I understand that an hour and a half is the limit for this debate.
Private Deputies' Business. - Second Employment Period Order, 1938—Motion.
I move the following motion standing in my name and that of Deputy Keyes:—
That the Unemployment Assistance (Second Employment Period) Order, 1938, presented to Dáil Eireann, pursuant to Section 7 (3) of the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1933, on the 30th day of June, 1938, be and is hereby annulled.
It is not necessary to explain at any length the origin of the order which has been tabled by the Minister. Under the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1933, the Minister is empowered periodically to issue what are described as employment period orders, and the purpose of these orders is to exclude certain persons from participation in benefits under the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1933; but I think it is necessary at the outset to protest against the manner in which the Department perfunctorily interprets its responsibility under the Act. An employment period order was issued and was current from the 1st June, 1938, but the order itself was, in fact, not laid on the Table of the House until the 30th June, 1938. Consequently, the Dáil is put in the position that an order becomes actually effective before it is laid on the Table of the House. We had occasion on a previous motion of this kind to protest against the Dáil being treated in that manner, and Government Departments, and Ministers in particular, ought to endeavour to arrange their business and their orders in such a way that the House would have an opportunity of repealing an order with a minimum of delay, and not have an order current for a month before it is actually laid on the Table of the House and thus open to the members of the House to repeal it. This year, under the Act, the Minister has issued two orders. The first order was operative from the beginning of March and applied to small holders with a valuation of £4 and over. These small holders were excluded from benefit under the order, because it provided that, as from the date of the operation of the order and during its currency, unemployment assistance benefit would not be paid to any small holder whose valuation exceeded £4. That order was issued in March with effect from March, and is still current. In June of this year the Minister issued a second employment period order and under that second order, which applied to rural areas, every unmarried man without dependents, and every widower without dependents, was automatically deprived of unemployment assistance benefit. It should not be thought, of course, that rural areas for the purpose of this order are merely rural areas. The order applies to a whole variety of small towns in this country which have not the standing of urban areas and in which town commissioners do not function under the Town Commissioners Act; so that we find that, while the order is supposed to apply to rural areas, it applies, in fact, to a considerable number of towns with a population of 2,000 and 3,000 and this order is applied to them in such a manner as to deprive single persons without dependents and widowers without dependents of any unemployment assistance benefit during the period of the order, which runs from June to approximately the end of October. It is quite clear that the purpose of the order is not so much to assume that the persons concerned can obtain employment; and, of course, the Minister must know perfectly well that they do not, in fact, obtain employment merely because an order of this kind is issued.
It is interesting to ascertain the effect of the second employment period order. Under the first order close on 3,000 persons were deprived of unemployment assistance benefit. That figure is obtained by judging approximately the number of persons in receipt of benefit prior to the operation of the order, and the number in receipt of benefit immediately after the order became effective. Under the second employment period order a very much larger number of persons were deprived of benefit. The order, as I said, became effective from 1st June, 1938. In the week ended 30th May, 1938, that is the day before the order became effective, there were 97,000 persons registered at the employment exchanges. By June 13th that number had fallen to 73,000. It is quite a reasonable assumption that the 24,000 persons who left the register between 30th May and 13th June, a period of 14 days, in fact left the register because they were cut off unemployment assistance benefit owing to the operation of the order. The Minister may try to pretend that a large number of those who were deprived of benefit in that way in fact had means, but, again, according to his own statistics, of the 24,000 persons who lost unemployment assistance between the dates in question 5,000 were persons who were described as being without means. Mind you, under the Unemployment Assistance Act, a person is deemed to have means if he has an income of 1/1 per week. If he has 1/- per week income he is deemed not to have means, because the first 1/- is excluded, but if by working on an annual calculation it can be said that he has an income of 1/1 per week that person is classified under the Act as a person having means. Five thousand persons, in fact, lost unemployment assistance benefit between the dates I have just mentioned, and those 5,000 persons were certified in the Minister's own returns to be without any means whatever. The effect of the two orders, that is the one which became operative in March and the one which became operative in June, has been to deprive approximately 26,000 persons of unemployment assistance benefit under the Act.
The serious part of the making of those orders is the fact that there is no inquiry whatever instituted by the Minister's Department as to whether work is available in the areas affected by the orders. The Minister's Department makes no inquiry whatever to ascertain whether there is employment available as from the date of the operation of the order, and whether it will be available during the currency of the order. There is no assurance by the Minister or his Department to those affected by the order that no difficulty will be experienced by them in obtaining employment following the operation of the order. The order is simply a blanketing order, and the deliberate purpose of it is to deprive a substantial number of persons of unemployment assistance benefit during the period for which the order operates. The greatest evidence one can produce to show that no work is available is the fact that the Minister finds it necessary to make the order. If work were available there would be no necessity to make an order of this kind, because those who are depending on unemployment assistance benefit would be only too glad to accept work, even in agriculture, lowly paid though it is, rather than try to exist on the low standards of benefit paid under the Unemployment Assistance Act. There is not a sane man who would prefer to draw unemployment assistance benefit at the low rates which obtain to-day than to work for a reasonable wage in any industry. If the work were available, and the Minister's Department were convinced of that fact, they could quite easily deal with this problem by saying to those who were registered as unemployed at the exchanges "Work is available at such and such a farm, or in such and such an industry" and send the unemployed men to accept that work. In that way, work would be provided, and there would be a diminution of the number of persons on the register. There would then be no necessity for issuing an order of this kind. But the Minister knows that work is not available, that it is not possible to say to the unemployed people: "Go to such and such a farm or to such and such an industry or to such and such a service and you will get work there." It is because the Minister cannot do that, but at the same time wants to get 25,000 or 26,000 persons off the unemployment register, that he finds it necessary to resort to issuing an order of this kind taking no cognisance whatever of the availability of work or of the distressing conditions applicable in a particular area.
