to the Old Age Pensions Committee to which I referred.
It is proposed that the cost of the scheme will be defrayed from three sources. In the first place we propose to take £250,000 per year from the Unemployment Insurance Fund. There is another Bill, now before the Dáil, to enable that Fund to make the contribution. The rates of contribution payable in respect of insured persons are being increased to the level at which they stood on the 31st December, 1931. From that date the rate of contribution was decreased, because the Government in office at that time did not consider it necessary that the debt of the Fund should be liquidated at the rate at which it was then being liquidated. Whether the cut in the contribution was too severe is a matter that may be debated. In any event the raising of the rate to the 1931 level will yield us £250,000 now in consequence of the increased number coming under unemployment insurance. I may say that the rate when raised will be still lower than the prevailing rates in Great Britain or in Northern Ireland. We propose to levy upon the county boroughs and borough of Dun Laoghaire a rate of 1/6 in the £ on the poor law valuation. That figure is arrived at by taking what was the average of the poundage rate equivalent to the total cost of home assistance in the year ended 31st March last, in these five areas. The average equivalent rate for the five areas corresponding to the total cost of home assistance was 1/6 in the £. It is anticipated that that rate will bring in roughly £185,000. It is proposed also to levy an amount equivalent to the produce of a rate of 9d. in the £ on the other districts, where the medium rate of assistance is paid; that is in towns other than county boroughs and the borough of Dun Laoghaire, the population of which at the latest census exceeded 7,000. The average equivalent rate in these areas for the last year was 1/5. In the majority of cases the new rate will represent a very considerable reduction in the old one. The balance, whatever it may be, will be provided from the Exchequer.
Deputies will no doubt be anxious to know what the total annual cost of the scheme is likely to be. It is, of course, impossible to state with any degree of accuracy what the total cost is likely to work out at. One can make estimates and be reasonably satisfied as to their accuracy, but no one should lose sight of the fact that they are no more than estimates. In the calculation of the estimated cost of the scheme which we prepared there were no less than 15 estimated figures. There were 15 points in the calculation, where the figures used were estimated figures, any one of which may have been inaccurate. We determined that the scheme to be prepared and submitted to the Dáil should cost on the basis of existing unemployment roughly £1,000,000 per year. We tried to prepare a scheme which would involve that cost, and that cost only. However, in working out the scheme in detail we found it impossible to adhere strictly to our original idea of the cost and there is reason to believe that the scheme before the Dáil on the present basis of unemployment, will cost more than £1,000,000 yearly, leaving out the cost of administration. Roughly speaking, every thousand persons who, on the average, over the whole year, become entitled to assistance under this Bill will involve a cost of £30,000. The number of persons registered as unemployed, in the week when the highest number of persons registered was recorded, was 104,000. One week in January of this year 104,000 persons were registered as unemployed. That figure was reached after an intensive drive to get persons to register, after it had been announced that unemployment relief funds would be distributed as between areas according to the number registered, and after the provision of additional facilities for registration. It probably represents very accurately the number of persons in that week who were willing to take work if it were offered to them. There must, however, be deducted from that figure 26,000, representing those who were entitled to unemployment insurance benefit and also some other figure, difficult of calculation, representing the number of those registered who were landholder and possessed land of such a valuation that their means, as calculated under this Bill, would be sufficiently high to exclude them from benefit.
