I beg to move the motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of this Party:
Having regard to the wholly inadequate rates of benefit originally provided for unemployed persons under the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1933, and to the fact that during the last two years the retail prices of commodities normally used in working-class homes have been raised substantially, this House requests the Executive Council to introduce proposals for amending the Unemployment Assistance Acts, 1933 and 1935, with a view to providing from State funds adequate maintenance for all persons unable to obtain remunerative employment.
The object of this motion is to bring to the notice of the House the inadequate rates of benefit which are provided under the Unemployment Assistance Act, and to direct the attention of the House to the fact that, whatever value these rates had from the standpoint of their purchasing power in 1933, that purchasing power has since shrunken by reason of the increase in the cost of living in the meantime. At the same time, the object of the motion is to ask the House, in view of these considerations, which make a human appeal to Deputies of all Parties, that the Executive Council should be requested to introduce amending legislation so as to raise substantially the present utterly inadequate rates of benefit provided under the Unemployment Assistance Acts.
When the Unemployment Assistance Act was passing through the House in 1933, we then complained that the rates of benefit provided under it were utterly inadequate, but if these rates were inadequate to the circumstances of 1933, and inadequate having regard to the cost of living datum line in 1933, they are still more inadequate now. In 1933, when passing the main Act, the House fixed certain maximum rates of benefit, varying in county boroughs from 9/- per week, payable to a man with no dependents, to a maximum of 20/- per week to a man with a wife and five dependent children. In urban towns the rates for the same classes varied from 7/- per week to 15/- per week, and in other areas, which included rural areas and large-sized towns, towns with a population of 6,900, for instance, the rates of benefit for the same classes varied from 6/- per week to 12/6 per week. At that time it was possible, under the terms of the Act as then passed by the Oireachtas, to have the first 2/- of means excluded in the calculation of the claimant's right to get the rates of benefit which I have just quoted. Since then, for economy reasons, the Government have introduced an Amending Act, the purpose of which was to save money to the Exchequer. That was done by the simple expedient of disregarding not 2/-, but only 1/-, which meant, in effect, a substantial reduction, so far as the claimants were concerned, in the scales of benefit which they were then receiving. However, a combination of that latter factor, of certain portions of the means being excluded, with the maximum rates of benefit which I have quoted, gives the House some picture of the State's benevolence as conceived by the Legislature in 1933.
When we passed this Act in that year the cost-of-living index figure, as ascertained by the Department of Industry and Commerce, showed that the food index figure was 129, an increase of 29 points on the datum line of 100 which was taken as the basis of calculation for July, 1934. In August, 1936, three years afterwards, the last month for which figures in respect of the cost-of-living index figure are available, we find that the food index had risen from 129 to 145, an increase in food prices alone of 12½ per cent. In that respect one has got to bear in mind that the extent of the increase does not give even an adequate picture of the real increase, because the cost-of-living index figure is measured by standards so rigid that it is not possible to import into it a calculation of the fluctuations in that figure of the precise circumstances in respect of each individual family. But, at all events, assuming that in 1933 we regarded the maximum benefits of 20/-, 17/- and 12/6 as something that ought to be paid, having regard to the living standards of that time, I think that we are now, as a matter of the merest equity, entitled to say that these figures have lost their purchasing power considerably since they were introduced in that year, and that the least the State ought to recognise is that these rates of benefit ought to be adjusted to the extent that their purchasing power has shrunk in recent years.
But, as I have said, the cost-of-living index figure cannot be regarded as a true index of the standard of living in working-class homes, nor can it give a proper picture of the effect of rises in the cost of living in respect of particular commodities in the homes of unemployed members of the community. In the case of an unemployed man there are certain staple articles of diet upon which he is obliged to depend in very large measure. He is not able to consume, by reason of his impoverished economic condition, the wide range of commodities which enter into the compilation of the cost-of-living index figure. He is obliged to discard, because of his economic circumstances, many of the commodities which are used to test price movements, and instead is thrown back on certain articles of food which, in main, can be bought by him at lesser prices than those at which other articles can be purchased. Thus, we find that in the case of an unemployed man there are certain articles, such as flour, bread, butter and coal, which necessarily absorb the greatest portion of his income, and it is on these articles that the bulk of his income is spent, not merely because these articles are essential, but because in his economic condition they are regarded as staple articles of food for his family.
