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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 16 Jul 1935

Vol. 58 No. 5

Unemployment Assistance (Amendment) Bill, 1935—Second Stage.

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The purpose of the Bill is to improve the position of persons who come within the scope of the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1933, in certain respects. Provision is made in Sections 5, 6 and 7 to establish machinery which enables applicants who are dissatisfied with the valuation of their means by the Unemployment Assistance Officers to have their appeals considered and determined expeditiously. Section 3 seeks to provide that two periods of unemployment of not less than six days each separated by an interval of not more than six weeks shall be treated as a continuous period of unemployment.

Sections 9 and 10 are designed to enable unemployed persons entitled both to unemployment benefit under the Insurance Act and to unemployment assistance under the Unemployment Assistance Act, to choose which of these benefits they will claim. Section 4 is designed to secure the inclusion as dependents of their parents of invalid sons and daughters over 18 years of age. Section 8 seeks to ensure that in the event of any new area becoming an urban area, the recipients of unemployment assistance who reside therein will continue to receive assistance at the higher rate appropriate to the area. Section 11 is designed to secure the distribution of the unemployment assistance more equally between applicants according to their circumstances. Certain other minor provisions are made whereby persons who obtain unemployment assistance by the deliberate making of false and misleading statements or concealing facts, will not be permitted to retain such assistance; there is also provision whereby public assistance authorities can, in certain circumstances, recover excess relief paid by them.

Taking these matters in the order in which I mentioned them, I wish further to state as regards the expeditions determination of appeals that some 35,000 persons who were dissatisfied with the decisions given in their cases have appealed to the Unemployment Appeals Committee, which is the Tribunal set up under the Act for deciding finally questions of that kind. For the most part those applicants were dissatisfied with the valuation of their means. By exercising their direct right of appeal to the Unemployment Appeals Committee they produced a volume of appeals so great that the Committee could not consider and determinne them in any reasonable time. As the Dáil was informed temporary arrangements were made whereby the cases of these applicants are being re-examined by the unemployment assistance officers, and wherever possible, revised to the advantage of the applicants.

It is necessary to establish permanent machinery by which the appeals can be considered and determined without delay. The tribunals for determining these appeals must be capable of expansion in proportion to the volume of the appeals. Applicants who are dissatisfied with the unemployment assistance officers' decision have at present, as I stated, a statutory right of appeal to the Unemployment Appeals Committee. It is proposed in the Bill to retain to applicants this statutory right of appeal but to make the appeal lie to an appeals officer rather than direct to the Unemployment Appeals Committee. The appeals officers will be highly specialised officers, and the number to be appointed will be determined by the number of appeals to be dealt with. The necessary number of officers to enable these appeals to be disposed of expeditiously will be appointed. The appeals officer may decide the appeal himself or refer it to the Unemployment Appeals Committee for decision. If he decides it himself he may give permission to the applicant to bring his case by a further appeal to the Appeals Committee. But without such permission the appeals officer's decision will be final.

The rights of the applicants are, therefore, preserved. The appeals can be determined by a system sufficiently elastic to expand or contract according to the volume of appeals. But the Unemployment Appeals Committee will govern the decision of the appeals officers. The decisions to be given by the appeals officers who will be appointed under the Bill will be ruled by the decisions given by the Unemployment Appeals Committee or by any future decision which may be given by that body.

With regard to the changes proposed to be effected by Section 3 the position under the Act at present is that an applicant for unemployment assistance must prove a fresh waiting week, during which no unemployment assistance is payable, on every occasion upon which he obtains more than two days' work. That rule has operated so as to deter applicants who are in a position to obtain short periods of employment from taking such employment. It is proposed to alter the rule so that it will be possible for recipients of unemployment assistance to take employment lasting as long as six weeks without suffering loss of unemployment assistance for any days other than the days upon which they have actually been working, provided they have been unemployed in the weeks immediately preceding and immediately following the period of employment. This alteration will make the position under the Unemployment Assistance Act similar to the position under the Unemployment Insurance Acts and will remove any deterrent from taking short periods of employment which the existing rule may cause. The change supplements and does not substitute the existing rule for shorter periods.

With regard to the changes proposed under Sections 9 and 10, the position under the existing Act is that an applicant for unemployment assistance, who obtains some credit in the Unemployment Fund by the payment of contributions in respect of employment in an insured occupation, is forced to exhaust his right to unemployment insurance benefit before he can have recourse to unemployment assistance. In actual practice it has been found that this rule causes hardship to applicants in that before unemployment assistance can be paid it has first to be established that the applicant is not entitled to unemployment benefit, and delays often result from the application of the necessary tests. It is proposed to alter this and to leave the applicant free to claim either unemployment assistance or unemployment insurance benefit as he chooses, provided only that he shall not receive both at the same time— that is both in respect of the same day. It is anticipated that this new provision will eliminate a rather fruit ful source of complaints by applicants for unemployment assistance. They will now have a free choice to claim either unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance. In addition, these sections effect another change which has been urged from various quarters. Applicants will be able-while actually in receipt of unemploy ment benefit, to prove their waiting week for the purpose of unemploy ment assistance, so that there will be no gap between the expiry of unemployment benefit and the beginning of unemployment assistance.

Section 4, which deals with the definition of "dependents for the purposes of the Act, effects three changes. In the first place, there are drafting changes effected, because at present there is a certain lack of uniformity in the terms used in the definition of "dependents" and it is proposed to make the terms uniform; and in addition to secure that invalid children over 18 may be regarded as dependents of their parents who wholly or mainly support them. That provision was omitted from the Principal Act through inadvertence. The existing definition of "dependent wife" requires only that she be living with her husband and not working, otherwise than at her usual household duties, regularly for wages or other remuneration. It is proposed to restrict this definition so as to ensure that where a wife is engaged in an occupation ordinarily carried on for profit or has an income sufficient for her own support she shall not be regarded as dependent on her husband.

The change effected under Section 8 is designed to deal with the situation that would arise in the event of the extension of the boundary of a county borough or urban area so as to include areas hitherto outside the boundary and provides that recipients of unemployment assistance in such added areas would be entitled to continue to draw unemployment assistance at the higher rates which would then become applicable. Under the present law if the boundary of a county borough were extended, a recipient of unemployment assistance in the added area would be left without that assistance, and a similar position would arise if, as a result of a future census, the population of an urban district was shown to have increased so as to exceed 7,000. The Bill provides that recipients of unemployment assistance will continue to receive that assistance and that the rates will be increased to the rates appropriate to the alteration in the status of the area in which they reside.

Section 11 is one designed to secure the distribution of the funds available for the payment of unemployment assistance in a more equitable manner between applicants according to their circumstances. A person entitled to unemployment assistance receives the rate laid down in the Schedule to the Act subject to a reduction of 1/- per week for each shilling or part of a shilling by which the value of his means exceeds 2/- per week. One result of this arrangement is that an applicant who has means to the value of 2/- per week obtains the full scheduled rate of unemployment assistance in addition to his means. This results in an inequality, inasmuch as a person with means amounting to 2/- per week is to this extent better provided for than the person who has no means at all. It is difficult to justify this inequality and it is proposed to minimise it. Recipients of unemployment assistance are able-bodied persons capable of work who normally support themselves by their labour. Unemployment assistance comes to their aid during interludes of involuntary unemployment, and if a man continued during such involuntary unemployment to have means amounting to 2/- per week it is reasonable that he should not receive the same amount of unemployment assistance as a similarly employed man who has no means at all.

There are other general provisions which perhaps can be more suitably discussed in the Committee Stage, but reference can be made to them here. The first of these is dealt with in Section 16. When a doubt arises as to whether an applicant for unemployment assistance fulfils the statutory conditions, some weeks must elapse before the question is finally determined, and during this period the public assistance authority may have provided the applicant with relief on the basis that he would not receive unemployment assistance. If, as a result of an appeal to the Court of Referees, or in some cases to the Umpire, the final determination is in the applicant's favour, arrears of unemployment assistance are paid from the date of his claim. These arrears would be additional to the relief provided by the public assistance authority pending the determination of the application for unemployment assistance, and provision is made in the Bill to enable the public assistance authority to avoid this duplication by recovering from the arrears of unemployment assistance the amount of home assistance paid in excess of what would have been paid had the applicant been actually receiving unemployment assistance for the time his application was under consideration.

