I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. This Bill is entitled an Act to amend and extend the Unemployment Assistance Acts. The principal amendment, however, as Deputies who have read the Bill will have noted, is to provide for a variation in the rates of unemployment assistance payable in the various areas provided for in the original legislation. Some time ago the Government came to the decision that it was possible to effect an increase in these rates, having regard to the general financial position and in particular to the diminution in the cost of unemployment assistance which has been noted during the past few years.
Unemployment Assistance (Amendment) Bill, 1937—Second Stage.
As a result of emigration?
The Government decided that it would be possible to make available a fairly substantial sum-for that purpose, particularly if a call was made upon the resources of the Unemployment Insurance Fund and a further contribution towards the cost of unemployment assistance was obtained from certain of the local authorities. When Deputies come to consider the Schedule to this Bill, the question to bear in mind is whether the method of distributing the funds between the various classes of people entitled to unemployment assistance is the most equitable.
Any proposal to increase the unemployment assistance rates must, of course, take into account the cost of the additional provision made. It is somewhat difficult to give an accurate estimate as to the probable cost of any change because, of course, the total charge for unemployment assistance varies from year to year and may be affected by sudden changes of one kind or another in the general economic condition. I stated some time ago that it was intended to make available from all sources a sum of, approximately, £150,000 for the purpose of increasing the unemployment assistance rates payable. It is, however, to be noted that mention of any figure of that kind must be related to the circumstances of a particular period.
It might be said that if the rates now proposed were in operation during the past year the cost of unemployment assistance would have been so much higher. If these rates had been in operation during 1935 the cost would have been still higher. But it is less easy to say precisely what the effect of the higher rates will be upon the total cost of unemployment assistance in the coming year. I anticipate that the diminution in unemployment which has been noticeable for some years past will continue in the present year and, consequently, the total charge for unemployment assistance, whatever the rates, will be less in this year than in the past year or would have been if similar rates of unemployment assistance were payable. Certain changes of plans have been made but so far as it is possible to forecast at present, the additional expense which will arise by reason of the change in the unemployment assistance rates proposed will, in the present year, cost about £126,000. Deputies will, of course, take that figure with the reservation I have indicated. It is proposed to obtain that sum partly from the Unemployment Insurance Fund and partly by increased contributions from the county boroughs and the Borough of Dun Laoghaire and the balance from the Exchequer. The Unemployment Insurance Fund is capable of contributing a further £50,000. Despite the fact that £250,000 a year has been taken from that fund for the purpose of unemployment assistance during the past years, the deficit existing in it has been wiped out and there is at present a surplus in the fund. It is anticipated that the excess of contributions over payments will continue in the future at such a figure as will enable this additional £250,000 to be contributed. The county boroughs and the Borough of Dun Laoghaire however bring in £120,000. Therefore, our estimate of the total unemployment assistance cost in the coming financial year on the Exchequer will have to bear a charge of about £55,000 over and above the charge which would have arisen if the proposed changes in the rates were not made. It is, of course, to be anticipated that if our expectations concerning the trend of unemployment and employment are not realised and that there should be demands on the Unemployment Assistance Fund in excess of the estimate, the full cost of the excess will have to be borne by the Exchequer. I think we are justified in the present circumstances in quoting these figures.
I know that the announcement of the intention of the Government to introduce this legislation caused some misgiving in many quarters. But having regard to all the circumstances, I think that the provision of an additional sum for unemployment assistance for the purpose of increasing the rates of unemployment assistance provided by law is justified. Our unemployment assistance rates here were never what one might describe as on the generous side, and although the unemployment assistance scheme involved the creation of a new and very expensive service and, consequently, the imposition of a substantial amount of additional taxation upon the public we never felt, and, I am sure, the majority of the members of the Dáil never thought, that the provision made represented what might be regarded as adequate to meet the circumstances of all the unemployed persons in the country.
The new schedule which will replace the old schedule provides for an increase in the rates payable, except in the case of one class. It is proposed to leave unchanged the rate of unemployment assistance payable in the rural areas and in the small towns to single men without dependents. It is, I think, generally believed that the present rate payable to such persons is not inadequate, and in any event, Deputies are aware that such persons are excluded from receiving unemployment assistance at all for the greater portion of each year. It was felt, however, that no undue hardship would be caused by leaving that rate unchanged. Any reduction in expenditure or any reduction in cost which decisions of that kind made possible are, of course, being availed of to effect in certain other rates increases higher than would otherwise be possible.
I may mention that the Government approached the consideration of this question on the basis of the distribution equitably of the amount of money which they consider should be made available. Deputies should approach the consideration of the schedule on the same basis. I know it may be contended in some quarters that the rates of assistance here provided are still unduly low. That is a case which it is very easy to make, and a case which is perhaps very difficult to answer. The only answer to it is that the provision of £1,250,000 a year for unemployment assistance represents the maximum contribution which the Government can make to that service having regard to the charges which fall upon the Exchequer and which, consequently, must be met by the taxpayer in respect of other social services, and the charges for the financing of relief works and services of that kind. It is, of course, not possible to provide for a further increase in the rates of unemployment assistance without at the same time imposing an additional charge upon the taxpayers.
It is necessary to endeavour to strike a balance between the requirements of the unemployed and the resources of the country and to ensure that while meeting, so far as may be, the obligations of the State to its unemployed citizens, the burden imposed upon commerce and industry is not so unduly heavy as, in itself, to aggravate the problem with which this service is designed to deal.
Is that the Christian social policy?
It is a good policy, in any event. I invite Deputies who think that these rates are still unduly low and who propose to urge that they be further increased to give us, at the same time, the benefit of their views as to what additional taxes should be imposed to get the revenue that would be required if their proposals were to be accepted.
Did you do that when you were in Opposition?
If I did not do it, I realised the weakness of my position and I am quite certain the public realised the weakness of my position. If Deputies opposite do not do that, I hope they will appreciate that the weakness of their position will be equally apparent. Other changes are, of course, being effected by this Bill, some of which are important. One of these relates to the rate of unemployment assistance payable in the urban areas. As Deputies are aware, the original Act provided for three separate rates of unemployment assistance:— (1) the highest rate, which was payable in the county boroughs and the Borough of Dun Laoghaire; (2) the intermediary rate, payable in other towns exceeding 7,000 population, according to the previous census and (3) the lowest rate, payable in rural areas and in the smaller towns. Since the original Act came into operation, another census has been taken and that census showed variations in the populations of certain towns. One town— the town of Cobh—which had exceeded 7,000 population in 1926 and where, consequently, the intermediary rate applied, had in 1936 fallen below the 7,000 figure. Another town—Ballina— which had in 1926 been below the 7,000 figure has since advanced above it. We are proposing, in order to deal with that situation, that after consultation with the urban authorities of these areas, we may either effect a change or leave the position unchanged. In the case of Cobh, a decision will be made, after consultation with the local authority, as to whether the town will continue to make the contribution from its rates which the original Act provides for and, consequently, secure the payment of the intermediary rate of assistance to its unemployed, or not. Similarly, in the case of Ballina, a decision will be made, after consultation with the local authority, as to whether the existing position will continue unchanged or whether the intermediary rate will become payable following the making of the necessary contribution from the rates by the local authority.
We decided, however, that it was possible to go further than that. Consequently, there is introduced in this Bill a proposal which makes it possible to extend to any town with local government the intermediary rate of unemployment assistance, subject to the making of the required contribution from the rates by the local authority. We think that that is a reasonable provision. As Deputies are aware, there are certain anomalies in the case of towns of equal size and similarly circumstanced, in some of which unemployment assistance is payable at a higher rate than in others. We are making it possible by this provision to remove these anomalies and to bring those towns, which are at present not regarded as urban areas for the purpose of the principal Act, within that provision, after consultation with the local authority and with the consent of the Minister for Local Government and the Minister for Finance. In quite a number of those towns which are at present not within the definition of "urban area" under the principal Act, there will be a desire on the part of the local authority to come within that definition, make a contribution from the rates and, consequently, secure the payment of unemployment assistance at the higher rate to unemployed persons residing there.