Those orders are described as employment period orders, but it is quite clear, both from the absence of any inquiry into the availability of work in any area, and from the blanketing manner in which those orders are issued, that while they are described as employment period orders, they are really economy orders, and that the overriding consideration in the mind of the Minister is to issue an order the effect of which will be to save the expenditure of money on unemployment assistance benefit for a substantial period during the year. I think it is a most unfair order which can operate in that decisive way, depriving persons of benefit, cutting them off automatically, irrespective of the circumstances in the area, and irrespective of whether or not work is available. As I said, if work were available, the unemployed would prefer to accept that work. It is because it is not available; it is because they cannot get work, and must, therefore, rely on the exchanges as the sole means of getting even a fragmentary income, that the Minister thinks it necessary to make an order of this kind. What happens is that, while the Minister may save money on the administration of the Unemployment Assistance Act, the local authorities throughout the country find it necessary to pay home assistance to unemployed persons who are unable to draw benefit because of the operation of an order of this kind. Many of those unemployed people find it extremely difficult to get home assistance if they have been drawing, or are again likely to be able to claim at some later date, unemployment assistance benefit. If the boards of health throughout the country were to do the duty imposed on them under the Act, they would find it necessary to grant some assistance to those who are deprived of benefit by the operation of orders of this kind.
When you have a situation of that kind in the country, that 25,000 or 26,000 men are put off benefit for a period of five months, is it any wonder that you have the large-scale emigration which is taking place to-day? Is there any inducement for able-bodied young men in this country who are anxious to get work here, who cannot get work here, and who must perforce try to obtain unemployment assistance benefit until they can get even the casual type of work which is such an evil feature of the conditions in this country, to remain here? Is it any wonder that large numbers of them emigrate to Britain, to try to find there the employment which they cannot get at home? I think the price which the State pays for the issuing of an order of this kind —the price in the form of reduction in the physique of the nation, in emigration from the nation, and in the sufferings of those who are the victims of those orders—is a price unduly high, having regard to the sum of money which is saved to the central authority.
I think the issue of the order displayed cynical disregard of what really happens to the unemployed once it has been made, as there is no disposition on the part of the Government or the Department concerned to make any reasonable provision in the way of granting unemployment assistance benefit in cases where, after the issue of the order, a man can prove that he is still unable to obtain work. If there was any consideration in the administration of the order there should be provision by which a man, even if he was cut off benefit, could go to the employment exchange or to a Court of Referees and say: "Notwithstanding the operation of the order and the assumption that work is available, I cannot get work." If he was able to prove that he was unable to get work he ought to be entitled to have his case considered with retrospective effect under the Unemployment Assistance Act. Not only is he deprived of benefit, but even after that, if he can show, notwithstanding his diligent effort to obtain work, that he cannot get it, he cannot appeal against the operation of the order, and cannot get any machinery to enable him to do so. I think the order is unfair, and that its application, in such circumstances, is particularly harsh. I feel that the Dáil ought not to allow the order to pass so long as there is legislative means of asking to have it repealed. I moved this motion to give the Dáil an opportunity to exercise its legislative rights in the matter, and to give Deputies an opportunity of discussing the effects of an order made in such an ill-considered way without any regard to the final consequences and the amount of suffering caused by its operation.
It will not be necessary for me, in seconding this motion, to deal with this question at any great length. I consider that Deputy Norton has made the case quite clear, as the facts in favour of it were stated on previous occasions from this side of the House. We feel that there is no justification for the application of this employment period order. To my mind, the question boils down to this, whether or not the machinery for dealing with unemployment assistance is effective. I suggest that all the machinery required to protect the Central Fund from abuse is vested in the Department in the ordinary machinery of the Unemployment Acts. Notwithstanding the appeals that were made from this side of the House, certain provisions that were in the original Act have been preserved in the amending legislation. In view of all the machinery that is at the disposal of the Department, including investigation officers, Civic Guards and anonymous letter writers, how can anyone get unemployment benefit if in employment? I contend that there is ample machinery to protect State funds and to prevent any abuse where a person is working. It is assumed that the employment available is in the farmers' fields. The rural areas to which the order applies embrace many large towns. The borough boundary in my constituency embraces a considerable urban population and many of these people come under the ambit of the employment period order as much as if they lived a distance of 40 miles. They are supposed to look for employment with farmers in the fields in competition with labourers who are unemployed in the rural areas. Obviously that is not intended, because if work is available in the rural areas the persons I refer to are painters, porters and others who would not know how to handle a scythe. Any respectable farmer would set his dogs on them if these men went to him to look for that class of work. Yet people of that class are struck off benefit from June to October because of this order. Is it because the Minister feels that his machinery is not capable of detecting abuses of the Act or that there may be cases of false pretences that he issued this order? When citizens have been given the benefit of legislation of a social character which entitles them to unemployment assistance it is a highhanded and an arbitrary action to take it from them without attempting to trace the effects of the order, regardless of any hardship that may be inflicted. Deputy Norton mentioned on a previous occasion that we asked that statistics should be made available showing how many people were unemployed. At the time the Minister said he had not got them.