With reference to Section 13, it is not clear at present that there is power to recover unemployment assistance paid to an applicant by reason of his false or misleading representations or by conceaiment of material facts. The position is clarified by this Bill which ensures that an applicant who has obtained employment assistance, in such circumstances will not be permitted to retain it. With regard to Section 12, applicants who are not capable of work, who are not available for work or who are not genuinely seeking suitable employment, may at present insist on renewing their applications every day and thus require several decisions though their condition may remain unaltered and though they are not in a position to submit any new facts. To enable an unemployment assistance officer to refuse to determine such ineffective renewals of applications, provision is made whereby within a limit of six weeks he may refuse to determine them.

There are some other amendments which experience of the operation of the Act have indicated to be necessary. These are all minor matters, involving such things as the definition of a day, the abolition of any prescribed form of appeal, and the payments of unemployment assistance, due to a deceased or insane person, to their representatives without formally proving a will or taking out letters of administration. I think I have dealt with all the main provisions of the Bill. This is an amending Bill designed to deal with the different parts of the principal Act, and consequently it is a type of Bill that lends itself more to Committee Stage discussion than to a Second Reading debate. If there are any matters concerning which the members of the Dáil desire to have further information at this Stage, I shall endeavour to pro vide it for them.

Could the Minister say what is the anticipated saving to the Exchequer under this Bill?

It is not easy to say, in view of the fact that some of the provisions of the Bill are going to increase the costs of unemployment assistance considerably. Only one section will definitely effect a saving, and that is Section 11. Whether the savings under that section will or will not be offset by the increased costs under other sections it is difficult to say.

Has the Minister any information at all as to what the anticipated savings under the Bill are?

It is very hard to arrive at any final estimate.

I think this Bill, from the point of view of the class of the community who are affected by it, is an utterly worthless Bill and in many respects a reactionary Bill. There is a saying that "It is the poor who help the poor," and that principle is very strongly entrenched in this Bill. Under the section dealing with the means of claimants for unemployment assistance benefit, the Minister is now seeking to amend the Principal Act in such a way as definitely to reduce the amount of income which applicants for unemployment assistance benefit will obtain after this amending Bill is passed. If this amending Bill is passed by the House certain persons who are at present in receipt of benefit will get less benefit as a result of the passage of the Bill. According to the information published by the Minister's own Department, there are 75,000 persons with means who are claimants for unemployment assistance. We may assume that a very substantial proportion of that number have means calculated in the manner provided in the Act of approximately 2/- per week, or perhaps more. Formerly the position was that if a person had an ascertained income of 2/- per week, that was disregarded for the purpose of claiming benefit under the Unemployment Assistance Act. It might work out, therefore, that a person who was entitled to 6/- unemployment assistance benefit and had 2/- per week income from another source might receive that 2/- per week and his week's benefit would not in any way be reduced. But under this amending Bill it is now proposed, if a person has means calculated at 2/- per week, to cut off 1/- from his ordinary rate of benefit.

As I say, having regard to the number of persons who are computed to be in receipt of other means, a very substantial sum of money will be saved to the Exchequer under this Bill. But the loss to such persons does not stop at tightening up the section of the principal Act in respect of the amount of the exemption limit. There are at present a number of persons who are entitled to unemployment assistance at the rate of 1/- per week. The very fact that they are entitled to unemployment assistance benefit at all entitles them to free beef which is provided by the Department of Agriculture. Any person now in receipt of 1/- per week unemployment assistance benefit will be definitely cut off from all claim to unemployment assistance benefit. Not only will he lose the 1/- per week unemployment assistance benefit, but he will lose his right to claim free beef as well. I should think that the Minister would not have very much difficulty in calculating what the saving to the Exchequer will be in the form of the withdrawal of the supply of free beef to such persons and the reduction at the same time in the amount of their unemployment assistance benefit. The savings to the Exchequer under these heads will, I think, be very substantial.

I see no other section in the Bill calculated to give to those in receipt of unemployment assistance benefit, any compensation for the benefits which they are losing by the provisions of this Bill for tightening up the section of the principal Act dealing with the means exemption limit. So far, therefore, as this Bill is concerned, it means that less unemployment assistance benefit will be paid in future. That is the cardinal principle underlying this whole Bill. Under the Budget which the Minister for Finance has described as a war Budget, and of which the Minister for Agriculture said he was very proud, a sum of £300,000 was saved to the Exchequer this year or will be saved to the Exchequer this year mainly by means of two employment period orders. So that the State is going to save £300,000 by that form of economy. Not content with saving money in that respect, this Bill is now introduced in order to save more money and the people who are going to contribute to the savings all the time are persons in receipt of unemployment assistance benefit. Demanding sacrifices from people such as these, demanding sacrifices from people who are not capable of making sacrifices having regard to the fact that they are virtually propertyless people, seems to me to square very strangely with the declarations we have had from the Government benches in the past that taxation and burdens should be put on the backs most capable of bearing them.

This is the second attack on the recipients of unemployment assistance benefit—the first in the Budget and the second in this Bill. The Minister has shown no cause whatever why the Dáil ought to pass Section 11 of this Bill. It is designed, and deliberately designed, to reduce the amount of benefit which is paid in the form of unemployment assistance. One might understand the attitude of the Minister in the matter, although one need not necessarily agree with that attitude, if it was proposed completely to abolish any means provisions in this Bill—if, for instance, the Minister was proposing to say that no means will be taken into consideration in deciding the claim of a person to receive unemployment assistance benefit. But it is not proposed to do that. It is proposed to grant a certain means exemption limit and the principle of a means exemption limit is, therefore, definitely recognised by the State in this proposal, but with this difference, that, whereas it has been fixed at 2/- a week in the past, the Minister now proposes to reduce it to 1/- and we have not a single word of explanation as to the necessity for a reactionary amendment of that kind. I take it that when the Government originally fixed 2/- a week as the means exemption limit there were good and sufficient reasons for fixing it at that figure and not at 3/- or at 1/-. The Government then felt that 2/- was a reasonable figure, but now they propose to reduce that to 1/- a week and they give us no explanation for so doing. They offer no explanation as to why this amendment of the principal Act is being proposed. We are not told that 2/- a week is too much.

The Minister has not even subscribed to the declaration that the principle of a means exemption limit is wrong. He could not very well do so, because he is still maintaining the principle of a means exemption limit. A means exemption limit is recognised in the Old Age Pensions Act and in the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Bill passed here within the last 14 days. It is remarkable that in the Old Age Pensions Act and the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Bill the means exemption limit is much higher than will exist under the Unemployment Assistance Act when this amending Bill has been passed. We grant to old persons, some of whom may be living on farms of 100 or 200 acres, a certain means exemption limit, but in respect of propertyless people living in towns and cities we reduce the limit. I do not know how the Minister can honestly reconcile these two legislative contradictions on the part of the Government. Having regard to the low rates of benefit which are paid under the principal Act, there is really no case for a reduction of the means exemption limit unless the object is simply to save money, to grab any kind of money that is within convenient reach. The rates of benefit provided under the principal Act are much less in many cases than what would be provided by poor law authorities yet, notwithstanding that, the Minister is proposing to reduce the rates of benefit still further.

I think this is a particularly mean proposal. It is designed to take money in a naked and deliberate way out of the pockets of persons in receipt of unemployment assistance benefit. The Government propose to do that following shortly after the declaration that it proposes to save £300,000 this year by means of two employment period orders. The Government are asking the classes in the community affected by this measure to make a sacrifice which neither the members of this House nor any persons who have regard for equity would be entitled to ask them to make. The Minister said his Budget was a war Budget. If this is one of the methods of balancing the war Budget we can see quite clearly that, in respect of some classes in the community at all events, the longer the war goes on the better, because they are not being asked to make sacrifices or to bear burdens in proportion to their capacity to bear such burdens. On the backs of the recipients of unemployment benefit are placed substantial imposts in order that the war Budget of the Minister for Finance may be balanced.

