asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will state the number of appeals under the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1933, now awaiting the decision of the Appeals Committee; the number of such appeals which have been lodged for more than two months; the number which have relation to the assessment of means, and the approximate date on which the appeals now pending will be disposed of.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Appeals Under Unemployment Assistance Act.
The number of appeals against either the refusal by an unemployment assistance officer of an application for a qualification certificate or against the determination by an unemployment assistance officer of the applicant's weekly rate of means corresponding to the annual rate calculated in accordance with the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1933, lodged at local offices of my Department up to and including the 3rd November, 1934, is 21,337. Of these 12,142 are lodged for more than two months. Up to and including the 9th November, 3,309 cases have been decided by the committee. Without a full and careful examination of each appeal, which could not be carried out without causing serious delay, it is not possible to say the number of appeals which have relation to the assessment of means but, judging by the number already decided by the Unemployment Appeals Committee, it is estimated that approximately 70 per cent. of the total relate to the assessment of means. Decisions of the Unemployment Appeals Committee constituted under the Act are final and conclusive. Having regard to the difficult nature of the questions involved, and to the fact that the decisions of the committee are final, progress is necessarily slow, and the Appeals Committee are unable to fix a time within which the appeals now pending can be disposed of.
Arising out of the Minister's reply, might I suggest to him that he should seriously consider the setting up of a number of appeals committees? It is quite clear from the number of cases on hands awaiting appeal, and the rate they are being dealt with, that it is going to be nearly nine months before some of these people can establish their claim to benefit or their claim to an increased rate of benefit. In view of the fact that many of these people are absolutely destitute, I suggest to the Minister that he should give immediate consideration to the question of increasing the number of appeals committees or of arranging the matter in such a way that some sub-committees should be appointed to assist the main unemployment appeals committee.
I desire to support the appeal that has been made by Deputy Norton to the Minister. You have a very large number of people in the country who are absolutely destitute. At the rate at which the appeals are being decided, it will be next May before their cases are heard. In the meantime, these people will be left to starve. I know for a fact that there are many families in a very bad state at the present time.
The persons concerned in this question are persons who have been determined by the unemployment assistance officers to have means which exclude them from the benefits of the Act, or to have means at a higher rate than they themselves contend. It is, I think, to be expected that most persons who have been either refused certificates or have had means stated upon these certificates at a higher rate than they suggest, will avail of the right to appeal, because it costs them nothing to appeal and they stand to lose nothing by appealing. It is not correct, of course, to say that persons who have received certificates and who are appealing against the means allowed— these constitute 70 per cent. of the cases according to the estimate—are denied benefit. They are entitled to draw benefit at the rate decided by the unemployment officer until their appeal has been considered. The consideration of these appeals is necessarily a complicated matter. In each case questions of the interpretation of the statute and questions of fact arise, and I think it would be a very dubious procedure to take the work out of the hands of the Committee which has been engaged upon it and which is laying down for the future administration of this Act a uniform series of decisions which will enable future cases to be decided without delay and without difficulty.
I cannot understand the nature of the Minister's reply. I can only ascribe it to the fact that the Minister has no practical experience of these cases, and that he has not made himself familiar with the operation of the Act affecting these people. The Minister says that some of these people have been informed, in the first instance, that they have means greater than the amount of benefit allowed to them under the Act. I think that if he consults his officials they will tell him, without the slightest compunction, that the original valuation of means was based upon a most fantastic figure. I can tell the Minister from my own experience——
The Deputy, I presume, rose to ask the Minister a supplementary question and not to impart information.
I necessarily had to make that preamble. If the Minister makes inquiries he will find that the information he has conveyed to the House is completely at variance with that of Deputies. Is the Minister aware of the fact that these people who have been refused unemployment assistance, in the first instance, have been refused it because of the fantastic valuation of means? Now the Minister proposes nine months delay to these people as his offer of a settlement. I would again press him to reconsider the matter and set up further appeals committees.
Is the Minister aware that there are cases in which a man and his wife, living in a labourer's cottage, have no means whatever except their cottage and the plot attached to it? The husband may have been working on the roads for a considerable period, and then got knocked off. Such a man may have been out of employment for the last nine months. There are many in that position who have a family of five to support. The Minister has now stated definitely that a man in that position will not get unemployment assistance, because it is held that he has some flowers or some produce from his plot to sell and make money of. That, of course, is not correct, but because it is held that the man is in that position he is refused benefit. The information supplied about that person is altogether incorrect. The Minister says that such a man can appeal. But he must wait another nine months until his appeal is heard, and how is he going to support his wife and family of five in the meantime?
Arising out of the Minister's reply, would he inform the House whether there are not several tribunals operating under the Unemployment Insurance Acts?
No.
There is only one tribunal for the hearing of appeals under this Act?
There is no corresponding tribunal under the Unemployment Insurance Acts at all. This committee deals with appeals against the decision of an unemployment assistance officer in respect of an application for a qualification certificate. The tribunal which deals with appeals against the refusal of assistance is a different body altogether.
Bearing in mind what the Minister has said, that he saw an objection to the setting up of several tribunals because this particular one was laying down case law for appeals in respect of unemployment assistance. I submit to him that the tribunals before which persons go who claim unemployment assistance are numerous, and yet allow themselves to be guided by one another's decision in such cases.
No. The Deputy misunderstands the position. The local courts of referees deal with appeals against the refusal of insurance benefit, but their decision is not final. Their decisions are subject to a further appeal to the umpire, and there is only one umpire who finally determines the law.
I suggest to the Minister that it would speed up the work of the tribunal if, in the early stages of the administration of this Act, he would ignore any income that might be derived from a plot attached to a labourer's cottage or from a plot given by a local authority to an unemployed person to work.
That would require an amendment of the Act.
Is the Minister's difficulty that at the present moment he is required to put before the tribunal income derived, say, from a plot given to an unemployed man to work by the Corporation of Dublin, or from a labourer's cottage plot given to a man in the country by the local public health board: that the income from these plots has to be estimated and measured before the tribunal can decide whether a man is eligible for unemployment assistance or not?
Income from all sources has to be considered.
Would it not be worth the Minister's while to introduce and pass through all its stages in 24 hours a small Bill to relieve him of the necessity of estimating income from those plots, at any rate during the first 12 months of the operation of the scheme, particularly in view of the distress which he knows to exist in so many parts of the country?
I would like to have further experience of the operation of the Act before undertaking to do that.
And the unfortunate people in the country are to have further experience of starvation?