I take it that this Bill has been discussed with the Unemployment Assistance Bill with which it is associated. Purely a legal formality necessitates the introduction of the two measures.
Financial Motions. - Unemployment Insurance Bill, 1933—Second Stage.
I definitely suggest to the Minister that he has not addressed himself in any way to the reason why this Bill should be introduced, or why any portion of the cost of this scheme should fall upon those acting as workers or employers in industry. I submit the Minister ought formally to introduce the Second Reading of this Bill and give us an explanation of its necessity.
Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
When a Bill was introduced in 1931 for a reduction in the rates of unemployment insurance contributions, Deputy Morrissey opposed that Bill very strongly and urged that instead of reducing rates of contributions the value of the benefits payable under the Act should be increased. He was supported in that attitude by numerous Labour organisations throughout the country that have from time to time made representations to me of the same nature. We have had under consideration the manner in which increased benefits might be provided if contributions were increased. When, however, it was decided to extend the legislative provisions for dealing with unemployment it was felt that the best help that we could give to insured persons who became unemployed would be to ensure for them continuity of benefit payment no matter how long the unemployment lasted. If, in fact, we had decided merely to abolish the 26 weeks in one year rule, applied under the existing insurance scheme, it would have involved an increase in contribution as great as that which is provided for. It would have involved a considerable increase in the cost of that scheme.
We are, in fact, doing that and more in the scheme now before the Dáil. We are ensuring to each insured person that when his right to unemployment insurance benefit is exhausted he will have available from another source, as a right, other payments somewhat lesser in amount but continuing indefinitely as long as his unemployment continues. It is incorrect to say that the persons who make the higher contributions get no benefit. They do, because the increased contributions make possible the payment of unemployment assistance at the rates set out. If this £250,000 could not be provided in this way it could not be provided at all and either the scheme as a whole would have to be dropped or considerably reduced rates provided. That fact should be clearly borne in mind.
The Fianna Fáil Party, like Deputy Morrissey, opposed the reduction of the rates in 1931. Increasing the rates to the level at which they then were does not impose any unreasonable burden on industry. We ask employers and employees in industrial occupations, most of which are in some way assisted by the Government either in the form of tariffs or otherwise, to make this contribution towards the general assistance of unemployed persons. It would be possible to increase these rates and use the additional revenue for the purpose of increasing the amount payable weekly to insured persons who would be entitled to benefit, or extend the period of 26 weeks to 39 weeks, or in some other way give them the full benefit of the amount; but we think, from the national point of view as well as the point of view of employed persons, that the best provision we can make in return for the increased contribution is the provision that is made in this Bill.
In regard to this Bill the proposal to increase the rates of contribution would bear an entirely different aspect if it was not connected with the other Bill which we discussed here to-day. I think it has been rather the pride of the working men in this country ever since unemployment insurance legislation was introduced that they have consistently kept the Unemployment Fund in actuarial solvency. They were paying their share and were beholden to nobody for what they were getting. According to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, employment has greatly increased in this country since his benevolent dispensation began. If that be so, the Unemployment Fund ought to be actuarily far more sound than when the Cumann na nGaedheal Government went out of office, because there are more people in employment according to the Minister and more people contributing.
The Cumann na nGaedheal Government rates were not economic.
The fund was solvent when they went out of office and on the old basis of contribution they were paying off an existing debt at the rate of £300,000 a year.
Why then did they demand a subsidy for it?
When Cumann na nGaedheal went out of office the fund was solvent on the basis of the existing contribution. With the increased employment, if that does exist, the fund ought to be building up a surplus. Now we are going to increase the contribution vastly and bring it back to the old scale. We are going to take over the surplus and put it into the Unemployment Relief Fund for the provision of this very necessary dole for people who have been rendered destitute by what has taken place in this country during the last 18 months. I think it is a mistake to mix these two things up.
I remember Deputy Corish once throwing heavy emphasis on the importance of the fact that the workmen were getting no more than ordinary insurance, that they were keeping their fund in actuarial solvency and the psychological effect of that was very good. There was no suggestion of charity or anything else about it. I think it would have been very much more desirable to have maintained that state of things and met the emergency that has arisen entirely with the other Bill. I believe it would have been a more prudent and more sensible procedure. Whether it would not have been necessary in any case to raise subscriptions, I very much doubt. I think probably if the fund were to be kept in actuarial solvency under present circumstances it would have been necessary to raise the subscriptions because, as I see the situation, unemployment is increasing instead of decreasing and the burden on the Unemployment Fund is becoming greater.