The Minister said that many of the amendments were necessitated by their experience of the principal Act. It is rather remarkable that some of the amendments introduced are apparently based upon the feeling that the principal Act was much too generous. No effort has been made to explain how the principal Act was in any way generous from the point of view of the benefits provided. I wonder is the Minister satisfied, from his experience of the principal Act, that the rates of benefit are sufficiently adequate to provide a reasonable standard of sustenance for those concerned? Of course no authority has a right to expect unemployed persons to be content with anything less than a reasonable standard of subsistence. In the principal Act a man with a wife and six children receives a maximum benefit of 12/6 a week in a substantially-sized town. Eight persons are compelled to live on 12/6, 1/6 per week per person! The 1/6 per week is expected to provide food for that person —21 meals in the week—apart from the additional expense involved in the purchase of clothes and boots and, in the case of school-going children, school books, and also the payment of rent and the purchase of a variety of other necessary articles indispensable in a modern household in this year of civilisation. The principal Act requires eight persons, including two adults and children up to 16 years of age, to exist on 12/6 a week. It must be manifest to the Minister and the Department that that rate is totally inadequate, and yet there is no provision made in this amending measure to increase the rates of benefit. Does the Minister propose to defend the low rates of benefit provided in the principal Act as an adequate amount for the subsistence of the persons concerned?

There is another omission from the amending Bill which it is rather difficult to understand. Under the principal Act a person in receipt of any kind of employment is, of course, not regarded as unemployed. That person is consequently denied unemployment assistance benefit. There are many persons in employment receiving less wages for part-time service than they would get under the Unemployment Assistance Act. There are in fact many persons in the State service who get in the form of wages for part-time employment less than they would receive under that Act. I do not know whether that justifies the Minister's table of benefits in the principal Act. There are cases of part-time persons engaged in the Post Office, and many of them engaged in the delivery of letters and other communications containing benefits to persons in receipt of unemployment assistance of more value than they are themselves getting in wages for the delivery of those letters. That, of course, does not mean, by any means, that the benefit received by the unemployment assistance recipient is adequate. It only shows the extent to which low wages are paid in the State part-time service. I think the Minister should make provision to include in the scope of the Bill persons only partially employed, which would supplement the low wages these persons are in receipt of. I think that there should be provision that people in receipt of such low wages should still receive unemployment assistance benefit, which should be available for every person in receipt of wages lower than the rates provided for under the principal Act.

If there is any real value in this Bill it is in the appeal section. There the value is only evident because of the jam which exists in the number of appeals against reduction of unemployment assistance benefit. According to a statement of the Minister recently there are 31,000 appeals awaiting consideration. We have the statement of the Minister that 23,000 of these were made prior to the 1st January last. In many cases that means that those who made the appeal against the reduction of the amount of their unemployment assistance benefit, are not getting benefit to which they are properly entitled, under the full consideration of the circumstances of their case. Under the principal Act, and under this amending Bill, provision is made that there shall be retrospective decisions from the standpoint of being able to cancel retrospectively the issue of the qualification certificate. But there are to be no retrospective decisions from the point of view of the benefit which has accumulated as a result of the Ministers having devised this defective machinery. There are 31,000 appeals in the Minister's Department awaiting consideration. Many of the applicants will ultimately be determined to be entitled to more benefit than they are at present receiving. Under the principal Act there is no power to pay them their benefit retrospectively. And the Minister is not taking power to remedy an obvious injustice to those people. There is to be no retrospective feature in respect of making good to those persons the full weekly income to which they would be entitled and of which they are deprived as a result of the jam that exists in dealing with appeals under the principal Act.

I have before me the case of a person who received unemployment assistance benefit of 6/6 per week; his benefit was allowed in August last. He appealed, and his appeal was heard and decided in April. In April the decision on his unemployment appeal resulted in his being allowed not 6/6, which was awarded him in the first instance, but 9/6. As a result of the reconsideration of his case, he was found to be entitled to 3/- a week more than was allowed him in the first instance. But there was no provision for paying him the additional benefit retrospectively. If that person had his appeal heard in August last, he would be entitled, not merely to 6/6, but would have been entitled to 9/6 as from August; but because of the jam in dealing with unemployment assistance appeals, he was denied the benefit of his right of an additional 3/- a week from August, 1934, to April, 1935. It was a manifest injustice to this applicant, that under the principal Act his appeal should have been held up; but it is a more obvious injustice than holding up the appeal to find that after the appeal decision was arrived at, the State declines to pay retrospectively the amount decided on, after it had been found that the applicant was underpaid in the first instance. There is no provision in this amending Bill to deal with that obvious injustice.

The Minister this year resorted to the use of the power given in the principal Act to issue an employment period order, and the second employment period order is about to be issued. There are, therefore, to be two unemployment period orders under the principal Act. I want to complain of the manner in which the Minister exercises, in an arbitrary manner, the powers conferred on him under this Act. These employment period orders are blanket orders, without any precise inquiry as to whether, in fact, work is available for those affected by the order. The Minister has issued these orders without making any inquiry as to whether the persons affected could, in fact, obtain employment, and although pressed to allow such persons who could not obtain employment to draw their unemployment benefit the Minister stated he was not prepared to agree. Having reached that stage, the Minister now, without any inquiry, and altogether for the purpose of saving money, is issuing these employment period orders. They are purely economic orders—they are not employment orders at all—because everyone knows the persons could not obtain employment in the areas to which they relate. The Minister pretended they could; but no inquiry was made. Instead of that he issued his blanket orders, designed to save as much money as possible, which is really the only reason for the issue of these orders.

I suggest to the Minister that in this amending Bill he ought to make provision for the setting up of a committee to advise him as to the extent of the unemployment period orders, the necessary areas in which they should be operative, and the category of persons to be affected. At present the Minister of his own sweet will can make employment orders, and is not bound to consider anything except the condition of the Exchequer in having them issued. I suggest the Minister should not exercise his power in that respect in that arbitrary manner. I suggest he should set up an advisory committee which would make inquiries into the areas, and give the Minister the benefit of their advice, and also advise him as to the class of persons who might reasonably be excluded from the scope of the employment order. In Great Britain, under the Employment Assistance Act, 1935, there is provision for the establishment of such advisory committees, not merely for the purpose of advising the Minister in matters of that kind, but for the purpose of looking after the welfare of the unemployed persons, helping to promote employment, helping to promote recreation, and helping to promote the maintenance of good health and bodily vigour. I think the establishment of advisory committees here, having the same object in view, would be helpful, not only to the State but to the unemployed persons.

I suggest that the Minister might have another look at the Unemployment Assistance Act in Great Britain. I gather that he, or his advisers, have already had one look at the Act, because one section in this Bill is lifted word for word out of the British Act. It is rather strange when we come to look at the British Act that the only things worthy of emulation are those portions which enable the Minister to effect economies. Section 18 of this Bill, which makes the wife of an offender a competent witness in legal proceedings, follows, word for word, the provisions in the British Act, and I suggest that there are provisions in the British Act, besides these, which might be looked at. There are other worth while provisions of the Act, and quite apart from the rates of benefit payable there, which are substantially higher than those paid here, there are other features in respect of advisory machinery in that Act which, I think, the Minister would be well advised to embody in legislation here.

I am glad the Minister has appreciated the dissatisfaction caused by the operation of the Unemployment Assistance Act, and I hope that the amendments which he proposes in this measure will have the effect of enabling those who are interested in the administration of relief in other directions to get an opportunity of doing so with some satisfaction. There are a couple of points to which I should like to draw his attention, and I think he has already had his attention drawn to them. The first is with regard to claimants not making sufficient effort to obtain employment. A considerable number of cases are held up by reason of the regulations under the Act. I understand that the Minister proposes to meet the problem in some way now, but I should like to ask him how that decision is arrived at in most of the cases, because we find from officials concerned in the administration of outdoor relief that the cases which come to their notice do not justify the action taken by the Minister's Department. I should like to have the Minister's opinion on how they determine a man is not looking for work.

