asked the Minister for Local Government and Public Health whether he is aware that there is considerable dissatisfaction at the insistence by his Department that grants for the relief of unemployment must be administered on the basis of rotational employment, and whether in view of the approach of Christmas he will issue instructions to local authorities to employ persons on such relief schemes for periods of complete weeks.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Employment on Relief Schemes.
The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. It is not proposed to change the present regulations in regard to rotational employment which are designed to secure the most equitable distribution of the funds available among the greatest possible number of the unemployed.
Does the Minister not acknowledge that Christmas is a time of abnormal expenditure in the case of most families and that the regulation which restricts workers to securing employment for three or four days a week on rotational schemes operates in such a way that on the eve of Christmas their income is exceedingly slender; and will he not consider relaxing the present regulation in the special circumstances of Christmas?
Last year the regulations were relaxed for the purpose of allowing a few weeks work to be given to as many men as possible. Only a relatively small proportion of the works had been began shortly before Christmas last year. This year a very considerable number of works are in operation. Last year it was discovered that the relaxation that was allowed disorganised the gangs taken from the panels of the unemployed and it was only possible to give to a relatively small proportion of the men employed a full week's work before Christmas, and that created great dissatisfaction and discontent amongst the other men in the gangs. In the circumstances, it is not proposed to renew it this year.
Does the Minister not consider it unfair that in the fortnight before Christmas men employed on relief schemes can get only the income which is derived from three or four days' work, and, at a time when their expenditure is well above normal on the advent of Christmas, could he not devise some method for these two weeks? For instance, could the local authorities not be permitted to employ men for complete weeks during those two weeks?
There was very great difficulty found last year when it was tried and it was discovered that an uneconomic number of men were employed on the schemes. The county surveyors in many places reported that they had not the staff to superintend the extra number of men, and the result was unsatisfactory both from the output of the work and from the discontent evidenced by the others who could not be employed. It was found impossible to employ them.
Will the Minister meet it in this way, by intimating to local authorities immediately that, where they can usefully employ the men for a complete week, they will be permitted to do so if the necessary organisation can be devised by the supervising officer?
I will consider that.
In such time as to permit a decision immediately?
Yes.