When the debate was adjourned, I was drawing the attention of the Minister to the very grave injustice that exists in the suburbs of Cork City in connection with the rate of unemployment assistance paid there, and I was expressing the hope that he would succeed in remedying that state of affairs under this Bill. Under the new housing policy of the Government, a large number of tenements in Cork City have been closed down and hundreds of families have been transferred outside the borough boundaries to new houses built by the corporation. A large number of those people are unemployed. When working, they are city workers, but owing to the fact that they live outside the borough boundaries their rates of assistance are reduced by from 4/6 to 9/- a week. That is, in the first place, an injustice to the families because the sole reason for their removal outside the borough boundaries was the clearance of slum areas inside, and the South Cork Board of Assistance found that it had to make up that sum to them. The board found that it meant an additional £35 or £40 a week to them. In other words, the bill for home assistance was increased by something close on £2,000 yearly, and the greater portion of it, £1,600, had to be borne by the rural community which had no responsibility for the removal of these people from the city. It was bad enough that out of the £40,000 paid for home assistance in South Cork area, £28,600 had to be paid by the rural community. In addition to providing for their own poor they had to provide £15,600 for the poor of Cork City. Now, owing to the anomaly caused by the transfer of these people outside the borough, another £1,500 had been added to the bill. I suggest that the Minister should find some means to remedy that state of affairs seeing that these people were city workers, were probably born in the City of Cork, and spent all their lives there. Because of the mere fact that Cork Corporation built houses outside the borough boundary, this extra £1,500 should not fall on the rural ratepayers. It was bad enough that these ratepayers in the rural area had to pay £15,600 for the poor of Cork City in addition to their own home assistance bill. As the Minister is amending the Act, I suggest that he should find some means to remedy the present position. The matter has been repeatedly brought to his notice by me during the past two years and the answer has been that it could only be remedied by legislation. As this is an amending Bill, I suggest that this is the time to remedy the position by legislation.
Unemployment Assistance (Amendment) Bill, 1937—Second Stage (Resumed).
It is exactly six years since this Government took office. Before taking office they publicly pledged themselves to the people, through the Minister for Industry and Commerce, to put into operation a plan which would wipe out unemployment in this State. After six years' experience as a Government we are confronted to-day with a Bill which roughly proposes to deal with the amount of unemployment assistance to be provided for approximately 100,000 able-bodied citizens. I understood at the time—and I hope I was right—that it was the deliberate and declared policy of Fianna Fáil that they had a plan to solve the problem of unemployment, and that failing an attempt to find work for them immediately, they would provide a reasonable standard of maintenance. The Minister, when speaking on this Bill, admitted that the rates provided for maintenance by way of unemployment assistance under the present Act could not be regarded as generous. He now comes along with this Bill to increase the present miserable allowance by a miserable 10 per cent. or 15 per cent., ignoring altogether the fact that even 10 per cent. or 15 per cent. would not meet the increased cost of living since the original Act was passed. If it is the duty of a Christian Government—and this Government claims to be a Christian Government—to provide work for able-bodied citizens, then it is at the expense of the taxpayers and not at the expense of the ratepayers that maintenance of these people should be provided at a generous rate. As in the case of the original Act, I object to any part of the money being found by increasing the local rates. Local authorities cannot regulate the number of unemployed that may reside within their boundaries, and they should not be held responsible for any portion of the cost of maintaining unemployed people. The Minister proposes to increase the existing rates in a number of areas throughout the State. How can he suggest that the Borough Councils of Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Dun Laoghaire or other corporations, or any of the additional areas that are to be brought into the scheme, could regulate the number of unemployed that should live in these areas? It is the duty of a Government to find employment for the people, and failing to find employment for them to raise money to maintain them from whatever source it can be found. It must be got by a Government that claims to be a Christian Government from those who are best able to pay.
The Minister, in his usual debating style, asked the Labour Party to state what additional taxation they would impose and what additional items they would tax, to find any money that was necessary to provide increased maintenance allowances for the unemployed. That is the duty of the Minister and his colleagues in the Government. That is what they were put into office to do. If I had the responsibility of finding money for the maintenance of the unemployed I would tax luxury articles certainly. I would tax those people who are best able to pay for the maintenance of their unfortunate fellow-countrymen, who are unable to find work but willing to take it if they could get it. The Minister, of course, did not in any enthusiastic way suggest that the allowances to be provided under this Bill were either reasonable or generous. When this Bill becomes law it will be possible for a man with a wife and five children in the rural areas to get what the Minister would, I suppose, now regard as the generous allowance of 14/- a week. Under the existing British Unemployment Assistance Act a man and his wife would get 24/- a week. The youngest child in the family would get an allowance under existing British legislation at the rate of 4/- a week. In rural Ireland a man, his wife and five children are supposed to be able to exist and to provide the necessaries of life, food, clothing, and shelter on the allowance set out in this amending legislation of 14/- a week. I hope the Minister will not go back to the hall in Oriel Street and boast about the generosity of the allowances he is providing under this Bill. When listening to the Minister's speech this evening it struck me that this Bill was thought out and framed in the secrecy of the Oriel Street hall of the Wolfe Tone Fianna Fáil Cumann, rather than in a considered way by himself and his colleagues in the Cabinet room at Government Buildings.
He does not believe that although he said it.
I challenge him to go down to some of the Fianna Fáil Cumainn in the rural areas and to boast about the generosity of the 6/- a week that is to be provided in future for a single man who is unable to find work in such areas. Years ago 6/- a week was provided by local authorities as home assistance for the destitute poor. Probably the Minister copied the figure from the books of local authorities. That sum was provided years ago, before the cost of living had reached its present level. The Minister, by way of interruption, endeavoured to convey to the House that the maximum allowance provided under the Unemployment Assistance Act, even when this Bill comes into operation, can be supplemented by grants or allowances from the local authority. I invite the Minister to repeat that statement and quote his authority for it when he is replying.