Deputy Norton has referred to the rates of payment, and I agree that the amount is not sufficient, for the reason that it was generally felt, when this Bill was introduced, that it was going to relieve local rates to a greater extent than it has, that is, to relieve us in the matter of the administration of outdoor relief. It has not done that. With regard to the proposed amendment of Section 17 of the Act, it is going to have quite a different effect. It will likely bring about a substantial increase in the number of persons applying for relief as a subsidy—Army reserve men and others. Many of them are already receiving relief to subsidise their unemployment assistance allowance. This amendment, in my opinion, will affect the means test, with the result that the advantages he is seeking will have quite a counterbalancing effect. Local boards are put in a position that, at the beginning of the year they have to strike their rates, and in very few cases is any provision made to meet cases of this kind, while there is a kind of duplication of the work.

If the amendments the Minister now proposes do not give the satisfaction he desires, it would be better to withdraw the Bill altogether and have some definite means of subsidising those who are unemployed other than by outdoor relief, because the two will not work together. There is general dissatisfaction with people who are operating outdoor relief, as against those who are trying to meet cases under the Unemployment Assistance Act. In cases of delay in dealing with appealed cases, the maintenance of applicants is met by local rates. Then, again, the amounts paid to these people range from £10 and £12 to £20, and there are no means of recovering it. I understand the Minister is making some provision to meet that now, but I do not know how far it will be satisfactory. I suggest that the Minister should get in touch with officials of outdoor relief schemes and try to hammer out some plan that would meet the situation, because there is nothing at present but general dissatisfaction.

I find a very remarkable thing, that the Minister, having introduced this measure and having had the operation of it for somewhat more than 12 months—a measure which has been so costly— has been driven to secure a reduction of £300,000 a year and to introduce an amending measure and not give the House the advantage of an explanation of his experience of any aspect of the administration of this Act or an outline of what exactly he found when he approached the unemployment situation in the country with this Act as a machinery for finding it out and for dealing with it. The outstanding point in the measure now before us is the matter to which attention has been drawn by Deputy Norton. When the Minister introduced this measure he contemplated that in the case of a man in the City of Dublin with a wife and five or more dependents might have a minimum income of 22/-. Now, he considers that 21/- is enough. In a rural district a man might have a minimum income of 14/6, and now he considers 13/6 enough.

The Deputy misunderstands the entire position.

The Minister can perhaps deal with that matter, but, at any rate, he has reduced the minimum income in the case of a person with any kind of means by 1/- in this Bill. I should like the Minister to explain to us why he considers this reduction in the minimum income of persons who have any kind of income, necessary, and why he proceeds to bring it about. I think he ought also tell us what his experience has been with regard to the class of persons whom he finds it necessary to treat in this particular way. Are they persons in urban or rural districts? It is not easy to see whether it is rural or urban people who are going to be hit in the present circumstances. If it is the urban people who are going to be hit, then I feel that a very great injustice is going to be done to them. I do not think that the lot of people in rural parts is any better than that of the people in the urban districts, but the amenities for persons out of employment are somewhat easier there than they are in the urban districts.

I think the Minister should address himself to that particular matter. I can understand his difficulty when he finds the County Committee of Agriculture in Wexford drawing the attention of the Ministry to the low wages paid to agricultural labourers in Wexford, and when the rent collectors in South Tipperary have had to draw the attention of the Commissioner there and of the Government to the same matter. In view of that, it is no doubt difficult to stand for even the present rates as against the rural community. The County Committee of Agriculture in Wexford declared that the average wage for agricultural labourers at the moment is 8/- a week with their food. When four rent collectors in South Tipperary were challenged by the Minister for Local Government with the neglect of their duty in not collecting the cottage rents, they drew the attention of the Commissioner to the fact that the average wage paid to agricultural labourers in that area was from 8/- to 10/- a week: that in some places the farmers were so badly off that they were six weeks in arrears in the payment of wages, while in a large number of cases labourers were depending on home assistance. While that is the position I can understand the Minister's difficulty in standing for even the present rates of unemployment assistance in those areas. Nevertheless, I would expect him to give some explanation as to why he makes this reduction at the present time, and why he thinks, if he does, that even the reduced figures can be maintained if the position as revealed in Wexford and South Tipperary is going to continue and, perhaps, get even worse. The Minister cannot shut his eyes to the position that exists throughout the rural areas both as regards employment and wages. I submit to him that he had better face the task of explaining some of these things now, because the position will only become considerably worse, and explanations may not be of any avail if he faces the situation later.

In the past, in the south-eastern part of the country bounded by Louth, Meath, Westmeath, Offaly and North Tipperary, agriculture was expected to give considerable employment to agricultural labourers. It is a part of the country where the total number of agricultural labourers would be more than one-quarter of the total number of persons engaged in agriculture. But, when we look at figures recently issued by the Minister with regard to the amount of employment given in agriculture, we find that in ten out of the 15 counties in that part of the country there were, last year, a smaller number of agricultural labourers permanently employed than the year 1931, and that despite all the public money that is going to the assistance of agriculture in that area.

In spite of the fact that there has been an increase in the country as a whole.

The position at any rate is this, that despite all the subsidies and public moneys that the Government could possibly concentrate in those areas, areas which naturally gave employment because of their agricultural economy to agricultural labourers, we find that the position is as I have stated—that last year in ten out of 15 counties the number of agricultural labourers permanently employed in them was less than the number employed in the year 1931 before the Minister's scheme ever came into operation. The counties concerned are: Louth, Meath, Kildare, Offaly, Carlow, Wexford, Kilkenny, Tipperary and Waterford. In six of these counties the number of agricultural labourers temporarily employed was less last year than in the year 1931, these counties being: Louth, Meath, Offaly, Limerick and County Dublin. If that is the position in that part of the country, where agriculture used to give so much employment to agricultural labourers, a part of the country which has received so much assistance by way of subsidies and other public moneys, and bearing in mind what the position in Wexford and South Tipperary is as testified to by responsible persons, does the Minister think that even the present rates of unemployment assistance are rates that can be continued with the economic condition of the country as it is?

There is another aspect of the matter to which I desire to draw the Minister's attention because it bears on the question whether it is the urban or the rural areas that are going to be affected by this reduction in the means allowance. Consider that part of the country that takes in, as employment areas, Letterkenny, Sligo, Ballina, Tralee and West Cork, and that part which comprises practically the whole of the County Donegal, a little bit of Leitrim, Mayo, the greater part of Galway, Kerry and West Cork. You have a population there which is about 25 per cent. of the total population of the country. The unemployment figures for the past 12 months in these areas and the payments to persons drawing unemployment insurance benefit, show that this is a part of the country that deserves some special reference from the Minister when dealing with any amendment of the Unemployment Assistance Act. The people there, as I have said, represent 25 per cent. of the total population of the country. During the year beginning May last, unemployment in that area had risen by 73 per cent. as against 8.3 per cent. for the whole country. That population, representing 25 per cent. of the total population of the country, contains 45 per cent. of the total number of persons drawing unemployment assistance.

I think the Minister should tell us what he thinks the effect of this measure is going to be on that area because it seems to me to be an area that requires some kind of serious attention. Unemployment assistance is, apparently, going to be required to a very considerable extent in that area. Would the Minister say what effect the present proposals are going to have on it? So far as one can see the position in the rest of the country is not such as to warrant any one in coming to the conclusion that it is going, in any way, to draw on the number of persons who are at present in receipt of unemployment assistance in that area; nor does there appear to be any development that is going to provide them with work, either in connection with agriculture or industry. At the bottom of the whole business is this, that we have just finished dealing with a Budget which Deputy Norton credits the Minister for Finance with calling a War Budget. I think the only Budget the Minister for Finance termed a War Budget was his first Budget.

No, he called this a War Budget.

I doubt if he did.

It was reported in your official organ.

