At question time to-day I put to the Minister for Defence a question which implied in the first place that it was impossible for men who belong to the Army reserve to get employment on any of the relief schemes being put into operation at present, and, secondly, that among the married men, because of the fact that they could not get work on these relief schemes, and, therefore, could not get work practically at all, there was a tendency to wish to get out of the Army reserve. If they got out of it, they would be able to get work on relief schemes because their family conditions would qualify them for it. I asked him if he would take steps to remove these grievances at once, and, with a view to his understanding the urgency of the matter, if he would receive a deputation from the Army reservists in the City of Dublin. The Minister with regard to the deputation said he would not receive the deputation from the Army reservists, but that he was willing at all times to give sympathetic consideration to any representations that would be put forward by an individual reservist regarding his conditions of service.
While I think it would be good for the Minister to receive a number of Army reservists and to hear from them directly their conditions, I nevertheless appreciate his attitude in the matter, but when he says he is prepared to receive representations from individual reservists regarding their conditions of service, I would ask him if he would arrange that these representations could be made in person, or to some officer appointed by him, perhaps connected with the Adjutant-General's Department, because personal contact is necessary to assure the men, particularly in the conditions in which they are at present, that there is a desire to assist them. Personal contact, I think, is also necessary in order to get carried across to the Minister the conditions of these men. To ask the men to put down in writing individually a statement of their conditions is an unsatisfactory way of doing things.
As I understand it, there is no machinery connected with the Army, or even associated outside with the Army, that acts in any way as soldiers' friend to ex-soldiers or people on the reserve, and it would be the beginning of a helpful connection if the Minister, in agreeing to take these representations, would take them through an officer attached to the Army. I say that it is impossible for an Army reservist at present to get employment on relief works, and the Minister's reply is that it is not impossible for an Army reservist who is in receipt of unemployment assistance to secure employment on relief works. He adds, however, "I am aware that in relation to this kind of employment, Army reservists are affected in the same way and to the same extent as other persons who have means by the operation of the rule under which preference in such employment is given to persons in receipt of higher rates of assistance over persons in receipt of lower rates."
When exchanging supplementary questions and answers to-day, statements were made that would suggest that the Army reservist stood as much chance of getting employment on relief works as the person who was in receipt of unemployment assistance to the extent, say, of £1. I want the Minister to understand from me that the facts as I come up against them and as represented to me by reservists are that there is no chance of a reservist, who is allowed unemployment assistance of only 16/- a week, whatever be the size of his family, getting employment through the labour exchanges here in the city while there are people drawing 17/-, 18/-, 19/- and £1. If, as is implied here and as I think I understood from an interjection of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Army reservist drawing 16/- has as much right to get employment as the man drawing £1, it would be as well that that matter were clear, but I put to the Minister for his consideration and for his criticism and reply that so long as there is a man drawing £1 a week in the City of Dublin, or one drawing 19/-, 18/- or 17/-, no man who belongs to the Army reserve has any chance of being selected for whatever few days are available on relief work.
The theory upon which that is based is that he has means. What are the means of an Army reservist? A class "A" man who is able to turn up and give his period of training in the summer, usually about June, gets, I think, £8, so that next June the class "A" man who serves his period of service will get £8 and, at the beginning of next December, he will get £4 12s. Because of that, he is not able to-day to get employment on relief works.
The matter is urgent. A considerable amount of publicity has been given to the amount of money available for relief works throughout the country— something like £2,500,000. A large scheme in connection with a new airport is being embarked on at Collinstown, and the position of the Army reservist in the City of Dublin is that under present circumstances he has no hope of getting a day's work up there. I do not want to exaggerate the position, but if the Army in any circumstances had to be extended and any substantial body of the citizens of this country taken into it, the Minister, in my opinion, would find that the "A" reserve would be the backbone of that Army. The smallness of the numbers of men in the Army at present prevents them, as I am sure the Minister is only too keenly conscious, from being trained in the way he or any other Minister responsible for the Army would wish. In the "A" reserve he has experienced soldiers and, not only has he experienced soldiers, but a group of men dovetailing the Army and an interest in the Army into the citizens as a whole. If the present position with regard to the "A" reserve is allowed to continue, the reservists generally cannot be a group of men disseminating through the people as a whole an interest in and a desire to co-operate with the Army and the military authorities. Both on the ground that these men are in dire distress, some of them in view of the circumstances in which they are, and on the ground of their importance to the Army as an institution, and to the citizens as a whole, the matter is urgent and I would ask the Minister to leave nothing undone to face up to the problem straight away. The Minister states in his answer:—
"I am having the whole question of the relation of those grants to the receipt of unemployment assistance examined with a view to seeing whether relief can be afforded, and in what form."
He refers to the position by which an Army reservist not only loses a chance of work at the present time but loses 4/- every week from the beginning of the year off the payment that would ordinarily be made to him. That loss is because of the fact that he may hope to look forward to £8 for service given in June, and £4 12s. next year. That is, under present circumstances, a great grievance and a source of great misery and distress to the men, but I found that the biggest grievance and the biggest distress that is brought to them is that the disability which is there put against them cuts them off from any chance of work. If the reservists who are getting 16/- are entitled to work, I should like that to be made clear, but I should also like the Minister to understand that that is a very small point. What about the reservists who are only getting 15/-, 14/- or 13/-? That, as I say, is one of their difficulties, but work is what they want, and I state very definitely to the Minister that the experience of those men in the City of Dublin is that the fact that they are reservists stands between them and relief work. Many of them are not able to get any other kind of work at the present time.