If we look at the fluctuations in the prices of these articles since the House passed the Unemployment Assistance Act of 1933, we get a picture which shows that, far from the cost-of-living index figure for food having risen only by 12½ per cent., the actual increase, particularly in respect of these commodities, is substantially higher than that revealed by an examination of the official cost-of-living index figure. Take, for example, flour. In August, 1933, household flour could be purchased at 28/- or 29/- a sack. The present price of flour is approximately 40/-. The price of flour, therefore, has increased by 12/- a sack since the Unemployment Assistance Act was passed. That represents an increase of 38 per cent. in the price of flour in the three years 1933-1936. To the extent that flour is a staple article of food in the domestic budget of an unemployed man, he is paying a substantial portion of his income away in purchasing a commodity that has increased much beyond the level of the ordinary articles which comprise the cost-of-living index figure. If we take bread, another staple article of food in the working-class budget, we find that in 1933 the value of the 4lb.-loaf was approximately 7½d. Now we have an Order made by the Minister for Industry and Commerce fixing the price of the same loaf at 9½d. That is an increase of 2d. between 1933 and 1936. In that case we find the cost of bread to the unemployed man, and to the employed man as well, has increased by 27 per cent. as compared with the figure ruling when the House passed the Unemployment Assistance Act in 1933.
In respect of coal, the price in 1933 was approximately 35/- a ton for a consumable quality of household coal. The price to-day is approximately 45/-, an increase of 28 per cent. as compared with the figure obtaining in 1933. Take, then, flour, bread and coal—three important articles in the budget of the working-class family, and particularly important in the budget of an unemployed man's family. We find that the cost of these commodities has risen from 27 per cent. over the 1933 figure in the case of bread, to 38 per cent. over the 1933 figure in the case of flour. If we go over some other articles which are normally consumed in working-class homes, although some of them may now seem to be a luxury in the home of an unemployed man, having regard to the price and the low rates of benefit provided, we find that sugar shows an increase over the 1933 figure, that tea shows an increase, that milk shows an increase and that bacon and butter show an increase; so that, in respect of that important range of articles of food which plays an important part in the domestic economy of working-class homes, we find there have been substantial increases in the price of all these staple articles to-day as compared with the position when the House passed the Act three years ago.
In the face of this incontrovertible evidence of a substantial increase in the cost of living, and in face of the fact that that increase must necessarily mean considerable suffering, considerable pinching, considerable belt-tightening in the homes of unemployed people, I think the House will readily realise that there is a substantial case for increasing the rates of benefit provided in the 1933 Act. But the House could usefully employ a few minutes of its time considering whether—seeing the State accepts responsibility for providing work or maintenance, or at least that spokesmen on behalf of the Government Party have claimed that the State does now accept responsibility for providing work or maintenance—the scales of maintenance provided are such as are sufficient to maintain unemployed people in a state of bodily efficiency, even though a strong case could be made for every human being enjoying a standard of physical comfort much above that which is necessary to maintain one in mere physical health.
The present scales of unemployment assistance condemn a man in Dublin to try to maintain himself, his wife and five children on an income of 20/-. If the man happens to live in the town of Naas or in the town of Athy he is expected to keep himself, his wife and five children on a maximum benefit of 12/6 a week. If the Minister were to examine the figures relating to the percentage of persons who receive the maximum rates of benefit, he would find that considerable numbers of people fail to obtain the maximum rates because of the particularly stringent regulations which have been devised for measuring income, regulations which place a fantastic valuation on the most trivial form of income or property. I have said that these maximum rates vary from 12/6 to 20/- a week. If the State claims that these rates of benefit are adequate, then the State ought to be prepared to show those who are the recipients how it is possible for them, on such low scales, to maintain a healthy physical existence.
In 1933 a very responsible body, the British Medical Association, without any political bias, without any social bias, and concerned in the matter purely from the standpoint of physical well-being, set up a committee to examine the cost of providing food for the working classes so as barely to maintain health. The committee consisted of very eminent people in the medical profession and, after a most microscopic and impartial examination of the needs of a working-class man and his family, they issued a report and in that report, which was subscribed to by very eminent people, it was declared that the minimum cost of food to maintain that type of family in the minimum state of health was 5/10½ a week in respect of an adult man, 4/11 a week in the case of an adult woman; in the case of a child of 12 the committee reported that 5/4 a week was necessary; in the case of a child of nine that 4/2 was necessary and in the case of a child of six that 3/4½ was necessary.