I think the words were put into his mouth. That will be found to be so, because at the beginning of this year he told us in his Budget speech that we would be approaching in the next budgetary year normaley in the way of Budgets. He said subsequently that that did not refer to the Budget of this year but to the Budget of next year. If the Budget of next year is going to bring us normalcy, except there is a radical change in the whole policy of the Ministry, I do not see that it will be in any way better than the Budget of this year. This is leading to a situation which is going to require more and more assistance under the Unemployment Assistance Act, with less capacity on the part of the people to bear it. It is for that reason it is desirable that the Minister, when putting this measure before the House, should have told it what has been his experience of the administration of the Act, and to size up really what the position is of those who have applied for unemployment assistance; whether it is really getting better, and whether he sees anything in the general situation which will reduce the burden of this Act on the people as a whole. He will find very few agree that expenditure is not going to grow while week after week the people will be less able to bear the expenditure. Introducing this Bill now and tinkering with the applications for this money for another twelve months is only going to lead the Minister into the position that it may be too late to start explanations or to start applying any remedies of this kind. While this Bill is under discussion, he should take the opportunity to tell us something of what has been happening, and to disclose what has been the experience of himself and his officials in the administration of the original Act.

After the principal Act came into operation we were promised this amending legislation time and again, and many of us hoped that there would be something in it which would bring a measure of relief to the unemployed. Deputy Norton described this measure very properly in his opening remarks. The only thing about it is that it is increasing the machinery for dealing with appeals against the assessment of means. There is nothing in it to prevent what I must describe as the conscription of farm labourers to go and work for farmers for less remuneration than they would get if they were not working. Under the original Act a man in the rural areas was entitled to 6/- a week. That class of men are being sent in scores from the different labour exchanges to work for farmers at 4/- and 5/- a week, and if they refuse to do so they find themselves suspended from benefit under the regulations. The Minister should avail of this opportunity to do something on behalf of these people. Another question arises concerning the non-payment of arrears of benefit, arising out of a favourable decision on an appeal against the assessment of means. I had a case recently where a man appealed against the assessment of means. The decision was a bad one for him, inasmuch as it was decided that he was not entitled to any benefit. Under the amending legislation I understand it is provided that in a case of that kind a claim will be made for repayment of any benefit that was drawn. I submit to the Minister that something should be done to ensure that when there is a decision favourable to an applicant he should receive the arrears of unemployment assistance. The assistance rates generally are scandalously low, and, in most cases, are below the rates payable by boards of assistance. The amending measure provides for unemployment assistance for invalids over 18 years of age. Unless the Minister is going to increase the rates of benefit I think it would be better not to have that provision at all, because most of these people are receiving 4/- or 5/- weekly from boards of assistance. They will receive a much lower rate under this measure. After waiting for many months for this amending measure this opportunity should be taken to show that the Government are really serious about amending the present law in the interests of the unemployed, and that something will be done to remove the discontent that exists among these unfortunate people. If not, I venture to suggest that the Minister will feel himself compelled by the increasing discontent to bring in a further amending Bill at an early date. He should avail of this opportunity to do so, and to save himself the trouble of having to do it later on.

I am more than surprised at the Government and the Minister sponsoring such a Bill. Certainly the unemployed are displeased with this measure. They are disappointed at the inconsistency of the Executive Council in introducing a means test for the unemployed, while it makes a capitation grant of 7/6 for children sent to reformatories, in addition to a grant of 5/- or 6/- weekly paid by the local authorities. That means that one individual living in a community represents something like 12/6 weekly for maintenance, while a means test is brought in to reduce the allowance to the unemployed, owing to the fact that a few shillings may be going into the house. There are complaints in the rural areas against the attitude adopted by the Department towards tenants or owners of labourers' cottages. A sum of 2/- weekly was assessed upon the tenancy, because the half-acre was tilled, while the rent paid to the local authorities for the cottage was 1/3 a week. I realise that the unemployed have no other alternative but to organise in such a manner that they will receive better treatment than they are offered in this Bill. There were great hopes that there would be some redress for men unable to procure employment. Now we find that this Bill is to be used—not as the Minister intended—as some employers in rural areas think, so that they can refuse to pay recognised wages. While attacking and criticising the Government for giving relief to the unemployed, they are using the machinery of the Government, as a pretence to try to prevent men from receiving unemployment assistance, by offering them work at 5/- or 6/- a week in rural areas. They are the farmers who were attacking the Government and the Government are assisting them, as employers, in depriving these men of unemployment assistance. When a labourer refuses to work for 5/- or 6/- a week, the farmer reports him to the labour exchange and his benefit is suspended.

There is another matter I should like to bring before the Minister. A man may be engaged on relief schemes. He may already have his qualification certificate. His work on relief schemes may last for three or four weeks. He goes back to unemployment benefit because he has stamps on his card. Notwithstanding that he has a qualification certificate, he may have to wait for a month if he is in a rural area before he receives any payment on account of the stamps to his credit. During that time, home help has to be given to him. His unemployment benefit is exhausted after the first week and he has to wait for another fortnight or three weeks until the unemployment assistance machinery has completed its work. In the meantime, he has to go back to home help. When a man has a qualification certificate and when the Department had three weeks or a month, in the first instance, to examine his claim, I submit that there should not be a further delay of three weeks in giving him unemployment assistance.

This Bill is designed to achieve that purpose, notwithstanding that Deputy Norton described it as a worthless Bill.

And justified that description.

There is another split in the Labour Party.

I am merely pointing out what has happened. Instead of unemployment assistance, home help has had to be given to these men. As Deputy Doyle pointed out, public bodies reduced their estimates believing that the unemployed were going to receive assistance from the State. Public bodies are now unable to obtain overdrafts to give allowances to unemployed men. We have a deputation going to the Minister for Local Government to show that the county council is unable to give the usual allowance to the Board of Health. Some of these farmers who, by their wage-cutting tactics, were trying to force a larger number of men on home help and cripple the public bodies are responsible for depriving the unemployed of home help by not paying their rates; and, secondly, by taking advantage of Government machinery and reporting to the labour exchange men who refused to work at a small wage. The farmers have it both ways. They are refusing to pay their rates. Hence there is no home help. They offer employment at a small wage. Hence there is no unemployment assistance for rural workers. Apart from that, there is unnecessary delay. Take the case of County Wicklow. How many thousands of appeals are awaiting decision in that area? I have heard of small farmers in other parts of Ireland receiving this donation. We cannot say that of our area because it is very hard for a genuine worker who is unemployed, after working on the roads, to get unemployment assistance owing to these unnecessary delays. There are cases in my constituency which have been awaiting decision by the Department for one and a half years.

This Bill is designed to remove the cause of the delay.

I hope it will, but we have heard the Minister state what the previous Bill was going to do. He said it was going to relieve the position of public bodies. He said that the State was accepting the duty of maintaining the unemployed. There was no talk of these formalities which have caused so much unnecessary delay. There was no talk of the thousands of cases held up on appeal. There was no talk of the position of the occupant of a labourer's cottage from whom a deduction is made on account of his half acre of land. That is the position in my constituency. I do not know if that is typical of the rest of the country. It is on this Bill, and not on the Old Age Pensions Bill, that you are going to save £300,000. This is the thin end of the wedge. As Deputy Pattison pointed out, other Governments have been forced to cease from interference with the rates of benefit to men who may have a few shillings a week coming into their houses, through the wages of a daughter or a son. The means test was abolished in other countries owing to the influence of the workers and unemployed. If this Bill does nothing else it should encourage the unemployed to organise and secure that the wish of the citizens will be carried out and that they will not be subjected to the dictation of permanent officials of the Government who are laying down the policy of the Executive Council.

Deputy Everett seems to have a great grievance against the farmers. That was the sum total of his speech against the Bill. He spoke about farmers paying small rates of wages. Of course they are. And why? Does Deputy Everett think that the farmer is in a position now to pay a decent rate of wages? Did not his leader talk a moment ago about a war being on? Are the farmers to be the only persons to suffer in connection with that war? It would be much better if the Deputy faced up to the facts. Everybody regrets that any man should be under the necessity of going to the labour exchange. There is one industry on which the Minister could be congratulated, and that is the industry surrounding the labour exchanges. I cannot subscribe to the statement made by the Minister recently that there were 25,000 or 35,000 more persons employed in agriculture now than there used to be. Deputy Everett would hardly subscribe to that statement either. We might as well admit that abuses in connection with unemployment assistance have been going on up and down the country. Men have been working, drawing fair rates of wages and, at the same time, receiving unemployment assistance.