I said nothing of the kind. I actually gave the statistics, and I propose doing so again to-day.
I am referring to a period order made more than two years ago when the Minister definitely told us that he had no means of knowing how many people were concerned.
Two years ago is not this year.
No, but the fact is that this year 24,000 people, so far as we have means of ascertaining, are affected. As Deputy Norton stated we are taking the figures before the order was issued and the figures immediately after its issue. A very big drop is shown of persons affected by this order as compared with earlier orders. The reason for the drop is simple. These people have gone across the Channel to get employment. In that way unemployment figures here have been reduced considerably. Those period orders have been one of the causes of driving these people out of this country because they have been definitely deprived of the few shillings a week on which they subsisted. I have an appeal to-day from a man who lives in a labourer's cottage, saying that owing to the operation of the order he has no means of paying his rent, and that the board of health would probably take steps to evict him. That man cannot get work. He was a victim last year also and could not get any benefit because of these ruthless orders. As Deputy Norton stated the order is not sufficiently flexible to enable a man to appeal to some body where he could prove that work is not available. Some provision should be made, if work is not available, under which a man would be entitled to get the benefit of the Act. Does the Minister feel that he is justified in making an order of this kind without having regard to the hardship inflicted on the rural population and on the working-class people? I come into close contact with unemployed people and I am opposed to this order. I feel that I am honestly justified in my determination to oppose it from the experience I have had of its operation previously. I wonder if the Minister has taken steps to see what the effects of the order have been, and ascertained how many people really got employment after being deprived of benefit. My recollection was that previously he said he did not know. I may be wrong. I hope the Minister will now tell us how many people, who were struck off benefit last year, got employment. He might also say if he is going to proceed with the order, or make it sufficiently flexible, so that there will be some appeal, and not drive people to the verge of starvation, because of the operation of an order of this kind.
I do not think it was quite fair of Deputy Norton in his opening remarks to attempt to prejudice the Dáil, in reference to an order which came into effect on the 1st June not being laid on the table until the 30th June. Deputy Norton may have forgotten the fact that there was a general election, but other Deputies in this House have reason to remember it. The order was in fact sent for submission to the Dáil by my Department on the 16th May and would have been laid upon the table of the Dáil if there had been a Dáil with a table to lay it upon but there was no Dáil and it was not until the 30th June, when the Dáil reassembled, that the order could be laid upon the table and on that date the order was, in fact, submitted.
When was the Dáil dissolved?
At the end of May. Anyway, the only thing I can testify to is that the order was sent to the Clerk of the Dáil by the Department of Industry and Commerce on the 16th day of May and the only reason why it did not appear on the table of the House before the 30th June was because it was not until the 30th June that there was a Dáil in existence with a table upon which the order could be laid. We have had many discussions of this kind in the course of the past two years because orders of this character have been made in every year since the Unemployment Assistance Act came into operation. It is, of course, easy to find fault with the effect of such orders upon individuals. It is inevitable that a scheme of this kind cannot be adapted to meet the circumstances of individual cases. Any arrangements for the administration of an unemployment assistance scheme must endeavour to deal with the people in classes and not as individuals. If you want to have a scheme of assistance which will provide for the consideration of individual cases then it must be such a scheme as the Home Assistance Scheme, one which involves domiciliary visits by officers with a considerable amount of discretion who can, in fact, determine whether or not assistance is required and assistance can be given. We do not operate a scheme of that kind. We operate a scheme which sets out certain statutory requirements which must be met by any person claiming assistance and certain statutory barriers to the receipt of assistance, which give power to make orders which can deal with sections of the community as a whole and not with individual members of it. It is, however, well known to Deputies that the big difficulty in devising the unemployment assistance scheme originally was the circumstances existing in rural areas. Deputies know that I am sure. Even Deputy Norton and Deputy Keyes are very familiar with the problems that had to be solved in connection with the operation of an unemployment assistance scheme in rural areas before that scheme could be embodied in an Act. The problem in rural areas has not been touched upon by them at all in their speeches. That problem is in regard to the sons of farmers who live with their fathers upon their fathers' farm.
More than that.
The average unemployed person who works for wages, who has no property to sell except his labour, who is dependent entirely upon what he earns is in a different category. They do not constitute a problem at all. If all the people whom the unemployment scheme touches in rural areas were of that character there would be no difficulty. It is because there are some 48,000 people in this country qualified to receive unemployment assistance who are living in rural areas and who are not of that character that there is a problem. That is the problem of the single man who lives with his father or some other relative upon a farm owned by the father or that other relative. It is impossible to say whether this person is employed or unemployed. It is quite an individual case. Then take the case of a farm upon which there is a father and two sons. The farm might quite properly be worked by the father and one son. That does not say there is no work for the second son if he cares to do it. It does not enable you to determine which of the two sons is to be regarded as unemployed. It is that feature of life in the rural areas that created the major problem in devising the unemployment assistance scheme and which very nearly determined the Government to exclude the rural areas from the scope of the unemployment scheme altogether, just as agricultural workers had to be excluded entirely from the scope of the unemployment insurance scheme. We did not exclude them but, in order to deal with that problem partially, it was decided to give power to make these exclusion orders, orders which could be used to exclude from the right to receive unemployment assistance persons living in rural areas at the times of the year when they might reasonably be expected to be employed on the land.
