If the House has no objection, I would ask that the further stages of the Bill be taken now. There will not be any amendments to the Bill.
Agreed.
Poor Relief (Dublin) Bill, 1936—Committee and Final Stages.
Bill passed through Committee and reported without amendment.
Question—"That the Bill be received for final consideration"—put and agreed to.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."
On that question, I would like to ask the Parliamentary Secretary again whether he has gone into the situation which exists arising out of the establishment of relief schemes? I think I drew his attention to the fact that men were being deprived of unemployment assistance completely and were being given three days a week at work in such a way that they had no regular employment. They could not count on getting employment for three days every week, with the result that men who were in receipt of 16s. unemployment assistance and 6s. outdoor relief as able-bodied persons from the Dublin Board of Public Assistance were finding themselves in the position in which for one week they would get 28/6 for work and the next week they would get only 18/6, so that although they were working they were actually receiving less than they were getting before they had any work to do. No doubt a certain responsibility falls, in the circumstances, on the board of public assistance to give them assistance, but in the operation of the scheme both the unemployment assistance authorities and the board of assistance authorities seem to have washed their hands of that particular class of people and the result is that a man who finds himself drawing only 18/6 as a result of working has to crawl around the town from the unemployment assistance officers to the home assistance officers and then to some Deputy or person of influence in order to see that he will not get less for the week that he was working than he used to get before he got any work to do.
I do not know where the responsibility for the confusion and the want of connection that has arisen, lies, but I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether he has gone into the matter and what machinery can be set up to ensure that without going around the place hunting from one person and one office to another a man who is doing work on relief schemes will find that he will not be worse off than before he had any work to do. The Parliamentary Secretary will admit that the scheme is a very bad one from the point of view of the unfortunate people concerned and from a financial point of view. It is also frightfully bad from the administrative point of view and it can have no other result than creating unrest and dissatisfaction. It must create a certain difficulty in connection with relief schemes if the men find themselves in this unsatisfactory position.
As I am sure Deputy Mulcahy will agree, the only question at issue in this measure is the desirability or otherwise of continuing to give statutory authority to the Dublin poor law authorities to afford out-door relief to able-bodied persons. The various other issues that Deputy Mulcahy has raised about over-lapping between the unemployment and the home assistance authorities and the rotation of work provided by the Dublin authorities, are matters into which I have not had an opportunity of looking since he raised them on the Second Reading, but I will have the whole question examined. At the same time I should think it is more a matter for the local authorities concerned than for the the Department of Local Government. However, I shall have it examined to see if the position is as the Deputy states and if anything can be done to prevent the overlapping to which he has referred, if it is found to exist.
I can assure the Parliamentary Secretary that the position is as I have stated. It is not so much a question of over-lapping as complete dissociation between the groups that ought to be dealing with that matter.
It appears to me that the local authorities are more concerned than the Department in whatever confusion has arisen.
The case Deputy Mulcahy has in mind is mainly the case of the workers at Fairview.
Any cases I have come in touch with have relation to the Fairview workers.
That work is being controlled by the Board of Works and the reason the workers get only two days pay in one week is because of some fetish in the Board of Works arising out of which if a worker works on a Saturday he is not paid for that particular Saturday in respect of the week in which it occurs; they insist that his pay for that day must be carried into the next week. For instance, if a worker works on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday, instead of getting paid for the three days on a Saturday the Board of Works pay him for Thursday and Friday only and they carry Saturdays' pay into the following week. The result is that the man gets only two days' pay and the amount is less than if he were registered at the employment exchange. It is really a simple matter to adjust.
Question—"That the Bill do now pass"—agreed to.