The other changes which the Bill proposes are of no special significance. The need for amendment of the law in one or two respects became obvious during the process of administration, and advantage is being taken of this Bill to effect the necessary changes. Certain changes are made in Section 7 in consequence of the adoption of the Limerick City Management Act, 1934, and Section 8 includes a provision which administration has shown to be necessary, to make it possible for an employer who aids and abets a person in his employment to commit an offence under the Unemployment Assistance Act to be prosecuted. The existing Act contains no such provision, and persons who, in our opinion, should have been prosecuted for aiding and abetting other persons in committing an offence have, consequently, escaped punishment. These, however, are minor matters.
The principal purpose of the Bill is to increase the rates of unemployment assistance. I ask the Dáil to pass the Bill. I hope I shall be able to secure the co-operation of the various Parties in enacting the measure during the present week. If any difficulty should arise in that regard, I should regret it. If it is desired to have any amendments considered, we shall, I am sure, get the co-operation of the Chair in making arrangements to that end. Subject to whatever the attitude of other Parties may be, I should like to get the Bill enacted this week. It may not provide for the unemployed rates of assistance as high as those certain Deputies would advocate or profess their desire to see, but it does provide for increased payments, and the sooner those increases come into operation the better it will be from the point of view of unemployed persons.
It is, of course, to be emphasised that the Government does not regard the provision of unemployment assistance as a solution of our unemployment problem. The unemployment assistance scheme was instituted merely to ensure that there would be some measure of protection against destitution while long-term plans for the provision of work or the development of industry were being brought into operation. It is much better that the problem of unemployment should be dealt with by the provision of work than by the provision of financial assistance. We realised, however, from the beginning that however extensive our works programme might be, it could not possibly be so organised as to make available in every area employment capable of meeting exactly the employment needs of that area, and varying from time to time as these needs varied and, consequently, that it was necessary to put behind any works programme that might be attempted some scheme of this nature which would permit of the direct payment of financial assistance to unemployed persons in need of such assistance, varied in accordance with their needs. There are a very large number of separate rates provided for in the Schedule. They represent an attempt to adjust the financial assistance made available by the Bill to the varying needs of different families according to their circumstances. It would be possible to have a still larger number of separate rates, because even the number provided for in the Schedule do not cover all possible circumstances, but they do, on the whole, fairly provide for the adjustment of the State's contribution to the needs of unemployed persons in direct relation to their family circumstances.
It will, of course, be a mark of progress if the amount payable in unemployment assistance diminishes, and particularly if that diminution can be directly attributed to the provision of more work. I have mentioned that the amount provided for unemployment assistance in each financial year since the scheme was adopted has shown a steady reduction. That reduction may be attributed to a number of causes; but one, at least, of the principal causes is the increase in employment, an increase which is capable of statistical demonstration beyond a shadow of doubt. We trust that that increase in employment will continue and that the amount which has to be provided for the unemployment assistance service will continue to diminish. Of course, upward variations in the rates of assistance will arrest any such tendency, but even having regard to the higher rates which it is proposed to provide in this measure, it is still possible to contemplate a lower provision for unemployment assistance in future years.
Will the Minister give the House some information as to the basis of this new addition to the expenses of local authorities? The rate on local authorities in respect of unemployment assistance was 1/6, and it is now being made 1/8. That is something like an increase of 11 per cent. Has the Minister any estimate in respect of the bringing in of urban authorities to whom the Act may be extended by order as to the amount that will come in from local authorities under this Bill?
It is impossible to say. I do not know to what extent orders will be made extending the intermediate rate of unemployment assistance payments to these urban areas which are not included in the definition of urban areas in the principal Act.
Can the Minister tell us what was the basis on which they fixed this extra 2d., this extra 11 per cent.? If I took the Minister's figures correctly, the State's increased contribution is approximately £55,000 and in round figures, we may say that the State's contribution towards unemployment assistance and expenses generally is in the neighbourhood of £1,100,000. Am I right in that?
Yes. If the Deputy includes the cost of administration, the figure is possibly higher.
So that the increase in the State's contribution is 5 per cent., while the increase in the local authorities' contribution is 11 per cent. An increase of £55,000 on £1,100,000 is 5 per cent. That is easily calculated. An increase of 2d. on 1/6 is one-ninth, which is equally easily calculated as 11 per cent.
I do not know if the Deputy is making a speech or asking a question——
I want the information first.
When I said that it is estimated that the State will have to pay £55,000 additional in this year because of the adoption of this measure, we contemplate a reduction in the number of persons receiving unemployment assistance this year. We think that the number will be less than last year. If that estimate should prove to be wrong, if the number receiving unemployment assistance this year is the same as, or higher than, the number last year, the whole of the difference will be paid by the State.
Taking it on whatever basis, it is not anticipated that it will be greater than last year?
No.
So that the Government's contribution in this case is increased by 5 per cent. and that of local authorities by 11 per cent. We start off from that. Could the Minister give the House any information as to the basis on which they made those calculations, or as to any data which he had before him when making up the costs of this and how they were apportioned, and whether the conditions prevailing in local authorities were taken into account, when this was being considered, or if it is simply an arbitrary increase? It would perhaps tend towards a restriction of the discussion if the Minister would give us further information.
The original Act provided that unemployment assistance would be met by contributions from three sources—the unemployment insurance fund, the urban authorities and the national Exchequer. It was decided that the additional amount required in consequence of the adoption of higher scales should be met by contributions from the same sources, and regard was had to the possibility of getting contributions from these sources. The unemployment insurance fund was levied to the extent of an additional £50,000, not so much because it was regarded as an equitable arrangement——
But because it was there.
——but because of the fact that it was possible to get the £50,000 with the least possible variation in existing conditions. Similarly, it was felt that it should be possible to get a contribution of another £20,000 from the urban authorities, but it was not practicable to distribute the collection of that sum over all the urban authorities making contributions under the principal Act, and it was decided to confine the contribution to the county boroughs and the Borough of Dun Laoghaire by requiring an additional 2d. contribution from those areas.
That is, so far as the £196,000 is concerned, it means that it will now be £216,000. If I correctly interpreted the Minister in the course of his speech on this Bill, it is owing to the increase in the cost of living, and owing to the improved position the Government finds itself in, that they are in a position to grant the extra payments set out in the schedule. If I am correct in that, I can go on to examine exactly what is the basis upon which the Minister founds that assumption. In so far as his own resources are concerned, he is in the happy position of being able to give more money away. How much is he giving? £55,000. He is adding an additional 5 per cent. to what he gave for the last few years. When he comes to deal with local authorities he says that their contributions must be 11 per cent. The money is no more his property than it is mine or anyone else's; it belongs to the insured contributors. The Minister says: "That fund is filling up, and I can take £50,000 out of it." He has as much right to take it as the bank has. How did it come to be there? It is insurance money paid by people in insured occupations, and it ought to be there for them in years to come, but because the till happens to be full at the moment, Ministers are going to tax them 20 per cent. on the original contributions.
As far as I can gather, this is an arbitrary arrangement. It is easier, according to the Minister, to get 2d. from local authorities than 1d.—a penny being a miserable sum. According to the equity of the case, they are only entitled to pay a penny, and as far as the unemployment insurance fund is concerned, they ought not to be asked to pay a larger sum than the Government is paying. The Government has taken very considerable credit for all the money they made available for unemployment insurance. The local authorities and the unemployment insurance fund have, between them, put up just as much as the Government. If we take the figures given by the Minister we find that the unemployment insurance fund and the local authorities are going to put up £70,000 while the Government is going to contribute £55,000. It will be £50,000 if the normal distribution of unemployment assistance is on the same basis as last year; if it is less, the Government will contribute less.