When one examines the combined cost of maintaining a man, his wife and three children on frugal fare, designed only to provide physical health, one finds that £1 3s. 8d. is necessary. That was in 1933 in Great Britain, where the cost-of-living index figure is lower than here and where resort to substitute foods is easier than it is here. We have a responsible organisation such as the British Medical Association declaring, with the reputation of the many eminent people who comprise the committee and the association, that it was necessary for two adults and three children to have £1 3s. 8d. per week spent on food, in order barely to maintain them in health. If that were the figure for 1933 in Britain or here, it must inevitably be revised in an upward direction by reason of the change in the cost-of-living index figures which has taken place in the meantime. If this association found that that expenditure was necessary to purchase the minimum quantity of food to maintain health for a working-class family in Great Britain in 1933, one may be sure, by a comparison of the index figures in both countries and by such experience as one may have of both countries, that it would have required a greater expenditure of money to provide the same articles of food here.
If we assume, however, for the sake of convenience, that what applied there in the matter of purchasing power applies equally here, we get a picture from a responsible organisation such as that that the minimum expenditure on food for a working-class family in 1933, consisting of a man, his wife and three children, was £1 3s. 8d., and we get some picture of how inadequate the present unemployment assistance rates are. Then, when we have finished reflecting on the big discrepancy between the rates of benefit provided here and the cost of maintaining a minimum standard of health as ascertained by the British Medical Association, we must remember that that estimate of expenditure was in respect of food alone. Working-class families must pay rent; they must buy clothes; they must buy fuel; they must obtain light; there are school books to be paid for; there is medicine to be purchased from time to time; recreation has to be obtained, to say nothing whatever of the necessity of occasionally renewing articles of furniture and domestic utensils. If we make allowance for items of expenditure under these heads, particularly in respect of rent, clothing, fuel and light, I should think the cost of maintaining a minimum standard of health and a minimum standard of comfort would be not less than 45/- a week, but here, under our Unemployment Assistance Act, workers are expected to be able to exist and to obtain those articles which are necessary for human existance on scales of benefit which would not purchase a fraction of the necessaries of life.
We offer to the family, which the British Medical Association said would require £1 3s. 8d., 17/6 in Dublin; in an urban town with a population of 7,000 or over, 13/6, and in towns with a population of less than 7,000, 12/-per week. A body of eminent medical men prescribed as necessary the expenditure of 23/8 on food to maintain a minimum standard of health, and our reply to that is to offer 12/-to the same family to purchase, not only food, but to pay rent and buy clothes, fuel, light and the other necessaries of life which will readily occur to the minds of Deputies. I cannot imagine on what possible standard the Government can justify the continuance of these low rates of benefit, and can seek to defend these rates as capable of providing a reasonable standard of life for working-class families.
If we look at official records, it will be found that the cost of maintaining a person in a hospital, that is, the cost of providing provisions and such other ancillary things as one might receive in a hospital, varies from 6/-per week in County Waterford to 11/1 per week in County Meath. If one were to assume that, perhaps, there might be a little luxury provided for a patient in a hospital, and that that standard could not be accepted as something approaching the normal standard of a working-class family, we can move on to the county homes, where, I think, everybody will agree a standard of luxury is not very much in evidence. Taking the rates which are necessary for the maintenance of persons in county homes, we find that they vary from 4/2 per week in Waterford to 6/3 in Cavan, so that even though hospitals might buy food in large quantities and receive specially low tenders from contractors in order to obtain contracts, and even though county homes can purchase foodstuffs in the same way, whether you judge it on the basis of maintenance in a hospital or in a county home, the expenditure on the supply of provisions varies from 6/- to 11/1 per week in the case of hospitals, to from 4/2 to 6/3 in the case of county homes.
I doubt if the Minister will attempt to say that there is any extravagance in the provision of food in county homes. If we take it that the county home standard, appallingly low though that is, is a standard by which we can test the cost of maintaining bodily health—and the figures, let me say, bear a striking resemblance to the figures published by the British Medical Association — we find that even that standard is much above the standards made available to unemployed people under the Unemployment Assistance Act. For instance, in Cavan, where it costs 6/3 per week to provide food for patients in county homes—two adults costing 12/6 per week, and that expenditure is purely in respect of foodstuffs supplied to the patient—if there were a family consisting of two adults and three children, and the breadwinner was unemployed, he would be expected to provide food and clothing, pay rent, purchase fuel and obtain light, for himself, his wife and his three children for seven days each week for the sum of 12/6 per week. The State recognises the necessity for the expenditure of 12/6 per week to maintain two adults in the county home, and it expects a family consisting of a man, his wife and three children, to purchase the same foodstuffs—because the State dare not expect them to purchase less—and to provide food, clothing and shelter on the same insignificant sum of 12/6. There is the addition that three children must be provided for out of the 12/6 received in the form of unemployment assistance.