There must also be deducted a figure in respect of persons in receipt of pensions and other forms of remuneration in excess of the means limit fixed by the Bill. A certain number of those registered were, of course, juveniles, and some others of them would not be entitled to assistance under this Bill on one or other of the grounds set out. The lowest number of persons registered as unemployed in the present year, under similar conditions was, roughly, 55,000. From that figure similar deductions must be made in respect of persons entitled to unemployment insurance benefit, persons holding land or other property yielding an income in excess of £52 or £39 per year, persons in possession of pensions, juveniles and others. Making these calculations and trying to strike a figure which would represent the average for the year, a certain conclusion was arrived at. In order to check the accuracy of that conclusion, it was cross-checked by a calculation based on the home assistance figures. The total number of persons on home assistance on the last Saturday of March, 1933, was 130,614. Much more than half of those were children under 15 years. About 20,000 of them were men and women permanently disabled by old age or infirmity from earning their livelihood. About 4,000 of them were persons temporarily disabled by sickness or infirmity from earning their livelihood. Seventeen thousand of them were wives of men receiving assistance. The total number of able-bodied men on home assistance on that date was 14,817, and the total number of able-bodied females was 6,085. The corresponding figures for the present date are lower in each class, as one would expect. The number on home assistance would vary in the same way as the number of persons registered as unemployed would vary. Proceeding upon the basis of these figures and allowing what appears to be a reasonable margin for error, one would conclude that the average number of persons who would probably become entitled to assistance under this Bill would be less than 40,000—that is, on the average for the year. The figure would be lower at certain periods of the year and higher at other periods. It may be that that figure contains too wide a margin for error but it will be only when one shall have had experience of the scheme in operation for a year or two years that one will be able safely to calculate what the annual cost is likely to be over any period. It is because, for a year or two, the scheme must be regarded as experimental, we are making provision in the Bill for variation of the rates of benefit by Order, the intention being to ensure that if the cost is likely to exceed considerably that which we have estimated, some variation in the rates or some diminution in the number of classes entitled to benefit may be made, and vice versa.
One other provision of the Bill requires to be explained. In Section 4, sub-section (3), it is provided that the Minister may make Orders declaring any period of the year to be, in respect of any class or any district, an employment period. If such an Order be made, no person of the class or in the district concerned will be entitled to unemployment assistance. In preparing a scheme of this kind, one must naturally try to visualise the difficulties that will arise. One of the difficulties that most obviously will arise is the assessing of claims for assistance made by the holders of uneconomic farms, As Deputies are aware, that difficulty has arisen under the Unemployment Insurance Acts and that matter has been frequently ventilated here. It is not always easy to determine when a person who holds land of small acreage and who supplements his earnings from the land by earnings from road work or some other class of work, is employed on the land or not. In order to overcome that difficulty and to get a clear and simple method of dealing with it, it is proposed to take power to make Orders providing that for certain periods of the year people of that class or some similar class will be regarded as employed upon their holdings or in whatever other occupation they may be engaged. That power of making Orders might also have to be used if it were found that the other provisions of the Bill were not sufficient to ensure that every person obtaining assistance under the Bill would genuinely seek and take, when available, whatever work was offered within the limits of the Bill.
Certain criticism has been offered concerning the rates of payment which it is proposed to make. The only answer to this criticism is that the total cost of the measure now before the Dáil is estimated to reach the maximum limit of the amount which can be provided for this purpose. Any increase in these rates, any amendment of the Bill designed to secure increased expenditure, would defeat the whole purpose of the measure as it could not then be proceeded with. If we find that our calculation as to cost has been grossly inaccurate, that the number of persons entitled to assistance under the Bill proves to be considerably less than we assumed, or that for some other reason the cost was likely to be reduced, then these rates can be reconsidered. But until that has been proved by experience we must assume our estimates to be correct and cut our cloth according to our measure.
We are providing in the Bill a scheme of unemployment assistance which is an innovation in this country and which will ensure to every person who is involuntarily unemployed, and consequently deprived of adequate means of livelihood, a statutory right to assistance, assistance which is much more considerable than that available to such person under the Poor Relief Acts at present. I do not know that it is necessary to give any general review of the rates of home assistance available in different districts. It would take a very long time to read all the figures, because the most remarkable thing to be learned from them is the very considerable variations that occur from one district to another. Under this Bill, of course, there will be uniform rates in similar districts available to everybody. I do not propose to deal at this stage with any of the criticisms of the Bill which have been made outside the House. Presumably those who have been making criticisms of the Bill outside the House will be able to inspire some Deputies to voice their ideas here. I notice, however, that one gentleman, who, I understand, the Deputies opposite have now accepted as their Leader, said that this Bill indicates the failure of the Government's industrial policy, and that another gentleman, speaking at a Sinn Féin meeting in O'Connell Street last night, said the same thing.