I did not make the statement. The statement was attributed to me by Deputy Norton.
The Minister certainly conveyed that by way of interruption.
On the contrary, the statement was attributed to me, as I have said, by Deputy Norton, and is entirely unfounded.
The Minister is now admitting that the existing miserable allowance of 6/- per week for a single man who cannot get work, and 14/- for a married man with a wife and five children, living in a rural area, cannot be supplemented by an allowance from the local authority.
There is nothing in law to prevent it.
Would the Minister say if he thinks it is possible for a man with a wife and five children to provide his family with the necessaries of life and to live in decency on 14/- a week, or for a single man to do that on 6/- a week?
I never said that they could. It is the Deputies in the Labour Party who have said that they could.
They are to be let die slowly on the miserable allowance provided by the Minister in his amending Bill. Under the existing legislation, the Minister has empowered the local authority to go to the labour exchange managers and collect from them the amount paid to an unemployed person by way of home assistance which he had received during the period he was waiting for his unemployment assistance. Will the Minister deny that?
There is nothing in law to prevent a local authority supplementing the amount of unemployment assistance.
Will the Minister deny what I have said, that the local authority is empowered under the existing Act to collect from the labour exchange managers sums paid by way of home assistance to unemployed persons when they attend to receive their unemployment assistance? Does the Minister propose to amend that section of the existing Act?
Certainly not.
Therefore it is not proposed to give power to the local authorities to supplement the miserable allowance given by way of unemployment assistance?
There is nothing in the law to prevent their supplementing it.
But when they do give it, the Minister empowers the local authorities to collect it later from the labour exchange managers.
There is nothing to prevent the local authorities supplementing any of these allowances.
It was never the duty of the local authority to support the unemployed.
Not since the Unemployment Assistance Act was passed, but before that it was solely the function of the local authority to do so. The Labour Party is turning conservative.
When the original Act was going through the House, and we demanded that the unemployed should be provided with a sum sufficient to enable them to get the necessaries of life, we were accused of making these demands for Party propaganda purposes. In view of the fact that the Minister went to a secret meeting under police protection to announce his intention to bring in this amending legislation, would he say what purpose he had in doing so? Why did he go down to a hall in Oriel Street, guarded by police, to make an announcement in connection with the introduction of this measure that he should have made in this House? Deputy Kelly, of course, will deny that the Minister was protected by police.
I have always denied it.
In the interval that has elapsed since that allegation was first made, did the Deputy take steps to ascertain whether the Minister was actually guarded by the police?
I found that there was no such thing.
If the Deputy ever becomes a Minister he will be guarded by the police, too.
I will be satisfied to be guarded by them.
And the Deputy deserves to be protected from the unemployed if he takes responsibility for the miserable pittance provided by the Minister for the unemployed population in this country.
The unemployed speak sometimes, but they do not speak with the want of candour that the Deputy does. I am in Parliament and I have to be careful of my words.
I always like to say something that will get the Deputy on his feet.
The Deputy who is on his feet should address the Chair?
The Minister also made a passing reference to the administration of the original Act. I dare say he would not get anybody who has ever had to make application for unemployment assistance, whether married or single, or whether living in a city or in a rural area, to say that the Act has been administered in anything like a generous way. The means test has been applied, presumably on the instructions of the Minister for Finance, in such a way as to make it almost impossible for people to qualify for the payment of the maximum allowance provided. When talking about the administration of the Act, what has the Minister to say with regard to the miserable treatment that he has meted out to the labour exchange managers for all the work they did in the initial stages, after the passing of the Act, for which they were paid nothing? Some of the unemployed in the cities and towns of the country who are drawing the miserable maximum allowances provided are certainly better off than some of the labour exchange managers engaged in administering the Act, and administering it in such a way, under instructions, as to prevent people getting what they are entitled to get.
Is the Deputy making that allegation seriously?
I know this—the Minister has admitted it in the House—that he has had repeated applications from labour exchange managers, deputy managers and other people employed in administering the Unemployment Assistance Act, and the Unemployment Insurance Act, to hear their grievances.
Did I understand the Deputy to allege that the labour exchange managers were instructed to prevent unemployed people from getting the allowances they are entitled to get under the Act?
The branch managers, I believe, were given secret instructions to prevent as many people as possible who applied for unemployment assistance from getting the maximum allowance, and the means test has been applied in that direction, presumably on the instructions of the Minister.
What have the branch managers got to do with the means test? Nothing. The Deputy knows nothing about it.
The branch managers have been sent instructions and compelled to go to country places to investigate the domestic circumstances of applicants and to make reports.
The branch managers have nothing whatever to do with the means test.
They have done that to my own personal knowledge.
There are special investigation officers to do that work.
I challenge the Minister to say that, after the original Act was put into operation, branch managers were not given that dirty work to do.
If the Deputy would read the Act he would see that the branch managers have nothing whatever to do with that. There is a special grade of investigation officers who are charged with that duty. The branch manager who tried to do that work would be dismissed for exceeding his duty.
I know of cases where they were instructed to go and investigate.
I challenge the Deputy to produce one single case.
I cannot, because the new investigation officers are doing the work now.
What has the administration of an Act passed two years ago to do with the Bill that is before the House?