Generally, what is the situation in the country with regard to this question? Quite recently South Cork ratepayers got a shock when they found that their demands were up by £22,000. In the coming year £9,000 of that amount represents money that has to be provided for over expenditure in the past year, and £13,000 represents increased cost in the coming year. The Minister's friends in Cork are very anxious to make some sort of propaganda out of the situation, and want to make out that it is all due to the increased cost of items that had to be purchased. A home assistance officer in reply to the members said that 4,526 persons were now in receipt of home assistance, as against 4,206 12 months ago, showing an increase of 320 persons. If employment has increased generally throughout the country, it would appear that the shower did not fall in the district of South Cork. So far as that area is concerned, the increased estimate will mean 7½d. in the pound. If the Minister's proposals are carried, the only effect of his generosity will be, in the case of the people of Cork, an extra 2d. on the rates, or 9½d. in the pound, in a period of prosperity, as we are told, when statistics show that greater numbers are in employment, that it is likely unemployment assistance will cost less next year; but when the numbers in receipt of home assistance are going up, the Minister can keep the statistics. He is welcome to them. So far as the Cork ratepayers are concerned, they are not paying for statistics; they are paying for an increase in the cost of home assistance, paying for an increased number this year over last year, and not only that, but they anticipate that in the coming year the numbers will be larger. We will be told, of course, that we are Jeremiahs. I want to know what answer is to be given to the ratepayers in South Cork who are paying 7½d. in the pound over what they paid last year. Are they to be told that other parts of the country are prosperous, and that they ought to be well satisfied? If the Minister had made a correct analysis of the situation, and if he desired to deal with it on an equitable basis, he ought to have discovered which of these boroughs are paying more for home assistance than they were paying last year.
If they are paying less they ought to contribute more, and if they are paying more they ought to be asked to contribute less. It is very easy to be generous at other people's expense. A rise of 9½d. in the £ is a very considerable increase in the rates. It is quite possible that some of the towns in the hinterland of South Cork are diminishing in population, yet we are in the position now of having a larger number of people in receipt of home assistance, a larger number unemployed, and a larger number emigrating. Where do they all come from? I suppose the Minister will tell us very shortly that the population is larger. I think a case has been made on the face of it for taking out the contributions of the insured and of local authorities, as the Exchequer is very largely, if not entirely, responsible for the increased cost and consequently for the increased sums being paid in home assistance. If the figures submitted to me are correct—and I got them from people who purchased goods and paid for them—the sum the Minister proposes to grant to these people is not sufficient to balance the increase in the cost of living and ought to be greater. If the Exchequer returns are so buoyant, and if there is such prosperity in the country, the Central Exchequer ought to be able to meet the very small expense entailed by putting the entire charge on the Exchequer.
I confess I am quite unable to understand the mentality underlying this Bill, or the various devices that have been resorted to, in order to make the contribution from the Exchequer as low as possible. It is a display of sleight of hand known as "passing the buck," and this is a classic example of "passing the buck" from the State to other people, because, of course, persons other than the State, bodies other than the State, are going to make the biggest contribution to whatever slight additional benefit will be paid to the unemployed under this Bill.
We were told by the Minister that £21,000 additional will be required from the county boroughs and the borough of Dun Laoghaire. The Minister is taking power under the Bill to bring in 48 new urban councils who may be required to make a contribution of 9d. in the £ in order to raise the money with which to pay these slightly increased rates. The Unemployment Insurance Fund, a fund made up of contributions by workers and employers, a fund which ought to be utilised for the purpose of improving unemployment insurance benefits, a fund which was raided to the extent of £250,000 in connection with the 1933 Act, is to be raided again to the extent of a further £50,000 under this Bill. While that is so, there is not a single proposal from the Minister to indicate that he proposes to do anything to raise the rates of unemployment insurance benefit in respect of insured workers on whose behalf a substantial surplus has been accumulated in the fund in recent years. Of course the Minister knows that a substantial sum of money has been paid into the fund, that in recent years the fund has substantially liquidated a heavy debt, and that at present it is substantially in credit from an actuarial point of view. Instead of applying himself to the problem of improving the benefits for insured workers, the Minister proposes to raid the fund to the extent of a further £50,000. In other words, £300,000 per annum is being taken out of the pockets of insured workers and utilised to discharge an obligation to uninsured workers, an obligation which ought to be borne by the State and not by the insured workers. The rates of benefit payable to insured workers here are lower than they are across Channel or in the Six Counties, and are inadequate in the case of unemployed workers. A man with a wife and five children who may have been earning £4 a week when in employment gets 25/- a week when unemployed from the Unemployment Insurance Fund, and, although that fund has a surplus, the Minister will not utilise it to assist the insured worker. Instead, he raids it for the purpose of getting money to assist uninsured workers, a responsibility which properly ought to devolve on the State itself.
I think any proposal to impose a rate of 9d. in the £ in respect of 48 new urban councils will have a very serious effect on the finances of many of these councils. I put a question to-day to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government, asking him whether he proposed to sanction a sewerage scheme to facilitate an additional building scheme in the town of Athy. The reply that I received from the Parliamentary Secretary was that no sanction could be given until the urban council paid the arrears which it owed on previous housing schemes. The council finds it difficult to pay the arrears on previous housing schemes, due to the fact that it is finding it extremely difficult to collect not only the present rates but to collect the rents from persons who are trying to pay a rent of 4/- a week out of a maximum unemployment assistance benefit of 12/6 per week. In that particlar case the imposition of an additional 9d. in the £ is going to further embarrass the urban council, and is not going to make it easy for it to manage its financial affairs, which are already very difficult to manage from the council's standpoint.
Athy is surely a very prosperous town.
Well, if prosperity is to be measured in terms of people being ragged and hungry, of trying to live on 12/6 a week and paying 4/- a week rent out of that, of people clamouring for relief schemes and protesting against having to work on degrading rotational schemes, then Athy has reached the hallmark of prosperity. I would like Deputy Moore to go down to Athy—I would like if he would read the report of the last meeting of the Athy Urban Council—and see if he can discover any prosperity there. The local people cannot do it anyway.
God help the rest of the country, then.
Here we have a classic example of the difference between ministerial speeches made outside the House and ministerial speeches made inside the House. We are told from the political platforms throughout the country that the nation is on the high road to prosperity, that there is a substantial improvement in conditions all round. Efforts have been made by Ministers and by spokesmen of the Government Party to try to convince the people that the country is experiencing a measure of prosperity such as it has rarely enjoyed, so that, while we have the language of prosperity used outside the House, when we come to the House and ask to have adequate rates of benefit provided for the unemployed, Ministers drop the language of prosperity which they use outside the House and use the language of scarcity here.
The Minister said that this was a Bill to increase the rates of unemployment assistance benefit. I ask Deputies to look at the type of increase which is being provided. I would ask them to examine for a few moments the contribution which this additional benefit will make towards relieving the plight of unemployed persons. Under the existing Act a man with a wife and three other dependents receives 12/- a week. Now he is going to get 13/- a week. A man with a wife and four other dependents is going to get 14/- a week instead of the 12/6 which he has under the existing Act.
That is correct for the rural areas.
I am quoting the rates for a particular class.
The Deputy did not make that clear.
I am making it clear by quoting from the schedule to the Bill. If the Bill does not make it clear, then it is not my job to make it any clearer. A man with a wife and five or more dependent children who is now getting 12/6 will get 14/- a week under the Bill, so that for a man with a wife and five or six or seven children, who formerly received 12/6 per week under the Unemployment Assistance Act of 1933, what we propose to do in his case is to throw another 1/6 in among these seven or eight people and say: "There you are; that will see you right now." We are going to give that family of seven 14/- a week as a minimum, and that is what that family is going to be expected to live upon.
Expected by whom?
The State, of course.
If there was one thing that I made clear it was this: that this is an Unemployment Assistance Bill.