We realised then and we realise now that here and there there would be individuals in respect of whom it could be said that their exclusion from the right to receive unemployment assistance would constitute a hardship, just as I am quite sure there are people receiving unemployment assistance who all Deputies would agree should not get it because they are not the type of person for whom this scheme was devised. These difficulties will occur and some other machinery must be created to deal with them. There is at least the machinery of the Home Assistance Acts. But let us consider the adminisstration of the unemployment assistance. We made an order much less restricted in its scope than we contemplated before the Bill was introduced here. When we were framing the Bill, when we took that power to exclude from the right to receive unemployment assistance, certain classes of persons at certain periods of the year, we had in mind the exclusion of all persons in rural areas during the busy seasons on the land. We have never used the power to that extent. We have only excluded two classes of persons, one the actual owners of land, the poor law valuation of which exceeds £4 per year, and secondly, single men without dependents.
It is quite true that the scope of these orders extends beyond purely rural districts. There are certain classes of towns which have no local government, no known boundaries, which are small towns in rural areas and, for purely administrative reasons, it was found impossible to distinguish in the order between these towns and rural areas surrounding them. I do not know if any Deputy has any practical suggestion to make as to how that administrative problem could be solved. To deal with the situation as a whole, there is, I submit, unquestionable justification for the making of these exclusion orders in respect of rural areas during the June to October period of the year. That is what we have done. We are now in the position to determine with some degree of accuracy as to whether the orders which were made last year and the previous year and the year previous to that did in fact cause hardship. I would say that if Deputies could come here and prove conclusively that a considerable number of cases of hardship resulted from the making of the order then there would be grounds for not making the order in future, even though we knew that not making it was going to mean that unemployment assistance, at the taxpayer's expense, was going to be paid out to a large number of persons who could be at work or should be at work upon the land. Even though we knew that and had to face the cost of providing unemployment assistance to people who were not entitled to it and whom the Dáil intended should not get it, nevertheless, we would be justified in doing it if there was evidence of any considerable hardship resulting from the order. I submit there is no such evidence. The number of persons who were disallowed unemployment assistance in consequence of the Second Employment Period Order last year was 23,907, approximately 24,000. Bear in mind that a very high proportion of those came within the description that I have given—they are the sons of farmers living with their fathers on their fathers' land, and if they got employment during the period for which the exclusion order operated they got it in the main upon their fathers' farms.
In so far as they did, we have no record of it. There is no record in the Department of the work done by such people in that way. We do know that some substantial allowance must be made for the employment of these people in that way. These are single men without dependents, and it is not unreasonable to suppose that a very high proportion of them were, in fact, occupied during the whole of that employment period working upon the land on which they ordinarily resided. In addition to these being occupied in that way, 68 per cent. of them got spells of work for wages, according to the information which they furnished to the Department when the Employment Period Order expired. That information may not be 100 per cent. reliable. Deputies do not need to be told that unemployed persons often get odd ideas as to what it is in their interest to tell officials at the employment exchanges. At any rate, according to the information which they gave, 68 per cent. of them got spells of work which varied in duration.
What was the average number of national health stamps affixed?
I cannot give the Deputy that figure. These periods of work varied in duration, but a substantial number of the persons concerned got more than one spell of work.
What would a spell of work mean?
A period of employment of any length of time.
Even for a day?
It would include a spell of one week's work. I have not got figures for that.
The 68 per cent. reads well, but it may not be reliable.
I do not consider these figures are necessary to justify the order. I assume that the great majority of these people did not require and did not seek work for wages at all, because they have work to do there getting in the harvest on the land of their fathers.
They were all landed proprietors?
A large proportion of them were not; they were the sons of landed proprietors.
Is there not a means test?
There is no means test as far as these people are concerned. The people who own the land were excluded by the First Employment Period Order. We are dealing here with single men without dependents affected by the Second Employment Period Order. Most of them might reasonably be expected to get work on their fathers' land, but 68 per cent. of them got some spell of work for wages. A substantial number got more than one spell. Some of them got work for the whole of the period of the Employment Period Order. A good number of them got spells of work varying from 14 to 28 or 60 days. There is a provision in the regulations relating to this matter which says that any person disallowed unemployment assistance by reason of the making of such an order, must nevertheless get preference over other applicants for any work available, financed in whole or in part out of Central Funds. As Deputies are aware, there is a substantial amount of work available throughout the country during the summer months to which that regulation applies and upon that work these persons excluded from the receipt of unemployment assistance by the order nevertheless get the same preference as if they had been receiving unemployment assistance.
Preference over a man drawing the maximum rate of unemployment assistance?
No, the same preference as they would have got if they continued drawing unemployment assistance. The only thing these people would have to do in order to qualify for that work, if the work became available, was to maintain their registration at the exchange. They did not do it. Of the 24,000 people who were disallowed on the 1st June, 1937, approximately only 1,200 maintained their registration. The number of persons not receiving unemployment assistance or unemployment insurance who were registered at the exchanges in the country on the last Monday in May, 1937, was 3,490 and on the last Monday in June, 5,687. I submit that that figure is an indication that a large number of these people were not available for work at that period because they were engaged in the manner I have described.
Is it a fact that you dismissed the staff in some exchanges on the assumption that these people were not coming back to sign?