I am not going to admit that I welcome the introduction of this measure. As Deputy Norton said, it is a slight improvement upon a very bad position so far as the unemployed population of this State are concerned. In view of the pre-general election promises that the Minister made in this House and throughout the country; in view of the Party's statement in 1932 that it was the policy of the Government to provide work, and that, in fact, they had a plan for the provision of work for all the unemployed population, and that, failing their efforts to find employment for them, they would immediately provide a maintenance allowance, and in view of the fact that the rates here set out are not reasonable or such as would enable the unemployed to secure the bare necessaries of life, I think the Minister should be ashamed to come to the House and attempt to justify the allowances set out in this amending Bill. If the Minister compares them with the rates laid down in the Unemployment Assistance Act for Great Britain, I do not think he will be encouraged to go around the country, or into the hall in Oriel Street, and boast of the generous way in which this Government propose to treat in the future the 100,000 unemployed that we have here.
Under the British Act, an unmarried male person can receive 16/- per week and a female 15/-. A male person of 21 years and over who is not the owner of a house can receive 10/- per week and a female 9/-. There is also provision in the Act for unemployment assistance at the rate of 4/- per week for the youngest child in the country. In this country the able-bodied single man living in a rural area and unable to find work at present has to try to exist on the miserable sum of 6/- per week. The Minister should be ashamed of his Bill, but, bad and all as it is, it is a slight improvement on the miserable pittance provided under the existing legislation.
Will the Deputy tell us what luxury articles should be taxed to provide more?
If I were talking to the Deputy privately in the Lobby I would.
Deputy Kelly wants to know what additional luxury articles should be taxed in order to provide for the unemployed. Does the Deputy remember that when elected to this House in 1932——
Mr. Kelly
I was not here in 1932.
Mr. Morrissey
The same thing was repeated in 1933 at the election. The Deputy ought to remember, when he asks what additional taxes we are going to support to provide for the unemployed, that the Minister who is now in charge of the Bill, and all his colleagues, told the people that if they returned Fianna Fáil as the Government no additional taxation would be required; not only that, but that the existing taxation would be reduced by at least £2,000,000 without causing injury to any section of the community. That was followed up by the "plan" that we saw in every newspaper, posted at every church gate, at every cross roads, and on every tree—"Fianna Fáil has a plan." A few of the industries that were to be started were to absorb 80,000 odd of the unemployed. When it was pointed out to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, or Deputy Lemass as he then was, that there was not at that time that number of unemployed in the country, he said: "It does not matter, we will be able to send to America for those who were forced to emigrate, and bring them back to fill the jobs at home."
Mr. Kelly
The wish was father to the thought.
Mr. Morrissey
I should like to give the Minister and the Deputy credit for good intentions. Their intentions were one thing, but their performances were very different, as the unemployed have very good reason to know. When that was put to the Minister before in this House his reply was: "But we have put 80,000 into employment." We still have 100,000 signing the unemployment registers, notwithstanding the fact that another 100,000 have gone out of the country in the last three or four years to Great Britain. So that we find this position. The Minister says he has put 80,000—I think he claimed 100,000 the last time he spoke on the matter in this House—into employment; another 100,000 have gone to Great Britain; another 100,000 are still lining up at the labour exchanges; and all that in a falling population. The Minister I know can do many strange things with figures when he starts, but it would take even more than the Minister to reconcile those figures.
The Minister said a moment ago that he never claimed that the Government were providing maintenance for the unemployed. Does the Minister deny that he promised maintenance for the unemployed? Does he deny that the Fianna Fáil Party promised the people that they would provide full employment for every man and woman willing and able to work, and, pending the fulfilment of that, that they would provide maintenance? Was it not on a particular motion moved in this House in 1932, tying the Government to that particular promise of maintenance, that the Fianna Fáil Government suffered its only defeat in this House? Does not the Minister remember that? The Minister comes here, as well as those who sit behind him, six years after they made their promise, and the net result is, not that there is reduced unemployment, but that there is greatly increased unemployment. If emigration to Great Britain had not been so great for the last three years, instead of having 100,000 signing the unemployment registers, we would have nearer to 200,000. Those are facts which cannot be denied.
The Minister, as Deputy Davin pointed out, thought it right and proper to go to a place other than this House to make the first official announcement about this addition for the unemployed. I can understand that the Minister was not anxious to put this Bill under the searchlight of this House, where it could be met and criticised, before he had put it across the country, so to speak. He wanted to talk about it in a place where it could not be criticised. He wanted to give the Irish Press the opportunity of making full use of it in its columns and to present to the unemployed what this Government of the poor were prepared to do for them. It all boils down to this—that what the Minister is providing here in this Bill is of less value to the unemployed than what he provided in his original Bill in 1933. I should like to hear the Minister challenge that.
Certainly. Anyone who can do a simple sum in arithmetic will do that.
Mr. Morrissey
The Minister may do a sum in arithmetic, but it will not be a very simple one. There is nothing very simple about the Minister or his sums. The Minister, after six years, should be ashamed to have to sponsor a Bill like this, the Minister who for two years before he came into office stumped the country—I pay a tribute to his industry and perseverance, if I can pay a tribute to nothing else— telling all sections of the people, and in particular the workers and the unemployed, how badly they were being treated and what he and his Party would do if sent back as the Government. Many of the unemployed, perhaps the majority of them, fell for that and they put the Minister in. He has been here now for six years, and the position of the unemployed to-day is infinitely worse than it was before the present Government came into power, and, what is worse still, more hopeless than it was six years ago. Any person who is in actual personal touch with the unemployed and the workers of the country knows that. The Minister says that he did not claim that this was maintenance. What does he claim for it?
It is unemployment assistance; that is what it is called.