It is just as well that the Minister has raised that point. Let us examine it for a few moments. I make the positive statement that a man with a wife and five children, living in a rural area or in a small town in the County Kildare or the County Carlow, who is getting 12/6 a week unemployment assistance benefit, will not get home assistance from the local authority. I challenge anybody to deny that. Everybody knows that that is not common to these two counties. I make the statement in respect to these two counties because I have firsthand information concerning them, and what I say is this: that once you get unemployment assistance benefit, no matter what your circumstances are, the boards of health will not give you home assistance in addition. As a matter of fact, I have seen cases of men claiming unemployment assistance benefit who had not a farthing income. They applied for home assistance pending the receipt of the unemployment assistance benefit, and they were only granted the home assistance on the distinct understanding that they would agree to refund the home assistance if they got the unemployment assistance benefit. If the Minister has no information on that, will he ask the local authorities throughout the country whether that procedure is being adopted?
It is a physical impossibility, outside the City of Dublin at all events, and certainly an absolute impossibility in the counties of Carlow and Kildare with which I am familiar, to get unemployment assistance benefit and at the same time get home assistance. It cannot be done. Everybody who has any experience of administration knows that it cannot be done. So that whether the Minister wishes it or not, whether the Minister likes it or not, the fact remains that those who are in receipt of unemployment assistance benefit, even at the absurdly low rates provided in the main Act or by this Bill, will have to live on that income so far as the local authorities and the State are concerned, because it is impossible for them to have unemployment assistance benefit supplemented by home assistance. I should like the Minister to tell us how, in these circumstances, a man with a wife and five or six children can live in the year 1938 on an income of 14/- a week as a maximum. He must have a family of seven before he can get 14/-. If he has a family of ten, he can still only get 14/- under the Bill. In face of the fact that that person cannot get home assistance and that any type of income which a person has is taken into consideration to reduce the 14/- unemployment assistance, will the Minister tell us how it is possible for that person to live on that income?
The Minister says this is not intended to be the extent of the State's measurement of the cost of a person living and maintaining himself in reasonable decency and comfort. Of course it is. Even if we had not the example of home assistance, of course it is. If a person has an income, let us say, of 4/- per week in the form of a small pension from any source, that 4/- is taken into consideration when assessing that person's means. If a person has an income of 4/- per week, the State will utilise that income in such a way as to reduce that person's unemployment assistance benefit by 3/- per week. Does the Minister attempt to deny that? Is it not perfectly correct to say that a person who has been awarded a pension under the Military Service Pensions Act, let us say, of 8/- per week, and who might under this Bill be entitled to the maximum benefit of 14/-, will only get unemployment assistance benefit at the rate of 7/- per week? Is not that the clearest possible evidence that the Government regard 14/- as sufficient to maintain a man and his wife and family? If he has anything more, any income independent of unemployment assistance benefit, that income is used to reduce his unemployment assistance benefit. Therefore can the Minister try to pretend that the State does not regard this contribution as for the purpose of maintaining a family, when in fact any income to the family is taken into consideration to reduce even this miserable pittance?
In 1933 this House was asked to pass the main Unemployment Assistance Act. When it did so in October, 1933, the nearest quarterly cost-of-living index figure published by the Department of Industry and Commerce was for November, 1933. We ought, therefore, to devote a few moments to considering what way the cost of living has moved, and to what extent it has moved between the time the original rates were framed under the 1933 Act and the present date when we are considering this Bill. At mid-November, 1933, the cost-of-living index figure, as published by the Department of Industry and Commerce, taking July, 1914, as a basis, was 156 for all commodities. In mid-November, 1937, the cost-of-living index figure on the same basis had risen to 177. So that between mid-November, 1933, and mid-November, 1937, the cost-of-living index figure had risen from 156 to 177, taking all articles into consideration.
If we take the position in respect of food alone the rise is even greater. Again, according to the Department's figures, the index figure for food alone in mid-November, 1933, was 140, and in mid-November, 1937, the last quarter for which figures are available, the index figure had risen to 165, a rise of 25 points as between mid-November, 1933, and mid-November, 1937. In face of that very substantial rise, and in spite of the progress of prosperity in the meantime, which is referred to frequently from political platforms, the most we can do with a man and wife and five or six children is to throw them another 1/6 per week. The cost-of-living index figure has risen for food by 25 points in the past four years, according to the Department's figures, and in respect of all commodities it has risen by 21 points during the same period. We cannot give even a single man in the rural areas another halfpenny benefit notwithstanding that substantial rise, and notwithstanding all the so-called prosperity, and the most we can give to a large family is the munificent sum of 1/6 per week. I should like Ministers when referring to prosperity in future to tell us why, if there is such an amount of it, it is not possible to share some of it, in a more substantial way than is provided for in this Bill, with the unemployed people throughout the country.
I took the trouble this afternoon to look at some price lists published by the Department of Industry and Commerce so as to find out what variations in prices manifested themselves between 1933 and 1937. The Department of Industry and Commerce publishes in its quarterly publication, the Irish Trade Journal, a statement showing the average retail prices of the principal articles of food in towns, large and small, in Eire. This statement of prices is published in connection with each quarterly return of the cost-of-living index figure issued by the Department. I went through the return for the purpose of ascertaining what prices were recorded by the Department as ruling in mid-November, 1933, and mid-November, 1937, so as to be able to ascertain by reference to actual commodities the extent to which prices had risen in the meantime in order that we might compare the extent to which prices had risen with the extent to which the benefit was being increased in this Bill, and I got some interesting information which is worth giving to the House.
According to the Department's figures the price of sirloin beef in mid-November, 1933, was 10¼d. per lb. and in mid-November, 1937, 1/3¾; corned brisket of beef was 6½d. per lb. in 1933 and 8¼d. in 1937; leg of mutton was 9¾d. per lb. in 1933 and 1/2 in 1937; neck of mutton was 6¼d. per lb. in 1933 and 9d. in 1937; bacon, which once used to be seen on Irish breakfast tables, was 1/1 per lb. in 1933 and 1/7¼ per lb. in 1937; a shoulder of bacon, 8¼d. per lb. in 1933 and 1/1½ per lb. in 1937; the democratic pig's head, 4d. per lb. in 1933 and 5¾d. per lb. in 1937; herrings, per dozen, in 1933, 1/6¾ and in 1937 2/1¼; fresh milk, per quart in 1933, 4¾d. and in November, 1937, 5¼d.; bread, 4½d. per 2-lb. loaf in 1933, and 5¾d. in 1937; flour (household), per stone, in 1933 1/10 and in November, 1937 2/9¼; oatmeal, per stone, in 1933 3/1¼ and in 1937, 3/6½; potatoes, in November, 1933, 7¼d., per stone, and in November, 1937, 9½d.; tea, 2/3¾ per lb., in 1933, and 2/8 per lb. in 1937; sugar, 2¾d. per lb. in November, 1933, and 3¼d. per lb. in November, 1937.
That is a very strong argument against increasing taxation for any purpose. Think it out.
Get a few thousand off the flour millers.
These are not by any means the only commodities which have increased in price. The prices of individual articles of clothing are not set out in the Trade Journal but there is a rather interesting table published in that journal which shows the percentage increase.
What number is that.
December. There is a very interesting table which shows the percentage change in retail prices, plus and minus, for certain commodities such as boots and other clothing, candles, soap, rent, between one month and another, the individual prices of the different commodities not being set out in detail. The Trade Journal, issued a few days ago, bearing date November, 1937, shows that between November, 1936, and November, 1937, the price of clothing had increased by 12 per cent. During the corresponding 12 months, from 1935 to 1936, it increased by 1.9 per cent., so that there is a very substantial increase in clothing prices as well. If we take boots, this table shows a constant upward tendency. If we take fuel, it also shows a constant increase in the price of fuel. If we take any commodity at all, the figures operative during the past four years indicate, with possibly one or two exceptions, such as butter and margarine, that prices in 1937 were very substantially higher than in 1933.