I merely stated that in order to maintain their registration very little trouble was involved for a large number of these people and by maintaining registration they got their right to employment on public works. I submit that if there was this widespread hardship which Deputy Norton refers to, they would have done it. Deputy Norton says that the local authority had to make good the unemployment assistance stopped from these persons, and relieve hardship. To what extent had the local authorities to step in?
They should relieve more cases. If you were a member of a local authority you would know why.
The local assistance scheme is there. If there was hardship, if, as a result of the orders, people were, in fact, left destitute and unable to provide for themselves in any way, one would expect to find some reflection in the home assistance figures.
Some will not give them assistance even though they are cut off at this period.
Any home assistance authority which fails to relieve destitution in its area is failing in its duty. That is the duty of the local authority, and the purpose of the home assistance scheme is to provide against destitution, and to provide assistance in that intimate, personal way which is possible when you have inspectors with discretionary powers. There is no evidence of any increase in the number of able-bodied persons receiving home assistance during the period these orders were in operation. The number of persons receiving home assistance on the last Saturday of January was 4,200, and on the last Saturday of May, 4,300. The order came into operation on the 1st June. On the last Saturday of June the number was 4,400; in July, 4,400; August, 4,900; October, 4,400, and November, 4,500. There is no evidence there of widespread destitution or considerable hardship occasioning appeals to the home assistance authorities.
The primary consideration in the making of these orders is not economy. Deputy Norton says the orders are made for the purpose of reducing the cost to the unemployment assistance scheme. I am not saying it would not be justified if it were clear that the need for the assistance did not exist amongst persons cut off, but that was not, in fact, the primary consideration. It would be almost impossible for anyone to say how much, in fact, was saved by the making of these orders. Of course, one would have to know not merely the number of persons cut off but also whether these persons would have got work and, if so, how much work during the period of the order. Whatever the total saving is it is a bagatelle compared with the total cost of the unemployment scheme, and certainly it is not as Deputy Norton said, the primary consideration. The primary consideration is to give effect to what was the original intention in 1933. As Deputies know quite well, we had in the initial period during which the unemployment period order was not in operation complaints from all parts of the country of the inability of land owners to get workers. These complaints were expressed here in the Dáil and Seanad by people from certain parts of the country. We were told that people found it difficult to get workers for agricultural purposes at certain periods of the year when workers were required before these orders were made.
Did the Minister find out whether these complaints were justified?
There may have been grounds for the complaints—I do not know. These complaints appeared in the local papers and they were voiced in the Dáil and Seanad. It is necessary to provide that that situation will not exist in the future, and that if there is work to be done, whether it is work to be got at wages or work by farmers' sons on the farmers' holdings, these men should be doing that work rather than getting unemployment assistance. I admit that this is a scheme that does not allow much variation in individual cases. We have worked upon broad lines and without regard at all to the finer shades of difference between one section of people and another. It was impossible to provide a scheme on any other basis except you set up local authorities who will bring all the applicants before them and afterwards decide the merits from the evidence they have had and from the information they have had. But we cannot work on these lines; we have to make fixed rules and we have to conform to these fixed rules. No other possible base of working has been suggested. I do not think it necessary to say more.
My order was fully justified by the experience of the working of similar orders last year and the previous year. We have had very little to indicate that any undue hardship resulted from that and, in fact, very little at all except in one or two places in Donegal where it is true that exceptional conditions operated. It is difficult to make a distinction between one part of the country and another. We thought one time last year to differentiate between those parts of the country where there is employment for agricultural labourers and those parts of the country where agricultural labourers do not exist, where the holdings are worked by the members of the families living on them. We thought it might be possible to make different conditions for one area as compared with another. But the practical difficulty of doing so proved so great that the very best scheme towards that end could not be considered at all and had to be condemned. One order was made for the whole country. That was the result of our efforts. It may be that some solution of this problem may be found along those lines. If so, I am prepared to consider any suggestion made by Deputies. I would be prepared to consider any effective method of adjusting the difficulties in different areas if this can be found possible. There is always the problem of a border. There is a border between one townland and another, one county and another, one province and another. We have had these orders in operation for a number of years. There is no reason why they should not be continued. It is our intention to continue, if not for the period covered by the present order, then for some period. There is, in effect, no other alternative than the exclusion of the rural areas from the scope of the scheme.
It is obvious that the Minister has a very bad case because in defending this order I was rather surprised that his statement betrayed such an utter lack of knowledge of the hardships of the order. I gathered from his statement that he seems to be unaware of any extra demands made on the local authorities to meet the hardships that arose because of the imposition of the order. That is not in accordance with the facts. I am a member of a local authority. I know that at the May meeting of that authority a large number of applications came before the board for consideration.
At the May meeting?
Yes.
The order did not commence until the 1st June.