Mr. Morrissey
Therefore, the Minister is not fulfilling the promise, or rather the statement, made by the Minister, by his President, and by his colleagues, that it was the duty of the Government to provide either work or maintenance for every person in the country willing to work. The Minister has provided neither one nor the other on his own admission. Fourteen shillings a week, with the cost of living at the figure it is to-day, for a man with a wife and four, five or six children! The Minister tells us the Government will not interfere if local authorities see fit to increase that from local funds. Some local authorities might desire to increase it, but many of them feel they are not in a position to do so because rates and taxes are already sufficiently high. The Minister nods his head at that.
The Deputy thinks the rates should not be increased?
Mr. Morrissey
Will the Minister contend now that it is the duty of the Government and not the duty of the local authority to provide for the unemployed? That is what he is running away from. The Government bring forward this scheme and they make the local authorities pay for it. The Minister is going back to the old saying that "it is the poor who always help the poor," because he is robbing another £50,000 out of the Unemployment Fund, the fund built up by those who are to-day in work to be there to meet their requirements when they are out of employment. These are the facts, and the Minister knows it. All the Minister's eloquence, all his thumping, and the inspired leading articles are not going to get away from these facts. They cannot get away from it. Small as the rates are in the cities, boroughs and towns, they are still smaller in the rural areas, still smaller in towns with a population of 5,000 or 6,000. Does the Minister not know that in many of these towns the cost of living is as high if not higher than in the City of Dublin or in Dun Laoghaire and that so far as essentials are concerned, the cost of living is very little different? There may be one item which is less expensive—a very important item, I admit—namely, rent. So far as other essentials are concerned, in many cases they cost as much, if not more, as in the cities and larger towns.
Deputy Davin contrasted the provisions for the unemployed made across the water with what is done here. I do not want to argue very strongly along these lines. I am not one of those who ever believed that we had the same resources as the people on the other side, but there is the fact that not only are they getting much more in actual cash, but they are getting much more in actual cash in a country where the cost of living is lower than it is here. The Minister does not agree that the cost of living has gone up at all in this country. The Minister will not agree that the 4-lb. loaf which costs 8d. or 8½d. across the water costs 1/- in the City of Dublin. The Minister does not like to be faced with these facts. Even Deputy Corry had to enter a protest at the way in which the Minister and his colleagues were saving revenue and attempting to provide this money at the expense of the ratepayers.
The Deputy obviously did not know what Deputy Corry was talking about.
Mr. Morrissey
I hope the Minister understood it.
I did. Any intelligent Deputy could.
Mr. Morrissey
Therefore the Minister had no difficulty in understanding it.
None whatever.
Mr. Morrissey
The Minister is so intelligent that in attempting to see everything he sees nothing, the Minister's intelligence is so wide and so all-embracing. It is, of course, in keeping with the policy of the Government that they should pass on this taxation to the ratepayers. They have already passed on taxation to the consumers of this country. They have passed it on, proportionately, in greater measure to the unemployed and the workers than to any other section. The wheat subsidy was originally met from central funds, but it has now been passed on as a direct charge to the consumer, to the workers and to the very poor. These, because of their poverty, have to rely more upon bread than perhaps the better-off sections of the people. The same thing applies to the sugar subsidy. The sugar subsidy, which originally was met out of national revenue, was passed on and became a direct charge on the consumer also. I do not think that it will be contended, even by the Minister, that in regard to these two items the workers do not contribute, in proportion, a far greater amount of the subsidies than the better-off people. Again, that is in keeping with the policy of the Government, and the only man on the Government Benches who did not try to deny it, the only man who admitted it plainly, bluntly and forcibly in this House, was the Parliamentary Secretary. Deputy Flinn. He asked, "Why should the poor not be taxed?"
I did not say that.
Mr. Morrissey
I am not purporting to quote the Parliamentary Secretary accurately.
You are not quoting me at all.
Mr. Morrissey
Will the Parliamentary Secretary state what he did say?
I do not think that I am called upon to look up the report of the speech, but that statement is not true.
Mr. Morrissey
I am sorry, for more than one reason, that I have not the Official Report containing that particular passage before me at the moment, but in case the Parliamentary Secretary may think that it will slip my memory, I undertake to look it up between now and the Committee Stage.
The Deputy is establishing a very bad precedent for the other members of his Party if he starts looking up quotations. He has destroyed our technique.
Mr. Morrissey
I suggest that the Minister might also look up some quotations and the literature issued by the Fianna Fáil Party before they took office, and see if he can reconcile his attitude, his speeches and his promises then with this Bill.
Could we arrange to have them all burned?
Mr. Morrissey
The trouble is that they were not burned in time. I should like if the Minister, when concluding, would tell us what has caused this departure from the promises made in 1932, and what obstacles he has found in his way to provide employment for every unemployed person in this country. Will the Minister address himself to this fact: that there are to-day in this country more registered unemployed than there were in 1932? In case the Minister might start quibbling with the term "registered unemployed," there are to-day more unemployed persons registered in this country than even the Minister, in his election propaganda, claimed were unemployed in this country in 1932.
Would the Deputy find any difficulty in proving the relevancy of those remarks to the Bill in his hand?
Mr. Morrissey
The relevancy is that this Bill would be absolutely and completely unnecessary if we had no unemployed in this country, and if the Minister had carried out his promises there would be no unemployed.
I fear that argument does not prove relevancy. It it too far-fetched.
Mr. Morrissey
It is very hard to divorce the number of unemployed——
I put the question to the Deputy as one experienced in the rules of debate.