In that event it would have been necessary to increase the subscriptions, but from the other point of view it would have been much better in my opinion to go out and say frankly: we desire to maintain the solvency of the fund and for that reason we had to increase the subscriptions, because unemployment was presenting a graver difficulty at present than it did two years ago. Subject to that, I have no objection to the Bill getting a Second Reading.
Could the Minister say what increase in revenue he expects to derive from the increased contributions from employers and employees?
A quarter of a million.
Has the Minister considered another aspect of the question, and that is to ask numbers of people in this country who are in sheltered occupations to provide weekly sums for this fund? I know some of them who would be prepared to do that. The effect of it might be to relieve some of those in industry who are paid small wages from having to pay heavy contributions.
There is just one question that I want to put to the Minister. It might, perhaps, have been raised more appropriately on the Unemployment Assistance Bill. The Minister proposes to increase the contributions from certain industrially insured classes. The increased benefit which these people are going to receive is to be by way of continuous unemployment benefit once their claim to benefit under the existing Unemployment Insurance Act lapses. Under paragraph (b) of Section 13 of the Unemployment Assistance Bill it is provided that all income which such a person may reasonably expect to receive during the succeeding year in cash is taken into consideration in ascertaining the means of that person. In connection with that, I want to put this to the Minister. It is provided, I think, in Section 109 of the National Health Insurance Act of 1911 that where a person is in receipt of national health insurance benefit not in excess of 7/6 per week, the local authority is prohibited from taking the 7/6 into the calculation of means for the purpose of home assistance. I would like to have an assurance from the Minister that since these people will be deprived of home assistance once they are getting benefit under the Unemployment Assistance Bill, the section in the National Health Insurance Act to which I have referred will be respected.
Obviously a person getting national health insurance benefit is not available for employment.
I am thinking of the case of national health insurance benefit in the case of a wife where the husband would be the claimant.
I feel certain that is provided for: that the husband being the claimant will get his benefit regardless of the income of his wife. If his wife has an income she may not be classed as a dependant, and consequently the husband would be getting no additional payment on that account. The husband's means would be his own and not his wife's.
I would be glad if the Minister would make sure of that.
At the present time men who are locked out or are on strike are prevented from receiving unemployment benefit, and I want to put to the Minister that he should amend this measure in such a way that their case will be met. The Minister may remember that when a strike took place on the Great Northern Railway there were men who were precluded from receiving unemployment benefit although they were not a party to the strike at all. As the law stood they could not get benefit. The case was referred to the umpire and the decision was against the men. I put down a question to the Minister asking that a member of the Executive Council should introduce legislation to amend the Unemployment Insurance Act so as to enable men placed in that position to receive unemployment benefit in the future. The British Government recognised the justice of meeting the case of men placed in the same position in Great Britain as the railwaymen in the Free State. There amending legislation was introduced in 1924 which made it possible for men such as I am speaking for to receive unemployment benefit during the period of a strike, provided it could be proved that such men were not active participants in the strike or subscribers to the funds of a trades union the members of which were engaged in the strike. I think the present Bill affords a most suitable opportunity for the Minister to introduce an amendment which would remove the grievance I speak of, especially in view of the fact that increased contributions are to be asked from these men in order to strengthen the fund established to meet the needs of those unemployed. The present position inflicts a grave injustice on those for whom I speak. At the present moment they are working short time as a result of the present position of the railways. Now they are to be asked to pay increased contributions, and yet if a strike or a lock-out takes place, to which they are not a party, they are prevented, as the law stands, from receiving unemployment benefit.
I think the Minister himself is very sympathetic to railwaymen. At least he gave that impression during the general election. Most of the railwaymen down in the area that I refer to voted for the candidates of the Fianna Fáil Party at the last general election because it was stated, and I suppose rightly from the point of view of the Fianna Fáil Party, that the Party was sympathetic to railwaymen in general. I think it is up to the Minister now to show that. I am anxious that the Minister should preserve the confidence of the men down there and I suggest to him that he should amend this Bill in the way I suggest. Unless he does that, then, I would like to warn him that he will have a very rough time down around Dundalk the next time he comes to talk to railwaymen. It is only a member of the Executive Council who can introduce such amending legislation. I am raising this question, but I am quite willing to give the honour to the Minister of introducing the necessary amending legislation and to let him have all the credit for it. I do not want to take any for myself. It will simply be doing an act of justice to a large number of men, and I hope, now that the Minister has the opportunity, he will see that the grievance I speak of is removed at once.