There was a very intelligent anticipation on the part of those who knew what would happen. They also knew that that body would not meet for another month. That was followed up on Monday last by a very touching application that came before the meeting. A case of the most astounding degree of neglect was brought to the notice of the board, not by a labour agitator or by any politician, but by members of the Gárda Síochána in the district where this thing occurred. I quote from the Cork Evening Echo of July 19th, 1938. It is from a report of the proceedings of the West Cork Board of Health and Public Assistance. In that report the following occurs:—
"Inspector M. Cunningham, Gárda Síochána, Skibbereen, sent in the following report for the consideration of the board:—
‘On the 13th inst. Timothy Fitzgerald, Derryconnell, Ballydehob, reported to the Gárda at Ballydehob that he and his brother, Daniel Fitzgerald, of the same address, had no proper food for ten days previous and had no money to procure it. He stated that their only means of subsistence were potatoes unearthed from neighbours' gardens. He further stated he had applied to the local H.A.O. on various occasions during the past month for home assistance, but had been refused on all occasions. Both men are unemployed and were up to a short time ago in receipt of unemployment assistance. Sergt. Patk. Flynn, of Ballydehob, visited the house of the two men at 4.30 on the evening of the report. The men were present. Daniel would appear as if he was under-nourished for some time. His brother, Timothy, was not so bad looking, but also showed signs of under-nourishment. The sergeant could find no signs of any food in the place. He supplied them with 5/- worth of food at his own expense, after being informed that a further application for assistance had been refused. He notified the H.A.O. of the case and was informed by the latter that he already knew of the case and that he could not manage to give them personal assistance. In view of the circumstances, as disclosed, the facts are sent you for your information, with a view to having the matter investigated.'"
The board of health proposed to deal with the official who for some reason yet undisclosed failed to afford provision in that case. That aspect of the case does not come in for discussion here. The aspect of the case that comes into discussion here is that you have two men starving in a remote district, deprived of the means of existence by the operation of this order. Cases of this kind may not be general, but there can be no doubt about the fact that a very considerable degree of hardship has been imposed on people affected by this order. There can be no defence for it. The Minister showed in the course of his statement that he had a very bad case to defend. I intervene only to bring up an example that I have quoted to the notice of the House. In view of the fact that we heard from the Minister himself and from members of this Party a good deal of condemnation in the matter of a certain notable case that occurred in West Cork some years ago, I think the Minister should be made aware of this case, and that he should be aware of the fact that in the operation of this order there is danger of cases, of a kind similar to the one I have referred to, taking place. I sincerely hope the Minister will go very much further than merely contemplating some local adjustment of the regulation in particular areas. The only adjustment that the regulation is capable of is the adjustment that this House or the Minister himself could make in having the order withdrawn and some measure of consideration afforded to the people who are the victims of the injustice which the order imposes in its present form.
There is one question I should like to ask. The Minister stated a while ago that there were 5,000 registering at the labour exchanges since the order came into operation.
I said 5,000 not entitled to unemployment assistance or unemployment insurance benefits.
That would indicate that these men were cut off without any consideration whatever. I am a member of a board of assistance, and we have these cases also. In many cases the boards concerned will not help these men without dependents, because the argument is that the State considered these cases as being not worthy of unemployment assistance, and therefore they look upon them as not being entitled to local assistance.
Any such argument would be completely without foundation in the case of these individuals. These people in question are not entitled to unemployment assistance because the law has been temporarily changed. That is all. Obviously, there has been no question of the consideration of individual cases. The whole point of my speech was to show that such individual consideration could not be given.
But these people will not get home assistance because of the fact that they have been knocked off the unemployment assistance by the State. That is not always the case, of course.
I should like to draw attention to one particular area in my constituency where there is no industry at present. There was an industry, but it has been closed down, and over 100 men in that area are registered as unemployed, 60 of whom were single or widowers and who are now deprived of any assistance whatsoever. There is no work available in that area. It is an area of which the Minister may be aware. I refer to Avoca. There was an industry there that gave employment to a large number of men some years ago, and what I am asking the Minister is that he should give consideration to this exceptional case. It is not a question of individuals, because there are over 40 men who are unable to get home assistance owing to the position in County Wicklow. The small amount that is available for distribution is a heavy drain on the board of health there. If the board of health had the money they would not take the attitude that, because a man was not in receipt of State benefits, he would not be entitled to home assistance. That is peculiar to a certain type of politician. In this locality, they tried to meet all cases, but this is an exceptional case and I hold that, before the Government would make an order striking off all single men, they should satisfy themselves that work was available or that there were reasonable prospects of obtaining work in the area.
Of course, the Minister may say: "Is it not the harvesting time, and could not these men get work in that connection?" In this area, however, they are all small farmers and there is very little tillage. Therefore, there is no such case to be put up as that there would be work available. I want to know from the Minister whether anything can be done, either by a relief grant or a continuing of the order, to help these people out, because this is an exceptional case where a large number of men is concerned, or are these men to have to wait till next October? Otherwise, we do not see any prospect of getting any relief whatever for them. The board have sent deputations to various Departments, and they have put forward big schemes for consideration, but up to the present these schemes have not been sanctioned and, as I say, there is no prospect of absorbing into employment those 40 unemployed men in the district. It is questionable if any relief can be given in the way of home assistance. I do not know what can be done in this case. There are no minor relief schemes in the area, no industry there, and there seems to be no prospect of employment. As I say, the case is exceptional, and the Minister should use his power in such a case to do something for these men who will not receive anything till next October.
In opening what Deputy Murphy correctly described as a very weak defence to this motion, the Minister said that it was not correct to say that this order was only laid on the Table of the House on the 30th June. It was only laid on the Table of the House on the 30th June. The Minister says that it was sent to the Dáil on the 16th May. I do not know who is responsible, but the Dáil was not dissolved until the 27th May. In fact, it sat on the 25th May. If the order was sent on the 16th May there is no reason why it should not have been laid on the Table of the House on the 17th or on any day that the Dáil sat between the 16th and the 25th May. Steps could have been taken to ensure that the order was laid on the Table of the House, in view of the fact that the Minister's own Employment Period Order became current on the 1st June, and the House should get an opportunity of repealing the order, if it so desired, before the consequences of the order were inflicted on its victims. I think the Minister's defence was particularly weak. He admits that the order was prepared on the 16th May.