The Minister may say that it would be my duty to report such an occurrence, that I would be a bad citizen if I did not report that a man was receiving wages and, at the same time, obtaining money from the labour exchange. It is not my duty to administer the law. The Government have their servants to do that. But there have been abuses in connection with the unemployment assistance scheme and these were not in the cases in which paltry wages of from 4/- to 6/- a week were being paid. It would be just as well if there were a tightening up of the administration. I know genuine cases in which it was not possible to obtain unemployment assistance. It seems to me that the people who got away in this matter, were the cleverest people and not the genuine people. I had various complaints in connection with genuine cases and I put down questions about them. There is certainly a genuine grievance in connection with the delay which occurs in these cases. That is regrettable, and if this Bill would only have the effect of remedying such a situation and putting into effect these things which I have mentioned, which everybody realises were absent from the principal Act, it will certainly achieve something. As the situation is at present, people have spoken to me about not being able to get unemployment assistance, and my advice to them was to bring the Minister into court in connection with it and not to have any more nonsense about it. People have complained to me about it and put up a reasonable statement, such as that, for one reason or another, a man who was fishing once upon a time and was supposed to have a certain income out of it, cannot get any unemployment assistance now that he is no longer fishing. That is regrettable, and I hope that this Bill will do something to remedy that situation and give assistance to the people who are genuinely entitled to it with greater expedition than the principal Act gives it.

It is just as well for people to face the fact that farmers are not able to pay the wage. How could they? Deputy Everett and his colleagues should realise that and should do something which would make it possible once more for farmers to give reasonable wages. If Deputy Everett and his colleagues would do that, the farmers would give reasonable wages, as they did before and as they always have done, so far as it was possible for them to do so. Farmers were never millionaires in this country and they never will be, but they were always willing to pay when they could. Deputies are aware of the statement in the Press of the Commissioner of South Tipperary. I had nothing to do with it. He is an official of the Minister. Various questions were put to various officials under him as to what was the cause of the irregular payments of rents of labourers' cottages. Deputy Mulcahy made reference to that statement before, and I need not stress it any more. At any rate, it is public property. Mind you, that is one thing that the Minister or the members of the Labour Party cannot say: that it is we over here who do it. It is there in the Press for everybody to see: that labourers in the country are unemployed; and I am sorry to have to subscribe to the fact, as it was stated there in connection with the inquiry that labourers there had to wait for their wages. That is the situation, and I think that Deputies on the Labour benches ought to realise it and to apply themselves to remedying it.

What did the Centre Party do for the farmers?

We are not discussing what the Centre Party did.

They sold them.

Now, Deputy Norton, that is too stale here. That will not wash any longer. I have just as good a right to do what I like as Deputy Norton has, and I have no apologies at all to make for anything I did to anybody, either inside or outside this House. I have no apologies to make to anybody for joining a Party in opposition to the Fianna Fáil Government—no apologies at all to make for it.

But it is hard to square it with the Deputy's election address.

Order! That has nothing to do with this Bill.

That election address hardly enters into this debate. What we were discussing was the question of remedies for the unemployment situation that exists here in this country to-day. It is a pity that Deputies do not keep a little more to the point. My election address has nothing to do with the situation, and I have no apology to make for that address. I would like to see abuses remedied and I would like unemployment assistance to be more readily available to those who ought to be in receipt of it, than it has been up to the present.

Deputy Norton, Deputy Pattison and Deputy Everett, expressed, their dissatisfaction with the unemployment assistance scheme as a whole because, they said, the rates of benefit were too low, and because there was a means test of eligibility to receive unemployment assistance at all. They objected on a number of other grounds also. Deputy Mulcahy was rather inclined to support them in some of these contentions. It is only a few weeks ago since we had before us the Financial Resolutions designed to secure the revenue without which the unemployment assistance scheme would be impossible; and Deputy Norton and Deputy Pattison and Deputy Everett voted against the majority of these Resolutions. They voted with Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Mulcahy's colleagues in an attempt to defeat these Resolutions, including one Resolution designed to secure additional revenue by increasing the income tax. If they had succeeded in defeating these Resolutions, there would be no unemployment assistance scheme at all. Therefore, I think I am entitled to conclude that, in their plea now to have increased rates of benefits paid or various changes made in the Act designed to ease the conditions under which unemployment assistance can be obtained, they are very largely humbugging themselves and, probably, humbugging their supporters. They are not humbugging me, however, nor are they humbugging members of the Dáil; because, if we did, in fact, adopt their suggestions and followed up the necessary legislation for that prupose with new Financial Resolutions, designed to secure the additional revenue which would then be required, they would vote against these Resolutions just as solidly as they voted against the last Resolutions.

Would the Minister try that?

All I can say is that, since Deputy Norton voted against an increase in income tax designed for that purpose, my opinion of him as a genuine leader of a genuine Labour Party has decreased 105 per cent.

That is just as absurd as the Minister's contention.

Deputy Norton said that this is a worthless Bill, and he was followed by Deputy Everett, a member of his own Party, who urged, first, that there should be a more expeditious method of disposing of appeals against the decisions of unemployment assistance officers, and, second, that we should abolish the delay which now takes place between the termination of unemployment insurance benefit and the commencement of payment of unemployment assistance. He also dealt with other matters, all of which are affected by this Bill. This Bill aims to set up a new method of dealing with appeals and disposing of them very expeditiously—a method which can be expanded to any extent. so as to enable all the appeals to be dealt with in the shortest possible space of time. The Bill abolishes entirely the waiting period which heretofore operated between the termination of unemployment insurance benefit payments and the commencement of the unemployment assistance benefit payments. The Bill effects changes which will improve the position of applicants for unemployment assistance. Yet, Deputy Norton described it as a worthless Bill. He thinks it is of no value to effect these changes in the unemployment assistance code. They are worthless, according to him.

We are going to abolish the system under which a person who got three days' work had to serve an additional waiting period of one week before becoming entitled to benefit. We allow a person to work for not less than six weeks, and again become entitled to benefit without waiting a day. It is not possible to give an exact figure, but it is thought that that would cost about £25,000, unless it should happen to work out in such a way as to encourage people to take short periods of employment to a greater extent than in the past, in which case the cost might be less. We are abolishing that additional waiting period between the termination of unemployment insurance claims and the commencement of unemployment assistance claims. Again, it is not possible to say exactly what that will cost, but it is estimated that the cost will be fairly considerable. We are making it possible for a person entitled to unemployment insurance benefit to decline to claim that benefit and to take unemployment assistance instead and allow his unemployment insurance stamps to remain to his credit. We are extending the definition of dependents, and additional persons now receiving unemployment assistance will be enabled to get increased assistance because of the new dependency clause. We are providing for alterations which may develop in the boundaries of urban areas, which, if this Bill were not passed, would operate to prevent people in those areas getting unemployment assistance. That is going to involve increased cost. Yet all those provisions are described by Deputy Norton as worthless.

How much is saved under Section 11?

I will deal with Section 11 in a minute. There are six main provisions in this Bill. Five are designed to improve the position of persons claiming unemployment assistance. Five are going to involve increased expenditure from the Exchequer. Five are devised to ease the position of unemployed persons. One will operate to effect a saving—a saving which is perfectly justifiable—and yet because of that one clause in a Bill of 21 sections Deputy Norton describes the whole lot as worthless.

Because one section collars all the benefits of the others.

Nonsense! What is the position?

Let the Minister tell us.

The unemployment assistance scheme is designed, in the main, to provide some measure of State assistance for those persons who are unemployed through no fault of their own, and who have no other means of subsistence. The class of persons for whom the scheme is mainly intended are those who have nothing else to sell except their labour. Their position is being improved under this Bill.

Not at all.