Mr. Morrissey
I want to submit, if I may with all respect, that it is very hard to divorce the number of unemployed in the country from the amount of money which it is proposed to spread amongst that number. My speech might be summed up in this way, if I may say so. I meet Deputy Tom Kelly's point as to what additional taxation on luxury articles we stand for by suggesting that he might ask the Minister and the Government, who told us that not only would there be no need for increased taxation but there would be a reduction of £2,000,000 without injury to any section of the people. There need be no increase in taxation if the Government carried out their promises, because there would be no unemployment in this country. Notwithstanding all the efforts made by the Government, notwithstanding all the new industries, notwithstanding the 100,000 who have gone to Great Britain, we find ourselves after six years of Fianna Fáil government with 100,000 still signing the register. That is the figure with which the Minister has got to deal, not with what Deputy Norton or Deputy Davin or I may say here. The Minister may answer us as glibly as he likes. The Minister may beat the desk and thunder and orate, but all the orations of the Minister and all the thumping and all the figures and all the sums in arithmetic, simple and otherwise, are having very little effect upon the 100,000. That is the problem which the Minister has got to face, and he is not going to solve it by a Bill that will give some of them, and only some of them, a mere existence.
While I agree that the increased rates are a very miserable contribution to the principle of maintenance for the unemployed—the Minister now tells us that he does not mean "maintenance"—at the same time I should like to point to some of the anomalies under this Bill. In a borough, a man and his wife receive 15/- a week. A man and his wife and five or more children receive 23/- a week. I take it that the extra 8/- are to provide for the five or more children. Outside the boroughs, in the rural areas, a man and his wife get 10/-, while a man and his wife and five or more children get 14/-. In this case, I take it that the 4/- are allowed to provide for the five children. I think that one great principle is violated in those Maintenance and Assistance Acts which we have known so far, by the very small value placed on child life. I think that child life should be looked upon as one of the greatest assets we have in the country, but, in judging the mentality of the Government with regard to the value of child life, we have to consider the fact that only 8/- a week are allowed for five or more children inside the boroughs and 4/- for five or more children outside the boroughs. Unemployment and the evils of unemployment press more heavily on children and on growing people than on adults, and I think the amount provided for children should be much greater than it is under this proposed Bill or under the Act which this Bill is supposed to amend.
I have spoken of the anomaly of the amount allowed for children outside and inside the boroughs, but there is another anomaly to which reference was made by Deputy Corry—I think it is rather peculiar to Cork—and that is in the case of people who have been taken from slum areas in the city. They have been part and parcel of the city life, and, through the clearance of those areas they have been put into corporation houses, by the action of the corporation for their own advantage, outside the city area. Immediately they leave the city area and go just outside the borough the amount of unemployment assistance they receive is reduced. Take the case of a man with a wife and five children, who is unemployed in the city. That man receives 23/- a week. If he goes outside the city, under this Bill he will receive 14/- a week; that is a loss of 9/- a week. What I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister is that that man has been removed outside the city, and has been placed in that position through no fault of his own. It is simply that he came under this slum clearance order of the corporation. You cannot by any manner of means divorce his method of living from that of the city. He still has to buy his provisions in the city. He still looks to the city for employment, if he can get it. Under the rotational schemes he is denied the right to work in the city under the city relief schemes, so there is a double hardship created. That anomaly is particularly apparent when we consider the fact that that man and his family have been brought from the slum area to better housing conditions for the benefit of their health. Immediately, the amount that is allowed for the necessities of life is reduced. Therefore, although they gain in the way of fresh air, they have less to buy food and to pay rent.
Deputy Corry has mentioned that matter to the Minister, and in reply to Deputy Morrissey I think he said he was quite clear on it. I hope that it may be possible under this Bill to amend that position. You should not reduce the unemployment assistance of a man who was unemployed in the city, and who was transferred just outside the city borough, where he is still —I want to emphasise that point—part and parcel of the city life. He has no connection with rural life as we understand it, although he is in the rural area, and his unemployment assistance should not be reduced owing to that transference of his residence. I want particularly to stress that point. I also want to say that I understand the Cork Corporation has requested the Minister to deal with that anomaly under this Bill. I hope it will be possible. I am sure the Minister, seeing the hardship that is being inflicted on those people by that transference, will take the necessary steps to amend the Bill.
I wish to draw the Minister's attention to the people in the rural areas. Take the case of a widower. He may be living in his own house, and he is treated as an ordinary boy of 20 or 21 years of age. I want to draw the Minister's attention to the increase in the cost of living in the rural areas. Take the county home in Rathdrum, Co. Wicklow, which is considered a rural area. The average maintenance per inmate for the period ended September, 1937, cost 6/6 per week. That is for food alone, although the food is bought in huge quantities —tons of sugar, tons of flour and meat in bulk. If it costs the board of health 6/6 per inmate per week, how can the Minister expect a single man to maintain himself and pay rent for his house on 6/-? I will give the figures for the last three years for the county homes in the rural areas. For instance, bread, in 1935, was 6d. for a 4-lb. loaf and, in 1937, it was 8¼d.—probably supplied by the 100 dozen a day. Mutton was at 5d. per lb., and it is 6½d. per lb. in 1937. Then you had bacon at 6d. per lb. in 1935, and at 11½d. in 1937, and you had butter at 1/-, and ½ per lb., and so on. These are the prices in quotation in our contract with the county home at the present time.
In view of the increased cost of living in the rural areas, I am surprised at the Minister bringing in a measure of this kind. I am not like some members of the House who say that the country cannot afford this. I say that the country can afford it, and that they can well afford to maintain the unemployed people of this country; and I say that, from the national point of view, nobody will object to making proper provision for the maintenance of the unemployed. I hold that it would be far cheaper for the Government to provide maintenance for the unemployed in a national way, instead of asking the public bodies to maintain them, because the position will be that, if you are going to make the local bodies contribute £100,000 to maintain the unemployed, and if you have robbed the road fund and the unemployment fund, then you are going to rob the aged and infirm, because the public boards will have to reduce the amount they are giving for that purpose at the present time.