Notwithstanding that very substantial increase in prices, the most we can afford to give by way of increase in unemployment assistance to persons in rural areas under this Bill is a sum of 1/6 per week. Then that increase is only given in the case of persons with families consisting of a man, wife and five or more dependents. To that family, in 1938, we are offering 14/- and we expect them to exist for a whole week and buy commodities at the prices which I have just quoted. There is no doubt that the substantial rise in the cost-of-living index figure in the past few years has had the effect of substantially contracting purchasing power. In some cases workers organised in trade unions have been compelled to take industrial action, amounting to a withdrawal of labour, in order to try to secure an increase of wages to compensate them in some measure for the substantial increase in the cost of living. In the case of workers whose wages were static during that period, the effect of the substantial rise in the cost of living has been to contract the purchasing power of that section of the community. The purchasing power of those whose wages remained static is substantially less to-day than it was in 1933 or 1932. The effect of the increased cost of living in the past few years has been to pauperise the unemployed, to bring their subsistance standard down to a new low level, because every increase in prices during the past four years has had the effect of compelling them to purchase less food, to spend less on food and clothing, than it would have been possible for them to have spent if there had been no increase in prices.
Just let us examine for a moment what this House is being asked to enact in, I think, one of the first Bills introduced since the new Constitution came into operation. We are told in Article 45 of that Constitution all the loving things which the State should confer upon its citizens, and presumably this Bill conforms to the spirit of the Constitution. Just let us see the extent to which the spirit of the Constitution is permeating this Bill. A man with a wife and five or more other dependents, in a rural area or in a small town throughout the country, is being expected to exist on a maximum unemployment assistance rate of 14/- per week—14/- for seven persons for a week. That is 2/- per head per week. When you distribute that 2/- per head per week, over three meals for seven days, you find that each individual in that family has five farthings to spend per meal. We are permitting that family, by the generosity, so-called, which we display in this measure, to spend five farthings per meal. In face of that allowance of five farthings per meal, in 1938, with streaky bacon at 1/7¼ per lb., I should like to hear somebody justify the Christian provisions of this Bill. That is all we are doing under this Bill. It permits them to spend five farthings per meal, and when they have spent five farthings per meal, they have eaten their loaf. They cannot have it again. There is not another farthing left at that rate of expenditure, for rent, clothes, medicine, school-books or for the many other articles which ought to constitute the budget of any working-class household. There is not a farthing for these other items of expenditure. There is merely an allowance of five farthings for each meal; and rent, clothes, medicine, school-books and everything else can go by the board, because the State will not give any more. I think it is the merest moonshine to talk about prosperity in the face of this pauperised standard which is provided for under this Bill. We were told by Ministers last Sunday that the solution of all our difficulties is to work hard, or work harder.
And read more.
The recipe now is that the farmers are told to read books, to drink light beer, and others are told they are to work hard, or work harder. The thousands of people registered at the labour exchanges throughout the country, the bulk of whom are dependent upon the benefits under this Bill, will not get an opportunity of working at all, not even for a day in the week. Many of them who are condemned to work under rotational schemes will be allowed to work only three or four days in the week, just in case if they worked a full week they would get a full week's wages. Then we are told that hard work is all that is necessary to keep up this march to prosperity. I think when Ministers go out again to talk about prosperity they ought to be given a copy of this Unemployment Assistance Bill. It ought to be posted up in large type in the hall, so that they would be able to see the extent of that prosperity when it came to dealing with the claims of unemployed people throughout the country.
This Bill which raises the unemployment assistance rates to that extent for the hungry, destitute, unemployed people will be welcomed probably as a little better than the existing position, but their position will be not nearly as good under this Bill as it was when the 1933 Bill was introduced, because in 1933 they could have bought more food for 12/6 than 14/- will buy for them in 1938. We have not rectified the shrunken purchasing power of the 1933 benefit. We have permitted the cost of living to increase, and we have not given the unemployed adequate financial compensation for that increase. In 1938 the rates of benefit will buy less than those rates could have bought in 1933. It may, in March, 1938, do a little more for the unemployed than in January, 1938, but it still leaves them worse off than in 1933. This Bill provides inadequate rates of benefit, and it is making no perceptible contribution to the widespread poverty which prevails among those who are compelled to exist in this State on the hunger rates of unemployment assistance benefit provided for in this Bill.
There are one or two points which arise in regard to this matter. I understand the Minister's case as made to-day is that those rates are being given not because there is any really serious demand to be founded upon an increased cost of living in the country—that, of course, he has to say in order to follow his other speeches on this point—but because there is money in hand. When we come to discover how the money in hand has been distributed we find that this is the situation according to his statement; whatever increases are resolved upon it is estimated that the sum falling to be paid will be divided in the following way:—The county councils or the local authorities who are concerned will have their contribution to rates increased by 11 per cent.; those who are insured people, employers and employees under the unemployment insurance scheme, will have to contribute a sum which means an increase of 20 per cent. on what they previously subscribed; and the Government puts up a sum which is the equivalent of 5 per cent. on its previous subscription to this scheme. The proportions in which the burden is to be borne are best seen by the relationship of those figures; an increase of 5 per cent. from the Government, an increase of 11 per cent. from the local authorities concerned, and an increase of 20 per cent. from insured people, from people who are fortunate enough to get occupation in the country, and who should be paying into a scheme actuarially sound. If that scheme were more than sufficient to meet the outgoings, there was a promise that their burdens would be reduced.
The impact on the rates is something that has got to be considered. Certain county councils are complaining at the moment that they cannot find the money. We all know the deplorable position of the rate collection in the country. In a recent period the South Cork Board of Assistance had a complaint, which they promulgated through the Press, that they have to find this year an additional £22,000; £9,000 arrears from last year and £13,000 additional for this year. Two councils have complained that they cannot keep the roads in the state in which they think they ought to be kept, because they cannot get the money from the people from whom the rates are drawn, and they do not consider it fair or equitable to try to get the cash. That is the situation, although they admit that the roads have deteriorated, and that they are not going to improve under the contributions that they make. In regard to local authorities generally, there is a tendency to make those reductions. In contrast to that, there is the position of the Government in relation to the road fund. The Minister tells us there is money in hand. How is it got? In recent years the road fund has been raided in order to make moneys for the Treasury. I take the period from 1935. In 1935 the receipts from motor taxation came to something short of £1,000,000. The grants to local authorities were less than £750,000. The Exchequer saved £250,000. In 1936, a round £1,000,000 came as a result of motor taxation. The contribution to local authorities was £684,000. In the period ended 31st March, 1937, the receipts from motor taxation amounted to £1,079,000. The moneys given to the local authorities amounted to £676,000. In those three years the amount that came in as a result of motor taxation was £3,000,000. The amounts given to the local authorities were £2,000,000 and some odd thousand pounds. There was £1,000,000 made; £1,000,000 in relief of the Exchequer; it was not all in relief of taxation.
It went to pay the money you had borrowed.
To pay the money we had borrowed? When the present Government came into office in 1932, there was £640,000 due to the Road Fund from the Central Fund. What is due now? A million and a quarter is due now. Who borrowed it? That was an unhappy interruption. There was due to the Road Fund from the Central Fund, when the Minister came into office, something over £500,000. That had risen in 1934 to £1,500,000. It is now only £1,225,000; £250,000 has been paid back. But whose borrowing was it? The Minister should pause before those interjections are thrown out carelessly. The Minister and his colleagues raised the amount that was due to the Road Fund by almost £1,000,000. They, presumably, consider that they are doing well in that they have paid back £250,000 of that in three years, but the fact remains that, with local authorities finding it hard to keep the roads in good condition and complaining that they cannot get the money in from the ratepayers, the Government, in three years, have removed from the local authorities, in comparison with previous grants made, a sum of no less than £1,000,000. We know that they have decreased the money due by the amount I have stated, but the rest has been used in some way by the Exchequer. It must be remembered that at this time we were all told that, once unemployment assistance came in, the expenditure forced on local authorities or on the different boards by home assistance was going to decrease. That, however, is not the result that has been shown by the figures. There is a return for every month in the year 1937, except the month of December for which the figures are not yet available and in every single month of that year, 1937, more money was paid for home assistance than in the corresponding month of the year 1936. In no single month of the year 1937 was it found possible to make any saving on home assistance, month by month, as compared with the previous year, with the exception of December, as I have said, for which we have not the figures. With that exception, more was expended on home assistance in every month of the year 1937 than in the corresponding months of the year 1936.