Their position is being improved in a number of respects. The rates of assistance payable to them are not being diminished by one penny. They are being given increased facilities for claiming that assistance. They are being given that assistance more expeditiously than in the past. They are being enabled to draw that assistance continuously, so long as they are unemployed. In everything with which this Bill deals, their position has been improved. In no way has it been worsened.

Section 11 worsens it.

It does not affect those people.

Of course, it does.

Section 11 does not affect them. The people who have nothing to sell except labour never were interested in that particular provision of the original Bill. They are not affected one way or the other, except that the more equitable distribution of the funds available for unemployment assistance which Section 11 provides insures continuity of the unemployment assistance scheme, a scheme which would be jeopardised and might have to be abandoned if half the suggestions which Deputy Norton has made were put into effect. Here we are operating a new social service; one which never previously existed; which was brought in under circumstances of difficulty last year, and which is costing the taxpayers of this country £1,500,00 every year. That service was by way of experiment. It was designed to attempt to give practical effect to the principle that the State had an obligation to provide some means of subsistence for those for whom it was temporarily unable to provide an opportunity of work.

Has the Minister any idea what it cost?

The experiment might have failed, it might have proved too costly or inoperative, and would have proved too costly or inoperative if many of the suggestions which have come from the Labour Pary Benches had been accepted. The only guarantee which members of the Labour Party can have that this scheme is going to continue in operation permanently, continue in operation despite fluctuations in the national financial position, despite changes of Government, and despite changes of Government policy, is that it is going to be capable of effective operation and is not going to unduly strain the national resources.

Is 12/6 per week an undue strain on national resources?

When we tried to provide the money necessary to give 12/6 per week to persons in rural areas with dependents, Deputy Norton and his colleagues decided that the taxation necessary was too severe, and voted against it.

In view of the fact that this is obvious misrepresentation of our position I have to ask for permission to correct the Minister.

If the Minister gives way.

I am anxious to hear the Deputy's explanation of his conduct. I thought it was inexplicable.

The Minister accuses us of voting against certain Budgetary resolutions. The only Budgetary resolutions we voted against were those designed to impose new burdens on the poor people, while the Minister was allowing his wealthy friends to get away with the benefits of this war Budget. We voted against those resolutions because, like this Bill, they were designed to put new burdens on the poor, and to rake their pockets.

And when the Government proposed to get increased revenue from those paying Schedule A income tax the Deputy also voted against it.

I voted against a tax on the working class people.

They were the wealthiest people in the country. The Deputy would have to spend the rest of his public life explaining his voting against that particular Budgetary resolution.

The tea tax was explained, so anybody could explain anything.

Because we contemplated that there might be difficulty in the assessment of means of persons coming within the limits prescribed in the original Act, and entitled to unemployment assistance, we allowed a margin of 2/-. We said that in determining the amount of assistance to be paid we would not count the first 2/- of means as calculated, in order to allow a degree of elasticity. But we recognised at the time that that section was going to operate unfairly.; that it would operate to the detriment of the person who had no means, and for the benefit of the person who had, and that an undue proportion of the total amount which the State had provided for unemployment assistance was going to persons with means, instead of to persons without means as it should have gone We found, in operation, that the margin we had allowed was too great, and that a much narrower margin would provide against whatever possibilities of erroneous calculation did exist, so I am proposing in Section 11 to reduce the uncounted means from 2/- to 1/-, and we are using the additional fund thus provided to effect all the other improvements in the Act, which otherwise would not have been possible because the necessary revenue could not have been raised in this year.

Deputy Mulcahy said we were reducing the amount which we considered it necessary for an unemployed person to have in order to maintain himself. The margin of means fixed in Section 10 of the Principal Act is not being changed. In that section a person was entitled to a qualification certificate if his means as calculated were less than £52 a year in a county borough, or less than £39 a year elsewhere. That position is not being altered. Persons with means under those limits will still be entitled to qualification certificates and, if unemployed and otherwise qualified, to draw unemployment assistance. We are not providing 12/6 or 20/- a week for families to live upon. The Deputy has an entirely wrong conception of the unemployment assistance scheme if he thinks we consider that those amounts are sufficient to maintain a family week in and week out. This is a scheme designed to enable people temporarily and involuntarily unemployed to maintain themselves in some way until fresh opportunities of employment offer. There are very few persons in the country who are unemployed for long periods. I gave here in the past information secured from an examination of the incidence of unemployment, which shows clearly that the great majority of the persons who on any day are registered as unemployed are going to get employment within a few weeks from that day. 25 per cent. of those who are registered as unemployed to-day will have received employment in the course of two or three weeks, and 50 per cent. will have received employment in the course of six or seven weeks. It is only a very small percentage indeed of those who are registered as unemployed at any time that is going to remain unemployed for periods, say, exceeding six months. Deputies must not think of the number of persons upon the register of unemployed as the number of persons permanently unemployed. They are not. There is a continual change-over; on every day new persons are going upon the register and persons who were on it are going off. There is continuous fluctuation in the employment position, and the whole purpose of the unemployment assistance scheme, coupled with the Unemployment Insurance Acts, is to provide for those persons during the weeks they are unemployed, between spells of employment, some measure of State assistance to enable them to maintain themselves. But in fact the unemployed person, or his family, are not expected to maintain themselves permanently upon the rates of unemployment assistance set out in the Schedule to the Unemployment Assistance Act. Deputy Norton asks us also what we hoped to save by the withdrawal of free beef. Now, it was made quite clear when the free beef scheme was brought into operation that it was only a temporary scheme and that it was designed primarily to deal with the surplus cattle which could not otherwise be disposed of. We thought it better to give that beef free to our own unemployed persons than to give it to other persons outside the country at a subsidised price. So the free beef scheme was brought into operation and it was continued in operation as long as that surplus of cattle continued. The scheme is not only withdrawn so far as it affects the persons under the Unemployment Assistance Act, but it is withdrawn generally and free beef will not be available for anybody in the future. It is true that we are inaugurating a cheap beef scheme for the unemployed in substitution for it.

Where are they going to get this from?

Get what?

The Minister said there would be a "substitute" for free beef.

I said we are substituting free beef by cheap beef.

Who is providing it?

The State is providing it.

It is provided from Roscrea.

Deputy Norton said that we made two employment period orders in order to save money for the Exchequer. These orders were not made to save money for the Exchequer; even if these orders cost money to the Exchequer they would have been made.

These employment period orders were made in the interests of the agricultural community as a whole. It is in the interests of agriculture that unemployment assistance should not be payable to the class of persons affected by these employment orders for the periods for which they are made. We made the first employment period order and we excluded from unemployment assistance holders of land in excess of £4 yearly valuation during one month of the year, when these persons might be reasonably expected to be employed on that land. We are making a new employment period order to exclude single men in rural areas during the harvest season.

Including carpenters?

We are making an order to exclude single men, and I want Deputy Norton to understand that the unemployment assistance scheme is based upon this principle, that unemployment assistance will not be available to anybody who is capable of getting work.

So that the carpenter must work at harvesting work?

Yes, if he cannot get work at carpentering.

And he has to work at 6/- a week at harvesting.

There is no such thing as 6/- a week paid for harvesting work.

We are not undertaking to provide for every unemployed person the class of work he likes best. If a man refuses work while he is unemployed then he does not come under the unemployment assistance scheme.

Must the carpenter become a labourer in order to qualify —does he become ineligible for unemployment assistance if he does not accept work as a labourer?

Deputy Norton cannot have an economic war and at the same time have everything he wants for the labourer and the workers.

That remark is particularly inappropriate coming as it does from Deputy Mulcahy. In the halcyon days when Cumann na nGaedheal was in office there was unemployment and yet his Government did not consider the introduction of an Unemployment Assistance Act.

The Minister does not appreciate my remarks. When the Labour Party co-operates with the Fianna Fáil Party in the running of an economic war, even a carpenter cannot have everything that he wants.

The great majority of carpenters are now employed.

There are thousands of carpenters and craftsmen unemployed.

The Minister never looks at his own statistics.

I would ask the Minister to read his own figures.

Nonsense.

I know they are nonsense, but read them.