I have figures here with regard to mental hospitals in this country, and these figures show that the cost of living has increased by £3 per patient in the last three years. Notwithstanding that, the Minister comes in here and states that the people in the rural areas will be no worse off under the new Bill than they were three years ago, although we know they will receive less. We have a few Labour representatives on the public boards, and I must give them this credit: that wherever they find that an unemployed man is waiting to receive his donation from the unemployment grant from the Minister, we try to give him an allowance to keep him during the period while he is waiting to receive his allowance back from the Labour Exchange. I say there is too much unnecessary delay in dealing with men's claims. For instance, take the case of the rotational schemes. You have the case of men who were dismissed on the 23rd of December, and it was not until last week that they received their first week's pay, and the board of health has to make an allow ance to these people while they are waiting. They do not receive from the Minister's Department what they are entitled to receive weekly. Then, apart from the miserable allowance itself, the Minister should have some arrangement whereby these men would be guaranteed that they would receive, say, next week, their payment in respect of this week, and the boards of health should not be expected to maintain them. In the case of Minor relief schemes, we have men not being paid for a fortnight, and during that fortnight the board of health in the area concerned is expected to give some relief or some allowance to these people in respect of the fortnight they were employed on the Minor relief schemes. Actually, the public bodies are doing more than their share, and certainly more than the national Exchequer is doing, to relieve the unemployed. The public bodies at the present time have to raise about 40 per cent. of the moneys for relief works. In other words, they are bound to give a certain proportion out of the rates. Now you are going to raise £100,000 in order to supplement this miserable allowance that you are giving to the unemployed, and you will find, as a result, that the public bodies are coming to the position where they will say: "Why not let everybody share the burden; why should this not be a national charge?"
I think that money expended on the provision of work or in giving an unemployed man sufficient to maintain himself and his family would be money well spent. Surely the Minister does not expect a man in a rural area, with his wife and five children to be able to maintain himself and his family on £35 a year—less than £5 per year per person. I have some figures here with regard to mental hospitals and with regard to what is needed to maintain a patient in a mental hospital. It takes £43 per year in Waterford, £45 15s. 5d. in Ardee, and £51 3s. 11d. in Grange-gorman.
That is for food alone and takes no account of the payment of salaries of officials and so on. It takes £51 in Dublin to maintain a mentally afflicted patient, but the Minister expects people with families to maintain themselves and pay their rent and so on for about £30 or £40 a year. As I have said, I am quite satisfied that the country can well afford to bear this cost, but it should be a matter for the whole country, and the local bodies should not be asked to bear this. The country can afford it, because each person who is in receipt of this money will pay his share of it in the increased rents and rates. I do not welcome this Bill, because it is not giving any benefit to the unemployed man other than giving him some slight sop towards enabling him to meet the increased cost of living. The Minister dare not go to the country on this Bill. He has talked about the Labour Party going conservative. He ought to look back on some of his own speeches, when he was in opposition and when he told the Fine Gael Party that about 5 per cent. of the people of this country, because of their wealth, were ruling the country. I agreed with the Minister then and I believed he was right at that time, but I am afraid he himself has gone more conservative now and has more consideration for the people of wealth—the 5 per cent. of the people of this country—than for the plain people. It seems to me that it is to the 5 per cent. the Minister is now giving his support, but I would point out to him that it is the plain people who matter and who will always stand by the National Government. We know where the 5 per cent. will stand. They will support the Government if it suits them, but if you go against the plain people, the plain people will go against the particular Government concerned, and the sooner they do so in that case the better for the country, if the Government of the country disregards the rights of the plain people.
Some years ago we had Fianna Fáil members throughout the country promising us they had a plan that was going to solve unemployment. A number of us believed they had such a plan. I will not deny that I myself believed they had such a plan, but I have now been converted to the belief that Fianna Fáil are no better than Fine Gael. Ministers may make speeches in the country to the effect that the cost of living has not gone up, and they may talk about the Labour Party embarrassing them. I am glad that the Labour Party should embarrass the Government on such points as these if that embarrassment serves the purpose of making them fulfil some of the promises they made to relieve the destitute poor. I admit that they made some effort, but they are going very slow now, and I say that the unemployed and the plain people of this country will get an opportunity very soon, and I hope they will not be deceived on the next occasion as they have been deceived on a previous occasion. I am certain that they will not allow themselves to be deceived, and I am surprised that Deputy Tom Kelly should back up this measure and should congratulate the Minister on this wonderful achievement of the Fianna Fáil Government towards a solution of the unemployment problem in this country.
What did the Fine Gael Government do for them?
Not much better; there was not much difference for the unemployed between one and the other.
I would like to ask the Minister to give some consideration to the points raised by Deputy Corry and Deputy Hurley about people transferred from an urban to a rural area, and whose methods of livelihood are stile centred in the towns. These people have already been in receipt of an urban rate of assistance and they will now go back to a rural rate. I think it is a point that the Minister should seriously consider.
I should like to indicate that I believe if there is one item that ought to be taken from the realms of Party politics it is the question of dealing with the unemployment problem in our country.
Preach that at home.
The Minister immediately shows prejudice by his interjection. I will preach it at home and, I hope with some effect preach it abroad. When I say that it should be taken away from the realms of Party politics, I ask you to remember that in our country we have to face a problem of a character that does not call for politics. We have over 100,000 people who are in very strained circumstances, and that is not an extraordinary exaggeration. There is one anomaly in connection with this measure to which I would like to draw the attention of the House. In the Bill there is a differentiation as between the benefits that are to be given to men with dependents and to women with dependents. For example, a married man with a dependent wife is entitled to 15/-, but a married woman with a dependent husband is entitled to only 12/6. I think that is a matter the Minister might seriously consider.