In the year 1935 there was a sum of, roughly, £1,000,000 paid in unemployment assistance. In 1936 that figure rose to over £1,500,000. It was found possible to squeeze that back to £1,170,000 in 1937. How was that done? It was accomplished, first of all, by emigration, and, secondly, by inaugurating a very strict campaign to inquire into the question of whether or not people were seeking work or available for work. First of all, people had fled out of the country, but in addition to that, by making the conditions more rigid, it was found possible to make a saving amounting to some £400,000. But at this moment the amounts paid in the years 1936 and 1937 are more than in, say, 1931; and in addition to that, in 1935, £1,000,000 had to be paid in unemployment assistance, almost £1,600,000 in 1936, and £1,170,000 in 1937. Remember what we started with in all this. We were told that there was to be no necessity for this—86,041 people were to be put into industrial occupations, and after all these people were employed the Minister was to get back the exiles in order to fill the empty jobs here. In 1933, when this measure was brought in, we hailed it as a necessity, but we also hailed it as this: that it was coming to the second part of a motion which Deputy Morrissey had put down in this House to the effect that, if there could not be work provided, there should be maintenance. This, however, means that the Government have decided definitely now to hold up their hands in front of unemployment. We are increasing the moneys to be provided to some slight extent, but to no great extent so far as the Government is concerned. An increase is going to be demanded from the local authorities who, at the moment, find it difficult to get in the rate and most of whom have decided to cut to the minimum the amount that they have spent on roads because they know that they must adopt a more human attitude than the central Government is adopting towards the people who are paying these rates. I have long since lost interest in the matter of how these moneys will be brought in, but I know that the Minister, in answer to the proposition that maintenance should be provided in lieu of work, used words in 1936 which indicated that, if full maintenance could not be provided, at least some maintenance should be provided, and he put the question of maintenance on the basis of the cost-of-living figures. His words indicated that the question of maintenance should be decided in so far as it could be deduced from cost-of-living figures. This matter was thrashed out in a motion which the Labour Party had down in the last Dáil. We can get a comparison through the amount that was stipulated as the minimum agricultural wage under the Agricultural Wages Act.
In connection with that, Mr. Luke Duffy, who is well known as an analyst in these matters, made the following comment with regard to the minimum wage of 24/- a week which had been fixed for agricultural labourers by the Agricultural Wages Board. Mr. Duffy said:—
"Where the employer provided the farm worker with three meals per day for six days a week, 11/6 would be deducted from his wages of 24/-, and if the worker lived in a cottage owned by the farmer, 2/- would be deducted for rent. In other words, 13/6 per week would be deducted in respect of food for six days and the rent of a cottage, leaving 10/6 with which the worker was expected to purchase food, fuel and clothing for his wife and family for the seven days and his own food on a Sunday. In the case of a farm worker with a wife and four children, 108 meals would have to be provided in the week; and, allowing ld. per meal, this would work out at 9/- per week, leaving 1/6 with which to buy fuel, light, clothing, household utensils, and provide medicine and medical attendance for the family."
Mr. Duffy's analysis of how that 24/- a week was to be expended bears some comparison with the figure given here, I suggest. The Minister can tell us afterwards whether the figure he is providing for under the increased sum is to be regarded as maintenance, or how far it is intended to be near maintenance, and, if it is not intended to be maintenance, perhaps the Minister can tell us where it is to be expected that, in the present conditions to which the policy of the Government has brought the country, the remnant required for maintenance is to be got. The Minister has spoken previously on the question of the cost of living in this counary. The Minister is one of the few people who still holds that the cost of living has not gone up.
When did I say that?
I read a series of figures which the Minister gave in connection with the motion which is to be debated at nine o'clock this evening, and the only deduction to be made from the Minister's statement and the figures he gave when speaking on that motion, if they were intended to present a fair picture, was that there had been no increase in the cost of living.
Evidently, the Deputy is not prepared to quote what I did say.
I am not, because it runs to 16 or 17 columns.
Will the Deputy quote one sentence?
I have the Debates here, and I intend to quote them in the debate on the motion to which I have referred, which will come on for discussion this evening.
I suggest that it would be an honest system of debate to give the quotation now.
As I have said, there are 16 or 17 columns and it would be impossible to quote in such circumstances, because the Minister would wriggle out of it in any case. However, the Minister put himself on record here as asserting that costs had not gone up. Is the Minister prepared to assert that the cost of living has not gone up? Evidently, he is not prepared to answer that. The Minister might make the debate more concrete by saying whether or not, in his view, the cost of living has gone up.
The Deputy attributed remark to me, and I asked him to quote the reference. That is all. I suggest that the Deputy is wriggling now.
I pointed out that there are about 17 columns.
Quote one sentence.
Did the Minister say that eggs were down in price? Did he say that the price of beef was down or that the price of mutton was down? Did he or did he not say that the prices of milk and bread were down?
Give the reference. Quote one sentence.
I put all those things to the Minister as things that he did say, and I will give the exact quotation in the debate this evening on the question of the cost-of-living. If those things were said by the Minister and if the general effect of his remarks was that the cost of living, generally, has gone down, then the only conclusion to be drawn from that, I think, is that the Minister misled the House.
Perhaps the Minister might direct his attention and his statistical mind to one other part of the journal published under his auspices, and to which Deputy Norton has referred. There is a return in the December number of the Trade Journal with regard to the progress made in the bread, flour, confectionery and biscuit industry. What is the result? As between 1931 and 1936 the consumption of bread, 2-lb. loaves, has dropped by 6,000,000 loaves. Although the amount of bread consumed in the country has dropped by the equivalent of 6,000,000 2-lb. loaves, what is the situation with regard to cost? Although there are 6,000,000 loaves less being produced, the manufactured loaves are sold at £600,000 more. That may be further analysed when one comes to see the materials used. The amount of flour milled in the Saorstát in 1931 was milled at a cost approximately of 10/- a cwt. At the moment the cost is very nearly 20/- a cwt. The result in the industry is that everything is gone up except wages and earnings. The number of people employed has dropped and, still more strange, the people under 18 years of age in the industry have gone up by 140, while those over 18 years of age have gone down by nearly 350. I do not know what that means, but I think the clearest thing that emerges is that the people have been forced to eat 6,000,000 loaves less.
The Deputy forgets that 1936 was a leap year; we had one extra day.
So against the one extra day we should add on so many extra loaves that would have been eaten?
Let the Deputy calculate it for himself.
I do not know whether the Minister's remark was meant to be facetious or serious. If it is facetious, it is a poor comment on a serious situation. Perhaps the Minister would not be so jocose if he were one of the people eating less bread and having to pay more for what they eat. Was there any point in the remark about the leap year?
I will leave it to the Deputy to decide that.
Will the Minister tell me if there is any arithmetical or statistical point in that remark?
Why did the Deputy not quote the percentage decline in the consumption?
What is the percentage decline?
The decline in the consumption of bread is represented as .001 per cent.
Let me talk of the decline in this way. The quantity of bread manufactured in 1931 was 165,000,000 loaves, and in 1936 it is nearly 159,000,000. That shows 6,000,000 of a drop.
A tremendous difference—.001 per cent.
Let us call it .00 leap year of a per cent. Although there is that amount of bread less being manufactured, it is costing £600,000 more. The difference is between £2,472,000 and £3,082,000. I do not know what the percentage is, but in pounds it is £600,000. There is some explanation capable of being offered rather than fatuity about a leap year. Of course, the explanation is that the cost of wheaten flour milled in this country——
And the cost of wheat.