No. It was prepared long before that, but it was sent to the Clerk of the Dáil on the 16th May.
The Minister proposed to do a certain thing. Under the Act, he is obliged to lay a copy of the order on the Table of the House. The order was prepared on the 16th May, and the Minister knows that it was his job to ensure that the order was laid on the Table of the House in order to discharge his statutory obligation; because the obligation is on the Minister, and not on somebody else, to see that it is put in train for laying on the Table of the House. However, this is not the first occasion that that has happened in connection with these orders. It is the same story that had to be told on a previous occasion where an order was not laid on the Table of the House for a long time after the order became effective—and on that occasion there was no general election to explain the delay in doing so, and the Minister knows that. However, to come down to the case which the Minister sought to make in resisting this motion. He tells us that it is necessary to make these orders effective so as to deprive a large number of persons in the rural areas of benefit under these orders, during certain periods of the year, because of his view that there is work or that there should be work available there and, in any case, because they may be the sons of farmers and should work on their own land. That, however, is ignoring completely the economic conditions of agriculture in this country. Take the case of a man who has a few acres of land and two or three sons. Those few acres of land are not capable of sustaining the farmer and certainly not capable of absorbing all the efforts of himself and his sons. He is deprived of benefit because he has the land, and the sons, who are single and cannot get married because of the economic conditions, are drawing unemployment assistance benefit. They are deprived of benefit under this order because they are single. Does the Minister suggest that the farmer and his two sons ought to spend their time trekking around the few acres trying to find some work of a profitable character that they can do to sustain them in lieu of the assistance of which they are deprived by the application of this order? That is the kind of case you can make in theory on paper, but if you are to relate it to the actual facts in rural areas, it will not hold water for a moment, and the Minister must know it.
In any case, we got an admission from the Minister that last year 24,000 persons were deprived of unemployment assistance owing to the operation of this order, and he told us that 68 per cent. of them got spells of work during the five months over which they were deprived of benefit. Of course, a statement of that kind is valueless unless you know what a spell of work means. If it means one day, if it means one week, we ought to know. But it does not really matter whether it means a day or a week or a fortnight. It is quite conceivable, of course, that almost 100 per cent. of them could get a spell of work if a spell is a day or a week, but is it any solution to say that 68 per cent. of the 24,000 people got a spell of work?
At least a spell of work.
Is it any solution to say that they got at least a spell of work when the spell may be a day or may be a week or may be a fortnight?
Or five months.
It is a rather strange thing that in the lengthy brief which I am sure the Minister had in this matter he was not told by his Department what, for the purposes of this brief, was a spell of work. We could not get that out of him.
One day's threshing.
We could not get out of the Minister, in a lengthy brief, what a spell meant, but that 68 per cent. was given—a statistic quite worthless unless we can get an intimation of what a spell was.
It might be anything from 12 days to 100 days.
Does not the Minister appreciate that talking about spells, which might be a day or five months, is quite worthless unless we know what exactly is the period of a spell? If the whole 100 per cent. of the 24,000 got ten spells of work, and a spell was a day, it would only mean that they worked ten days in five months. Who could be satisfied with a situation of that kind? Yet the Minister supplies worthless statistics of that kind to the House as a supposed reason for resisting a reasonable motion of this kind. Then we had the further remarkable argument by the Minister that there was a certain, benefit in those 24,000 going back to register at the exchange because, he said, they would get preference even though they were cut off. Now, what are the facts of the situation? Before the Second Employment Period Order was made, that is in the week ended 30th May last, there were 97,000 persons registered as unemployed at the employment exchanges and seeking work there. Of those 24,000 fell under the Second Employment Period Order. That meant that 73,000 still survived with claims current at the exchange. By reason of that fact the bulk of those 73,000 people were in receipt of unemployment assistance benefit, and consequently, under Government instructions, entitled to preference on any schemes of public works which were in operation locally. What is the Minister suggesting to the 24,000 who fell? Here it is: "Go back and register, and even though there are another 73,000 people registered at the exchanges, you will get a preference."
The Deputy knows that is all nonsense. How many of those 73,000 are registered in the cities?
I will allow the Minister to intervene to clear up any misunderstanding that there may be.
Does not the Deputy know that when schemes of work are started in rural areas it is not at all uncommon—in fact, I should say it is the practice—that every unemployed man in those rural areas is employed on those works?
I will not tarnish that joke by commenting on it. I will just leave it to the Deputies who represent rural areas.
I will say this to the Deputy: The commonest complaint I get in my Department is that men are required to travel too long a distance to partake in those schemes of work. In order to get the number of men to do the job, the people concerned have to go over too wide an area. That is the commonest complaint in my Department.
In any case we have it from Deputy Murphy that a situation of that kind does not exist in Ballydehob to-day.
I am not saying it does.
We have it from Deputy Everett that that is not the situation in Avoca, and I can say in any case for the constituency I represent, that there is certainly no famine of workers in any portion of it. I think any Deputy who represents a rural area in particular knows that in rural areas it is harder than ever to get work. The statistics of the number of persons employed in agriculture between 1931 and 1937 show, in fact, that the number employed in agriculture was approximately 6,000 less in 1937 than in 1931.