So far as the amount indicated by the Minister is concerned, if one passes through the city streets one sees newspaper placards telling about the extra amount of money for the unemployed. When one calculates what the amount is to be, it works out at 1/- in one case. What an enormous expenditure! Do Deputies realise the purchasing power of 1/- in this city at the moment? It was pointed out by the last speaker that it takes £51 to feed a patient in Grangegorman Mental Hospital. It must be realised that food is bought there on contract at a very much reduced price compared with what the unfortunate person receiving unemployment assistance has to pay to a retailer. The £51 does not represent the actual figure that would have to be paid by an outside person, so far as food is concerned.
I suggest to the Minister that when he is closing this debate he should give us some hope that additions will be made so as to make more adequate provision for those unfortunate people who cannot find employment. The Government have told us that they are going to solve the unemployment problem and that they are giving an extra amount of money to the unemployed. That is the type of propaganda we have been treated to. I think, however, that the Minister will admit that there is an anomaly here as between the amount allowed to the male and the female, and I think that is a point that is worthy of consideration and alteration. While this measure can be regarded as a small improvement, it is really infinitesimal, hardly worth one's consideration. If the Minister so desired, it could be made one of the best measures possible.
At the conclusion of the Minister's speech he made this rather intriguing statement: "I have endeavoured to strike a balance between the needs of the unemployed and the resources of the country." I do not know whether that statement is to be taken seriously or whether we are simply to regard it as mere rhetoric. I assume, however, that the Minister did mean the statement seriously. Let us examine it and see what it does really mean. Are we to assume from that statement that as the prosperity of this country increases, and naturally as a consequence the number of unemployed is reduced, that the rate of assistance to the remaining unemployed will be increased proportionately? And, following on that, are we to assume that as the country gets poor and the number of unemployed increases, the rate is to be reduced correspondingly? Has any standard been established by the Minister's Department for the purpose of ascertaining the amount of assistance which the unemployed should receive in any particular set of circumstances, or is there anything in the nature of a scientific formula in this or any other country to establish the rate of assistance to be paid to the unemployed in a particular set of circumstances?
I do not think that the Minister meant his statement to be taken literally. There is no question that under existing circumstances there is need for a reasonably substantial increase in the amount of public assistance. There can be no doubt that, owing to the increased cost of living, there is need for a more substantial rate of assistance. Public boards, notably the boards of health, those of them whose estimates we have seen, have been forced to increase their demands for the coming year. One very substantial item in the estimates of local authorities is the sum to be set aside for the purpose of increasing the amount of home assistance given to those in need.
There is one thing in this Bill to which I object very strongly. It is apparently, the settled policy of the Minister to put ever-increasing obligations on public boards for the purpose of helping him in the solution of a problem which should primarily be the responsibility of the Government. This Bill imposes still further liabilities and responsibilities on public boards and I have no doubt, following on the principle that has already been laid down, that in succeeding legislation ever-increasing burdens will be put on public bodies for the purpose of helping the Minister and the Government to assist in the solution of a problem which is essentially one for which the Government is solely liable. The Minister should realise that if this policy is persisted in the position will be reached —perhaps sooner rather than later— when local authorities will be reduced to such a degree that they will find it impossible to estimate accurately for local services and at the same time make provision to meet obligations which the Government insist on imposing on them.
The rates at the present time are sufficiently high. In many counties the rates are so high that there are very many people who are unable to meet their liabilities in respect of them. Surely it should be the desire of the Government to come to the assistance of the ratepayers rather than impose fresh responsibilities and liabilities on them. I object very strongly to the tendency on the part of the Minister, especially in legislation of this character, to impose ever-increasing responsibilities on the local authorities.
Might I intervene at this stage to point out that unless we get the Second Reading to-day the enactment of the measure is likely to be postponed for some weeks? If Deputies would agree to pass the Second Reading now, they could on the Committee Stage make the speeches they intend to make now. If they insist on making these speeches now, the enactment of the measure is likely to be delayed for some weeks.
Why should the Minister say that if the Second Reading is not concluded to-day rather than to-morrow the enactment of the Bill is to be postponed for some weeks?
If I get the Second Reading now it will hasten the enactment of the measure.
Well, I will put the question now if it is desired.
I am prepared to sacrifice my right of speaking now.
Let the Minister conclude.
It is not possible in the time available between now and nine o'clock to deal with any of the more controversial points raised. I do not intend to do so. Deputy Lawlor referred to the problem associated with the existence of unemployment amongst the workers. In my opinion the acid test of the sincerity of any public person who intends to deal in any way with this problem of unemployment is his willingness to commit himself to some concrete suggestion for its amelioration. By that acid test, not merely the members of the Labour Party but the members of the Fine Gael Party stand condemned by their speeches here to-day. They shied away from any suggestion that they should commit themselves to any definite proposal of any kind for dealing with the unemployment problem. Here is a Bill designed to increase the rates of unemployment assistance. The increases for which this Bill makes provision are going to cost the people of this country £125,000 a year, that is £125,000 in addition to that £1,250,000 now being spent upon this service. A further increase over and above the rates contemplated in this measure is going to cost more money. We propose to get this £125,000 by various devices. We propose to take £50,000 from the Unemployment Insurance Fund. The Deputies opposite object to that. But will they indicate any alternative source? We propose to take £20,000 from certain local authorities. They object to that. But did any one of them suggest an alternative source?
Was there not a suggestion made to take money from the profits made by some commercial undertakings?
Certain suggestions were made about a luxury tax and the taxation of profits. Something more concrete has to be done if this thing is to be tackled in a non-Party way. The attitude of the Parties opposite is that not merely £125,000 is to be obtained without touching any of the sources we intend to touch, but that a much larger amount should have been made available to deal adequately with the problem. Whatever that increase is, it is something over and above that for which this Bill provides. Therefore, a much larger sum is to be procured for the purpose of dealing with these services. That is the whole problem.