Deputy Peadar Doyle raised a point the significance of which I could not follow. He apparently thinks it is undesirable that any person should be deprived of unemployment assistance, even though the unemployment assistance officer considers that person is not genuinely seeking work. The Deputy thinks he should not be deprived of assistance. The whole purpose of the Act is to ensure that a person will not get unemployment assistance unless he is genuinely seeking work.

How does the Minister arrive at that decision? I would like him to give us some illustration as to how it works out. I may tell the Minister that his officers have turned down cases for relief where we have information that the people are genuinely looking for work.

That matter is left to the discretion of the unemployment officer on the information that comes to him. When the applicant is turned down the officer tells him that he has a right to appeal to the Court of Referees. Half that body are representatives of the workers and half representatives of the employers. Before that court any applicant who is turned down by an officer can bring his appeal, and if he gets a favourable decision from the Court of Referees he will get the unemployment assistance retrospectively. It is the duty of the unemployment officer on every occasion when he believes the applicant for unemployment assistance is not genuinely seeking work to stop the unemployment assistance that the person is being given.

I appreciate that, but the point I want to make is this, that the Minister himself must know that cases have been turned down unjustifiably. We have evidence of that in the Dublin Board of Public Assistance, and when such cases are turned down they have to be relieved by our relieving officers. That is what I want to bring before the notice of the Minister.

Either these people are properly turned down or they are not. If they are rightly turned down, then certainly they are not entitled to any assistance. If they are unjustifiably turned down they will become entitled to assistance on appeal and payment will be retrospective. We are providing that the local public assistance authorities can recover from a successful appellant out of the moneys he is to get under the Unemployment Assistance Act the relief given him by the board of public assistance during the period during which his case was pending. Deputy Mulcahy asked for some information as to what our experience now of the working of this Act has taught us as to the position of employment in the country. The Deputy then proceeded to quote figures as between May of last year and May of this year. He says there has been an increase of 75 per cent. in registered unemployment in western counties during that period. During that period the Act came into operation, but these figures do not mean that there was any increase in unemployment in the meantime. The figures mean that the efficient registration of the unemployed and underemployed was effected for the first time. The Act came into operation in May last year, and an additional number of people got registered because of that Act. The free beef scheme came into operation in August and as a result of that again a large number of additional people registered in order to get unemployment assistance and the free beef, or to get both. What has happened now is that we have got registered under the Unemployment Act a large number of uneconomic landholders and the sons of uneconomic landholders who are not fully employed on their father's farms. A class of people have come on the register who were never on it before. Many of them have some way of employment at present, but nevertheless they are desirous of obtaining work and are seeking better employment than they have. That is why these people are on the register. There is no possible basis for a comparison between that register and the register of last year or the year before that, or the register that existed four years ago. Each register was compiled on an entirely different basis and any comparison is bound to be misleading.

As Deputy Norton stated, out of the 100,000 people receiving unemployment assistance roughly 75,000 are persons held to have means of some kind. The great majority of them are, of course, landholders or persons working for their relatives on the land, and only the balance, the persons without means, are those who in the past were regarded as unemployed in the real sense. As I have frequently pointed out here, there is no evidence whatever of any increase in unemployment. All the evidence points to a decrease in unemployment. There has been very definitely an increase in employment, an increase which is recorded in all available statistics published by anybody in relation to the employment situation, including an increase in the number of persons employed in agriculture, not merely in those employed working on their relatives' farms, but also an increase in those employed for wages, both temporarily and permanently. Deputy Curran cannot deny that, because we have counted them.

You have 1,600 less permanent labourers and 3,300 less temporary labourers employed after hundreds of thousands of pounds have been put into subsidised crops in the country.

That is the increase in agricultural employment. I want the Deputy to remark it is an increase.

With reduced wages all round.

Deputy Curran made the most extraordinary and scandalous statement. He stated that he knew that in certain parts of the country there was collusion to defraud the revenue; that persons were being employed for wages and being allowed to draw unemployment assistance at the same time. He said that he knew I was going to tell him that it was his duty to report such cases; but he did not consider it his duty to assist in the administration of the law. If that statement were made by some person outside the House with no knowledge of his duty, with no sense of civic responsibility, with no sense of decency, one might understand it. But that a person who claims to be a representative of the people, a member of a responsible Party in this House, should make a statement that he did not consider it his duty to prevent fraud upon the revenue, to report information of criminal acts to the proper authority is a most extraordinary position.

Do you want me to catch the I.R.A. for you?

I am very anxious to know if Deputy Curran's attitude is the official attitude of his Party in relation to these matters.

Talk to the Attorney-General about that.

If Deputy Curran saw a thief picking a pocket, would he consider it his duty to report it to a policeman, or would he say it was not his function?

Of course, it is not my function.

Of course, it is your function. The Deputy should try to learn from some reliable source what the accepted view as to the responsibility of a citizen is. Apparently, he has got a very bad education in the ranks of the Fine Gael Party.

He has got a bad headline from the Attorney-General.

It is the Deputy's duty——

I say it is not.

——to report to the proper authority any fraud or criminal act of which he is aware.

I do not think there is anything about non-compliance in this Bill.

I want to emphasise that unless we get the co-operation of employers generally and citizens generally in preventing frauds under the Unemployment Insurance Act and the Unemployment Assistance Act, it will be impossible to keep such codes upon the statute book. Any legislation of this kind, to be made effective must be operated with the co-operation and the good-will of all the citizens. If there is any substantial body of people, including persons claiming to be representatives of the people, who do not consider it their duty to render that co-operation and to report frauds when they know of them, then legislation of this kind will become impossible. I am thankful that Deputy Curran is probably the only member who would commit himself to such a scandalous statement and that the view expressed is not held by .001 per cent. of the population.

They probably know nothing about it. It is a crime for a labourer, if he gets a few bob from a farmer——

If he is robbing the Exchequer or the taxpayers, getting money that he is not entitled to in law or justice.

It would be more in keeping with legislation if he got it in addition to what the farmers are able to give at the present time. Then you might be doing something.

That is the new morality that the lay pope of the United Ireland newspaper has at least succeeded in converting Deputy Curran to—to advocate the doctrine that anybody can rob anything as long as he gets away with it.

I never robbed anybody.

Does the Deputy not think that he is an accomplice when he knows of people engaged in these fraudulent practices and declines to report to the authorities? He is an accomplice.

It is a new idea.

It is not; it is as old as the Christian religion. To get back to more important matters. I do not know if there was anything else said that it is necessary to deal with at this stage. Some of the points raised were obviously Committee points and can be discussed when the relevant sections are put from the Chair in Committee. I merely want to emphasise that this Bill is, in my opinion, one designed to effect a number of improvements in the Unemployment Assistance Act; that it is going to ease the position of persons who are, unfortunately, compelled to avail of the unemployment assistance scheme in many ways; that it is going to make that scheme itself more workable, and because it makes it more workable, is going to increase the chances of its being a permanent feature in our scheme of social services.

Although certain Deputies expressed opposition to the Bill the only one section that they expressed any view against was Section 11, and Section 11 is not merely necessary but it is in itself just that that alteration in the original Act should be made in order to ensure that, of the money which the people of the country are able to make available for unemployment assistance, the greater part of it should go to those who are most urgently in need of it. In my opinion, persons without means, who have nothing else to sell except their ability to work, and who, when not working, have no means whatever, are much more entitled to our help and much more in need of our help than persons who, whether working or not, have, nevertheless, means to help them to carry on. The reduction in the uncalculated means provided by Section 11 makes possible the other changes in the main scheme which this Bill is designed to effect, changes which are going to benefit considerably the other sections to which I referred. I am quite prepared at any time to justify the amendment to Section 17 of the principal Act effected on the grounds that it is part of the general scheme embodied in the whole measure.

Will the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Bill be similarly amended as in Section 11?

I do not think so.

Question put and agreed to.
Committee Stage ordered for Tuesday, 23rd July.

Could the Minister meanwhile ascertain what will be saved by Section 11 and what will be spent on the five other sections under which he states increased costs will be incurred?

It is very hard to make any estimate of what the result will be.

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