The Deputy is now just trying to drag in a very ill-smelling red herring, which has nothing to do with this question, and does not even look like a herring.
Let us get back to the point on which the Minister interrupted. He knows there were those 73,000 persons registered as unemployed, and to those persons cut off by this Order he says: "Go back and register, even though you are deprived of benefit." He tells them that, even though he is saying to them: "In fact, you can only get preference when every other man at the exchange who is drawing unemployment assistance benefit is provided for under the relief schemes."
Nothing of the kind. Of the 73,000 much more than two-thirds were in the towns and cities.
Well, what is the point?
Then what have the 73,000 to do with it? They would not be put on rural relief schemes.
Not more than two-thirds were in the cities on the Minister's own statistics.
I say the towns and cities.
That is a change.
And the villages too!
The Minister knows an unemployed man does not go back to register when he is deprived of benefit. The unemployed man knows perfectly well from the everyday experience of life in those areas—our rural people have pretty rugged commonsense in those matters—that there is no use in going back to register at the exchange because he knows that there is no hope whatever of getting any employment at the exchange until such time as those who are in receipt of unemployment assistance benefit are first provided for, and it very rarely happens that all those registered at the exchange and drawing benefit are ever provided for. It is only when there is a famine of workers after those have been provided for that the man cut-off under this Order has ever a chance of getting placed on a relief scheme. In any case, we know that during the summer periods there are very few relief schemes in operation, because the Board of Works keeps all its relief schemes to commence in October, November and during the winter months when there is no Employment Period Order current. One of the reasons, a rather novel one, given by the Minister for making this Order applicable to rural areas was that a lot of those persons could work on their land or on their father's land. The Minister acknowledged that those Orders applied to towns as well as to rural areas. What is the use, for example, in telling a single man in Kildare town or in Tullow—two substantial towns—to work on his father's farm? His father might be dead. There is no farm. His father might be living in a labourer's cottage. His father might be a road worker. To tell a man in Kildare town or in a town like Tullow that for five months of the year he must work on his father's farm is to ignore completely the facts of life in those places.
Nobody suggested it. What is the Deputy's solution?
The Minister should try and——
I am asking the Deputy for a practical solution as to how to distinguish where the boundaries of those towns begin and end.
The Minister is interrupting so frequently that I cannot make an effort to put forward a practical suggestion.
If the Deputy promises to make an effort to put forward a practical suggestion I will sing dumb for the rest of the night.
It would be a great treat for the House if the Minister would sing dumb even for a short time. The Minister is making this Order applicable not only in rural areas but in the small towns, and some of those towns are not so small when we consider the distribution of population in this country. Towns like Kildare and Tullow are affected by the currency of this Order. There is no use in telling the workers there to go out and work on the land, because they cannot get work on the land. If a married man in those towns, in receipt of 12/- or 14/- a week unemployment assistance benefit, could get work on the land he would leave the exchange and get work on the land rather than try to exist on the low rates of unemployment assistance benefit, but that man remains static at the exchange during the currency of this Order in a great many cases. How then can it be expected that a single man has some method of insinuating himself into employment during those five months when everybody knows that, in places like that, the town workers cannot find work on the land and do not work on the land? In many cases they are forced to try to exist from year to year by means of relief schemes, and temporary employment on roads of one kind or another. The Minister wants a practical suggestion. I said that I thought it was unfair to issue an Order of this kind, without making inquiries as to whether work was available locally or not. I suggest that if work was available the employment exchanges throughout the country would be aware of it. If work is available those claiming benefit could be sent to potential employers, whose needs would be notified to the exchanges, and some of the applicants would be employed. If their services were not required by employers in the area, what is the insuperable difficulty about continuing benefit? If work is available what is the difficulty about getting employers to notify the Department of the number of men they want? When the employers' needs are satisfied, if there is a residue of single men, for whom no work is available, unemployment assistance should be continued to them. There is no difficulty in operating a system of that kind. That is the kind of scheme that operates in towns and cities not affected by the Employment Order. There is no difficulty about doing the same thing in rural areas. Notwithstanding the Minister's denial that this is an economy Order, I am satisfied that it is; the purpose being to get a large block of workers off unemployment assistance benefit over a substantial period of each year, so as to save money to the Exchequer. That is done without any regard to whether work is available in the areas affected or not. I said that it was an unfair Order, that it is the cause of hardship and operates most unfairly in the case of single men in rural areas, and in substantial towns which have not urban status, or where town commissioners do not function. Because I believe the Order is unfair, and not impartial in its operation, I ask the Dáil to pass the motion.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 11; Níl, 55.
Tá
- Byrne, Alfred (Junior).
- Cogan, Patrick.
- Corish, Richard.
- Davin, William.
- Everett, James.
- Hickey, James.
- Hurley, Jeremiah.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Murphy, Timothy J.
- Norton, William.
- Pattison, James P.
Níl
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Buckley, Seán.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Dowdall, Thomas P.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Fogarty, Patrick J.
- Friel, John.
- Fuller, Stephen.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hogan, Daniel.
- Humphreys, Francis.
- Kelly, James P.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kissane, Eanmon.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Loughman, Francis.
- McDevitt, Henry A.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Morrissey, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Munnelly, John.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Loghlen, Peter J.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- O'Sullivan, Ted.
- Rice, Brigid M.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Laurence J.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Conn.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Everett and Keyes; Níl: Deputies Little and Smith.
Motion declared lost.