We did not approach the preparation of this unemployment assistance scheme with the cost in mind. Nobody ever suggested, and it is not now suggested, that it is possible for any family of the categories described in the schedule to this Bill to maintain themselves on the weekly allowances specified there. We know definitely that they could not maintain themselves upon these amounts if they had no other source of revenue. But we approached the problem from an entirely different angle. We asked ourselves what is the maximum amount of money we could make available for this service. We decided that the most we could be justified in asking the taxpayer to provide was £1,000,000 yearly. In fact, the service is costing more than £1,000,000 yearly since it was established. It was a new service and that money had to be got by taxation. New imposts had to be imposed on the commercial activities of this country. We carried the unpopularity of having to impose these taxes on industry. We were criticised by the Opposition Parties inside and outside the Dáil because of our raising the burden of taxation and placing new imposts upon the people. These new imposts were necessary for the purpose of getting this service of £1,000,000 for the relief of unemployment.
Deputies opposite are speaking glibly about the State being responsible for unemployment. The State never undertook the responsibility of assisting the unemployed before 1934. Before that it was the theory of Government accepted here by the Fine Gael Party that the relief of distress resulting from unemployment was the sole responsibility of the local authorities. In fact, until 1929 the local authorities were debarred by law from coming to the relief of able-bodied persons. It was not until 1929 that the first Act was passed which enabled local authorities to give home assistance to able-bodied men. Previously there was no provision for the able-bodied unemployed at all. It was not until 1934 that this Government, this State, undertook the responsibility of directly providing for unemployed persons. It was then that this scheme of unemployment insurance was started, for which £1,000,000 had to be raised and for which it is now proposed to provide £125,000 additional.
I think the Labour Party are doing a great disservice to the unemployed by linking up this problem with the cost-of-living index figure. It will never be possible to provide unemployment assistance capable of maintaining unemployed persons definitely. Any such scheme would be faced with immense difficulties. We contemplate here a scheme which would help the people to maintain themselves during temporary unemployment. None of those unemployed are permanently unemployed. The majority may be unemployed for three or four or five weeks. They may be employed for a number of months and then unemployed for short periods. The aim of this scheme is to assist such persons during periods of unemployment. If the Labour Party associate the rates in this scheme with the standard of living, then these rates will in the future be associated with the standard of living, and the amount to be provided under this Bill will be taken into account when the earnings are taken into consideration.
The unemployment assistance scheme was first introduced in 1933. Now, 1933 was the worst year of the depression both in this and in other countries. By their proposal now that the fluctuation in the rates of unemployment assistance should have relation to the variation in the cost of living, the Labour Party are attempting to standardise for all time the unemployment assistance provisions made possible in 1933. I think their tactics are wrong. These tactics they are pursuing through Party motives, and they seem determined to pursue them, but in this they are losing sight entirely of the interests of the unemployed. It may be possible under new economic circumstances to make better provision for the unemployed than is contemplated here; I would much sooner see better provisions made in relation to our general programme of work than in relation to this scheme of unemployment, but we must have both. But it is futile and wrong to speak of this as the sole measure adopted by the Government for dealing with the unemployed. It is really the least important measure which the Government has adopted. At any rate it is the least costly of these measures because other services designed to deal with that problem involve a much higher charge upon the National Exchequer than this one does.
As regards the statement about the cost of living, the cost of living has risen. Undoubtedly it has risen. Nobody is foolish enough to deny that as compared with 1929 the cost of living is high now. Our contention is that it is no higher, in relation to 1933, than it is in any other country, and that it is not as high as it is in some other countries. Compare the rise here in the cost of living with the rise in Great Britain, and bear in mind that the British Government have refused to increase their unemployment assistance rates because of the rise in the cost of living. We are increasing the rates, not in consequence of the increase in the cost of living entirely, but when Deputies say that persons who got the lower rates in 1933 were better off than those who will get the higher rates in 1937, they are ignoring an obvious fact and refusing to carry out the simple sum in arithmetic which I asked Deputy Morrissey to undertake. Deputy Norton quoted figures here. He said that the cost-of-living index figure in November, 1933, was 156. That was the lowest point of the depression here. The figure commenced to rise immediately afterwards. It was 177 in November, 1937. It is a simple sum. 177 is to 156 as 100 is to... In that way he will find out the percentage increase in the cost of living. He will be amazed to find that the percentage increase in the cost of living is lower than the percentage increase we are proposing in unemployment assistance.
Mr. Morrissey
We would be amazed.
I shall deal with the other points in Committee.
Would the Minister deal with the point I made in connection with persons going from a rural into an urban area and being without benefit for a period?
There is a provision in the Bill designed to discourage people in rural areas from moving into urban areas or cities. Similarly, there is a provision to discourage people in urban areas from moving into the cities. It is obviously necessary to have these provisions when we are providing for higher rates in cities than in rural or in urban areas. I do not think it is a good thing to encourage an influx of unemployed into the cities.
I am not talking about the difference in rates.
It is because there are these differences in rates that it is necessary to have these provisions.
What about people moving out to housing schemes?
I shall deal with the question which has arisen in Cork to-morrow.
What about the case of the man with a dependent wife or a wife with a dependent husband?
I am prepared to deal with the Schedule on this basis: we have got £1,100,000 to spend on unemployment assistance; what is the best way of distributing that sum amongst the different classes according to their family needs and circumstances? That is the basis on which the Schedule has been prepared. The amount is fixed. Distribute that fixed amount in the most equitable way. I think we have done that, but if Deputies have suggestions to make which on their face appear to be more equitable, I am prepared to consider them.