Let us consider the cost of wheat. As regards imported wheaten flour, in 1931 the relationship between the quantity brought in and the cost was 10/- a cwt. In 1936 the relationship between the wheaten flour imported and the cost was about 10/- a cwt. These calculations, of course, may be wrong, but I have not produced the figures. If the Minister wants to make a calculation, the details are here. It cannot be the cost of wheat, if these figures are right. The relationship between the quantity in cwts. and the price is almost exactly the same. The Minister will have to think of another answer.
There was no wheaten flour imported for the manufacture of bread in 1936.
According to this paper there were 136,000 cwts. imported.
The paper says nothing of the kind. If the Deputy looks at the top of the column he will see what it was all about.
I am reading out the materials used for the manufacture of bread and biscuits——
That was what it was used for—biscuits.
We had here something like 1,750,000 cwts., costing about £1,000,000. Where is the change in price as far as wheat is concerned? Of course there is a change immediately in the next line. There used to be 724,000 cwts. of wheaten flour milled here at a cost of £366,000— again a relationship of 10/- to the cwt. Now there are 2,266,000 cwts. milled at a cost of nearly £2,000,000. It has gone up from 10/- a cwt. to 18/6 or 19/-. The Minister will, I am sure, give us something in the way of an irrelevancy, but that is one of the series of figures produced by his Department for the purpose of enlightening people as to the progress in the industry. If it could be said that by paying £600,000 more for 6,000,000 less loaves we were getting any great number of extra people into employment and there was a greater purchasing power, then there would be some gain for that loss, but where there used to be 8,309 people employed there are now 8,130, and the number of people-under 18 years has increased by 140, while the number of those over 18 has decreased by 320.
The things that have lessened in regard to this industry are wages and earnings. They have gone down from £969,000 to £941,000. The average wage in the industry has gone down; the gross earnings have gone down; the cost to the community has gone up, and there is less of this foodstuff being eaten. There are other matters that Deputy Norton referred to that are of the greatest importance in connection with this debate. I segregated that particular one because it emerges from the latest series of statistical returns. It gives some indication as to the road we are travelling along. In these conditions the Minister thinks he does a benefit to the community by increasing the rates of unemployment assistance. He cannot argue that the increase is comparable with the increase in the cost of living. Whatever relationship there was between the sum given in the 1933 and 1935 Bills, that has not been maintained in the new rates in relation to the cost of living.
Where the money is to be found is by the Government making an increase in the subscriptions of the employees and the employers equivalent to 5 per cent. on their previous contributions; by demanding from the local authorities (county councils) that they should increase their contribution by 11 per cent., and that the county boroughs should increase their contributions by 20 per cent. This again, of course, is travelling further along the bad track that the Minister laid down in his earlier Bills. The Minister undertakes the administration of these Bills, but he does not take upon himself the odium of raising the money. He asks other people—the employers and the employees—to foot the bill, and he asks local authorities to take on themselves the odium of raising the money. It is with that burden on the local authorities, who at the moment find it necessary to cut expenditure on the roads, that the Minister now proposes further to increase their burdens. The Government, who are economising on the Road Fund, are now trying to pay back to it the moneys they borrowed in past years. The Minister said the reason he can do that is because the demand for unemployment assistance was less now. That may be borne out by the figures given by the Minister, but in this matter the Minister is helped by two factors on which he is insisting—(1) "available for and seeking work," and (2) the very big number of people that he has caused to emigrate out of the country.
When the draft of the Constitution of Éire was made public some time ago there may have been some people in this country who thought that the Preamble to that Constitution was more than a series of pious platitudes. I would, however, suggest that if the Government's attitude towards social questions, and especially their attitude towards the question of the right of every citizen in this country to a decent standard of maintenance, is to be judged by what is contained in the Bill now before the House, then people can only conclude that the Preamble in the Constitution consists of platitudes and pious platitudes, and that it was never the intention of the Government to implement these things.
Will the Deputy put a price on his piety and say what he will provide?
Deputy Norton has dealt with the rates of unemployment benefit in our proposal in relation to the increased cost of living, and I do not propose to go over that ground except to relate the rate of benefit now proposed in this Bill to the actual cost of living to-day. Deputy Norton dealt mainly with the position in rural areas in the country. I propose to examine the position with regard to the unemployed man and his family in the City of Dublin. The rate of benefit proposed for a man with five and more dependent children is 23/- a week. If you take a family consisting of eight persons, the income of that family will be 23/- per week. That is to say, there will be 2/10½ a week for each member of that family. That is further to say that there will be 5d. a day for each member of that family. At three meals a day each member of that family will receive a meal costing one and two-thirds of a penny. That is the sort of meal that each member of that family can have. Assuming that each member of an unemployed worker's family could get bread for his meal, and that one member of the family will consume in bread alone one loaf per day, they will be able to have nothing but bread and water. It could hardly be contemplated that the members of a family could get nothing but bread and water but actually this rate of benefit lays down as a standard for people in this country who, through no fault of their own are denied the right of work, one loaf per day. That is what this figure of 23/- a week works out at —1 2-3rds. penny for each meal for each person. Now the price of an egg, according to the most recent return issued by the Department of Industry and Commerce, is 2¼d., so that actually the worker and each member of his family whose bread-winner is unemployed would not be able to afford even one egg as the sole menu for each meal. The assistance would not provide one egg per member of the family at each meal of the day.
That is all bad enough, but one has to refer to the fact that 23/- a week is the sole income of the family. There is no provision for rent; there is no provision for clothing, or for anything but for one loaf of bread per day for each member of the unemployed worker's family. I suggest that if this measure is intended as a serious contribution towards the problem of maintaining the unemployed worker, the whole thing is a farce. But the Minister has indicated that this is not necessarily the sole means of support of the unemployed worker. What are the other means? Deputy Norton has dealt fully with the question of home assistance being unavailable where unemployment assistance is paid. The Minister is also aware that there is a rigid means test applied to every person who draws unemployment relief. So, in fact, 23/- a week is to be regarded as the sole income of the unemployed worker and his five or six dependents. When Deputy Norton was dealing with the question of the cost of living, the Minister could not deny, in face of the official statistics of his own Department, the substantial increase that has taken place in the cost of living. When Deputy Norton referred to this, the Minister said that the increased cost of living was all the more reason why the Government could not contemplate raising more money for the payment of such social services as unemployment relief. Is it to be taken that it is the Minister's view that when the cost of living increases the sources of revenue decrease? I would suggest that an examination of the periods of high prices and low prices would usually indicate that in periods of high prices the sources of revenue are higher, too.
Am I to understand from that that the Deputy does not object to the increased cost of living?
I am not saying whether I object or whether I do not object to the increased cost of living, but I am merely taking it as a fact. The Minister cannot argue, I am sure, that when the cost of living increases the source of revenue decreases. Is not that quite clear?
No, but increased taxation will still further increase the cost of living.
Perhaps. That depends upon whether the increased taxation is accompanied by machinery to see that the cost of living is not necessarily increased. Some time ago I was examining the returns of a particular industry in this country, the Irish Tanners industry. Their annual report shows a profit of £25,312. The chairman congratulated the company on showing this fine profit. He said they gave good employment to 300 workers in the town of Portlaw. Assuming that the average wage of these workers was £2 per week—a generous assumption; I suggest that the average wage would probably be much less than that —then, the wages cost to that firm would be about equal to the profit shown. If the average wage was less than £2 per week, as I think it probably would be, then the profit factor was much bigger than the wage factor in that particular industry. If the Minister would examine these matters, he might possibly find sources of revenue which would enable him to go some distance further towards meeting the increased cost of living by giving more just rates of unemployment assistance to those workers whom the Government and private industry are, unfortunately, unable to absorb into employment. Some time ago, the Taoiseach said, in effect, that he thought that so long as any section of the people were compelled to wear hair-shirts, there should be no silk shirts for anybody. If the Government were acting in accordance with that excellent doctrine, they would, I think, have found it possible to provide under this Bill that the unemployed would be in no worse position than they were in 1933, and that they should, in fact, be in a better position.