I am sorry to have to destroy Deputy Coburn's optimism on this matter. If he looks through the Bill that was discussed earlier he will find that the Minister has been very careful to incorporate in it the prohibition clause that the Deputy is so anxious about.
Will the Deputy read it?
Will the Minister read sub-section (5) of Section 16?
The Deputy is trying to deceive Deputy Coburn now.
Under sub-section (5) of Section 16 such a man is disqualified from receiving unemployment assistance if he is out of work because there is a labour stoppage at the factory, workshop or other premises at which he was previously working. The Minister has been careful to put that in, and why Deputy Coburn should think that he is going to remove it now after he had carefully put it in I do not understand.
I thought Deputy Norton might have elaborated the position and got on his feet when he made an interjection as to the condition of the fund. The fund was actuarially sound. It had, for about five years prior to 1930, been paying its way and not merely paying its way but paying off a big debt the amount of which was not contracted during the Cosgrave administration. There had been a period in which, owing to the fact that British legislation was taken over here and did not extend certain benefits, when the fund was not paying all the calls made upon it. But from 1924 the fund was not merely paying all the calls made upon it but it was paying off an accumulated amount of £1,300,000 at the rate of £300,000 per annum. And in the last few years there were so many people paying into the fund in comparison to the total drawing out of it that the day was approaching when that £300,000 would be wiped out in another year. We decided to give industry the benefit and to fund that sum for a period of nine or ten years. In that year I calculated that the reduced contribution would save some such sum as £300,000. Portion of that, roughly about £50,000, was to be saved to the State because the State contribution goes up or down according to the amount of contribution from the employer and employee. All the calculation was that the employer and the employee by reason of reducing the contribution were going to gain between them £250,000 on what the Minister in those days would call rather a small number of employed people in insurable occupations. Now we find that after two years of his magnificence, with all the new factories scattered all over the country and the wages earned in them, going back to the old contribution he is only able to exact the sum of £250,000.
Nonsense!
It must be all very annoying to Deputy Kelly.
I have got enough of it so I leave you.
Deputy Kelly is behaving like the industries of the country—he is leaving. That was the calculation made. I asked a question here on one occasion to find out what was the income of the fund and how it was going from year to year; whether the decreased contribution had made any effect upon the contribution income of the fund, and what the contribution was estimated to be after the rates had been reduced. I find that through all these years, from 1926 to 1930 inclusive, there was an increase per annum in the fund, sometimes £30,000, sometimes £40,000, and sometimes £60,000. That continued year by year. The fund was growing, and the fund could only grow if there were so many people paying in and the calls made upon it relative to the amount paid in were small. It is only then there is a surplus. That surplus was getting greater year by year. The Minister had his first cheap answer, and it was the one naturally he would fall for, that the increased payments into the fund in these years were due to better compliance. In order to stop up that I asked, on a later occasion, if the Minister would give an estimate of the expenditure and income or increase owing to better compliance. The only answer I got to that was that it was difficult to find any exact measure of the extent to which the Unemployment Fund had increased as between one year and another by reason of better compliance. He gave an estimate and that estimate showed that in 1923, 1924 and 1925 better compliance affected the fund to the extent of about 8 per cent.; that in 1925, 1926 and 1927 it dropped to about 5 per cent.; that in 1927, 1928 and 1929 it dropped down to 4.6 per cent., and in the last years, that is 1929, 1930, 1931 and 1932, it was about 3 per cent., so that the compliance excuse cannot be taken into account in the receipts.
The Minister is very pleased with this position, and the fund got over it up to the beginning of 1932, showing these two characteristics, first that it was increasing each year over the preceding year—that was in gross income —and secondly, when one looked into it and subtracted any calls made by unemployed persons capable of getting insurance benefits the surplus was growing year by year, and extra amounts drawn into the fund by reason of better compliance were being reduced year by year. In these circumstances, which the Minister was so used to complain of, namely, the poor employment and the poor industrial circumstances in the country, there was an attempt made to benefit the industry of the country to the extent of £250,000.
I do not want to interrupt, but as it is getting near 10.30 I would like to point out that there has been an arrangement that these two Bills should finish to-night. I do not care whether they do or not, but I point out the fact of the arrangement.
I have only one question to put to the Minister and that is: can he give any explanation as to what extent the estimated £250,000 is a benefit to the fund?
The Deputy has not left me any time to reply.
Perhaps on the Committee Stage the Minister would answer it.
Question—"That the Bill be read a Second Time"—put and agreed to.
Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, 4th October, 1933.
I understand it is proposed to take the motion standing in the name of Deputy MacDermot to-morrow.
Ordered accordingly.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Thursday, 28th September.