I say that comparisons of that kind, and the day-to-day experience of Deputies, their day-to-day and week-to week contact with unemployed persons, must convince the House, if the House were free to express its mind freely on this matter, that there is an urgent need for an upward revision of the present rates of unemployment assistance benefit. The plight of those who are endeavouring to exist on these inadequate scales is appalling. Any Deputy who has any contact with the unfortunate people who are trying to maintain themselves on these inadequate rates of benefit knows only too well the harrowing stories which they tell, stories which reveal that they are unable to purchase the barest necessities of life on the inadequate pittance which the State makes available for them. I think many Deputies are familiar with the complaints made by recipients of unemployment assistance, that the largest portion of their expenditure is spent in paying rent in order to obtain shelter for themselves and their dependents. I think Deputy Harris is very familiar with the position in Athy. There the maximum rate of unemployment assistance is 12/6, and there are not many who get even 12/6. The urban council there rightly dealt with the slums, which were a disgrace to the town, and, as a result of a number of slum clearance schemes, were able to eradicate the slums and to erect new houses to which these unfortunate slum dwellers were transferred. The economic rent of each of the houses erected would probably be in the vicinity of 8/- per week, perhaps 8/6 per week, but because of the subvention for housing in the case of slum clearance schemes, the houses were let at 3/10 each.
If Deputies dwell just for a moment on the position of an unemployed man with a wife and five children in Athy, receiving a sum of 12/6 per week in the form of unemployment assistance paying 3/10 a week to the local authority for a house, and trying to maintain seven people for seven days on the balance of 8/8, I think the House will have no hesitation in realising that the plight of that unfortunate family, which has to provide, food, clothing, fuel, light and all other items of domestic expenditure for seven persons out of a sum of 8/8 per week, reveals a picture of the most harrowing poverty. If each member of that family were to obtain three meals per day, it would mean that 21 meals would have to be provided per day. If they were to spend 1d. per person for each meal, it would mean that they would have to spend 1/9 per day or 12/3 per week. I do not think anybody will attempt to suggest that there is sufficient nutriment in a meal costing 1d., particularly for adults or growing children. Yet if the family were to spend even 1d. per meal—and the House can get some picture of the meal one would get for 1d. in face of the rising cost of living — the family would have spent 12/3 per week on meals alone. But the family are not allowed 12/3 per week to spend on meals. They are only allowed 8/8, approximately two-thirds of the figure of the expenditure that would be incurred if 1d. were spent on each meal. The result is that the family is permitted only to spend two-thirds of 1d. per meal for each member of the family. That is a picture of the prosperity that is available for those who are endeavouring to exist on the inadequate rates of benefit provided by the Unemployment Assistance Act. Then we have got to remember that clothing, light, school books and all the other necessary items of expenditure have to be met so that the family cannot spend even two-thirds of 1d. per meal for each member of the family.
I think I have said sufficient on this matter to convince the House that not merely do the present rates of benefit disclose that they are incapable of providing even a minimum standard of existence for recipients of unemployment assistance, but they disclose, in addition, that in respect to those who are compelled to exist on such rates, they are suffering not only impoverishment, but hunger and malnutrition of the grossest kind. I doubt if any Deputy in the House would hesitate to listen to a demand on any section of the population to remedy hunger and privation where such conditions were known to exist amongst large sections of the community. I think from the figures I have quoted —and those figures will be supplemented by others from Deputies who will speak in support of the motion— that the rates of unemployment assistance will not protect unemployed workers and their families from hunger and from the grossest forms of malnutrition. The motion which I have submitted—I hope in a non-contentious way—seeks to apply a remedy to the problem and to the evil with which it deals. I hope that Deputies, realising their responsibility to the weak and destitute section of the community, will vote for the motion, and instruct the Executive Council to introduce legislation providing for a substantial increase in the present rates.