I suggest that the increased rates contained in the Bill will not be sufficient to enable unemployed workers to maintain even the standard of living they had when unemployment assistance was first introduced. I am not going to suggest that the reason for the introduction of this Bill and this improvement, such as it is, was to anticipate the motion which is on the Order Paper in the name of Labour Deputies. If that be the object of the Bill. I think it will not deceive many people. Like Deputy Norton, I welcome the principle of providing for an increase in the present miserably inadequate rates of unemployment assistance, but I think that this Bill does not meet the needs of the situation. I should like to hear the Minister for Industry and Commerce give his views on what the obligation of this community is to the people who cannot be provided with remunerative work. If he agrees that there is a responsibility on the community to enable these people to live, not in comfort but under tolerable conditions, I should like to hear him attempt to justify the figures in the Schedule to this Bill. I do not think that he could do that.
The Minister, in his opening statement, gave us to understand that it was not the increase in the cost of living which was responsible for the introduction of this Bill. He told us that the Bill owed its introduction to the fact that the Unemployment Insurance Fund was in a position to advance more money to the Unemployment Assistance Fund. I look with a good deal of alarm to the proposal made by the Minister in the Bill to call upon the local authorities to strike a rate of 9d. in the £ in areas in which they have not hitherto struck this rate. Take the county I represent —the County of Wexford. There are four fairly large towns in that county but the only town with a population over 7,000 is Wexford. We are already paying not 9d. in the £ but 10d. in the £ because the Minister insists upon 9d. being paid upon the gross valuation. When one takes into consideration the rebates and reliefs given in accordance with certain Acts of Parliament, it is necessary to strike a 10d. rate in order to get the proceeds of a 9d. rate on the gross valuation. As Deputy McGilligan has pointed out, it ought to be apparent to everybody that owing to the fact that practically every local authority is endeavouring to deal with the housing problem in its area and has also been called upon to supplement unemployment schemes, the amount of money a local authority is asked to pay is out of all proportion to what should be expected from it. Local authorities are limited regarding what they are able to do in the way of levying rates. They are in an entirely different position from the Government to which the Minister belongs. It will be admitted that, in recent years, the amount the Government has been called upon to pay in the way of unemployment assistance is less because the Government have put into operation what is known as the rotational system of employment. Not alone has the area which has a population of over 7,000 been called upon to pay, as I have explained, 10d. in the £, but in some cases local authorities have been called upon to bear at least 6d. in the £ in order to finance loans they have obtained for the purpose of supplementing grants given by the Government. In addition, they have been called upon this year to strike a rate of 6d. in the £, so that it may be taken for granted that, in a great many urban areas, 1/- in the £, at least, is being paid to supplement grants given by the Government in respect of rotational schemes of employment. You may take it for granted that towns like Drogheda, Dundalk, Wexford, Sligo, Clonmel and those towns which have been paying 9d. or 10d. in the £, are paying, along with that 9d. or 10d., at least another 1/- in order to qualify for the grant given under the rotational scheme of employment, and I suggest that that is too much to ask a local authority to do.
Apart altogether from the towns which are known as urban areas, there are towns in the different counties which are under the jurisdiction of town commissioners, and the cost of living in towns of that character is just as high as the cost of living in towns which have been urbanised. I have in mind the town of Gorey in the northern portion of County Wexford, which the Minister knows. That town is under the jurisdiction of town commissioners and its population is about 3,500. I suggest that something should be done to put that town in the intermediate stage. I do not know what the procedure might be, or whether or not it should be that the county council in Wexford should have an opportunity of consulting the people in Gorey town as to whether they would be disposed to pay a rate in the same way as the people in Enniscorthy or New Ross would be given an opportunity. I do not know whether the Gorey people would take advantage of such an opportunity or not, but I think the opportunity should at least be given to them, and that they should be allowed to avail of it, if they so wished, because the unemployed people there are just as badly off as people in Wexford, New Ross and Enniscorthy.
It is to be noted that the Minister has not made any alteration in the benefit paid to a single man in rural areas. I suggest there should have been an increase to such a man to the same extent as in the other areas, because the cost of living is felt by him just as much as a man in the other areas. There is one aspect of the Act which was passed in 1933 with which the Minister has not dealt, and I ask him now to do something to relieve the hardship which prevails in consequence of the application of a certain section of that Act. I refer to the section which prevents a man who has removed from an urban area to a rural area, or vice versa, from receiving benefit until he has been six weeks or three months resident in the area into which he moves. I forget what the period is but it certainly causes hardship. I suggest that it would not cost the Exchequer, or this fund, a very big amount to adjust or remedy that situation. There have been many cases of hardship which could be cited, and which the Minister could find out if he consulted the managers of the various exchange, and I ask him very seriously to bring in an amendment which would bring those people into line. I notice Deputy Dillon in the House now and I know that he has experience of cases of that kind too. There are some cases of men having to go immediately outside an urban area to houses built by a local authority, and those people are certainly being very badly treated.
I should like the Minister to tell us what is the difference between the amount of money spent on unemployment assistance now and the amount spent prior to the time when the rotational schemes were put into operation. I suggest that the difference is very great. So far as rotational schemes of work are concerned, the Government are saving a great deal. I have in mind a certain scheme in operation in the town of Wexford at present. On that scheme, the corporation are asked to pay only one-seventh of the amount. On the first rotational scheme that was carried out in Wexford, we were asked to pay 50 per cent. It later came down to 20 per cent., and at the moment we are paying only one-seventh of the amount; but even though the contribution is so small, the Government are getting the best of the bargain. In Wexford a man gets four periods of three days, that is to say, three days in each of the four weeks, and the wages he receives are £1 5s. 6d. for three days, which, less insurance, amounts to £1 4s. 1d. The corporation pay 3/5 of that amount which is one-seventh, leaving £1 0s. 8d. as the contribution by the Government. The Government save 15/- which they should pay that man at the labour exchange, which leaves the Government liable for 5/8. During his period of employment the Government collected 2/11, so all it costs the Government at the end of the period is 2/9.
And a 9d. in the £ contribution wipes that out!
I am not saying it does. Along with that, the man does not get even labour exchange benefit for the week immediately subsequent to the period in which he was employed, so that that week is saved also. I think that in a case of this kind, where a rotational scheme is in operation, the local authorities should get some relief. There is no question that the local authorities are being called on at the moment to expend a large amount of money. They are doing what the Minister asks them to do, so far as housing, sewerage and water works are concerned, and they should get some relief in this respect.
In connection with the increases which the Minister proposes to give under this Bill, like my colleagues, I suggest that it is not at all sufficient. In view of the increased cost of living, a man was infinitely better off when the Act was passed in 1933. Since 1933 a good number of houses have been built in urban areas and, in 1933, large numbers of people in receipt of unemployment assistance were living in slum areas in very bad houses for which they were called on to pay rents ranging from 1/6 to 2/- per week. They have now been put into decent houses, thanks to the Government and the local authorities—I want to give full credit—but the rents they are called on to pay now range from 4/- to 4/6 per week. That is an impost which has been placed on them since the passage of the Act in 1933. That, in itself, made a big hole in the amount of benefit given under the 1933 Act. Again, I would ask the Minister to deal with the case of the man who has to leave one-area for another and is thereby disqualified under the 1933 Act. It would cost very little, so far as the Government are concerned, to make that adjustment, but it would mean a good deal to people who have to change from one area to another.
I should like to deal with one matter in connection with this, Bill, and that is the injustice suffered by people who were transferred under clearance orders outside the Borough of Cork. I move the adjournment of the debate.
Debate adjourned. To be resumed this evening.