Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 4 Mar 1942

Vol. 85 No. 15

Committee on Finance. - Vote 78—Personal Injuries (Civilians) Compensation.

Minister for Finance (Seán T. O Ceallaigh)

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £20,000 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch 31adh Márta, 1942, chun Cúitimh agus Iocaíochtaí eile alos Díobhála Pearsanta ar n-a ndéanamh do dhaoine, nach baill de Sheirbhísí Stáit, de dhruim aer-árthach coigríche do scaoileadh anuas pléascán agus de dhruim teagmhaisí den tsamhail chéanna le linn an Stát do bheith gan bheith páirteach i gcogadh.

That a sum, not exceeding £20,000, be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1942, for Compensation and other Payments in respect of Personal Injuries sustained by persons, not being members of State Services, as a result of the dropping of bombs by foreign aircraft and kindred incidents while the State is not engaged in war.

This Vote is required to meet expenditure during the current financial year under the Emergency Powers (No. 98) Order, 1941, made by the Government on the 15th July last. Article 4 of that order empowered the Minister for Finance to make a scheme providing for the payment of periodical or lump sums to persons, or the dependents of persons who suffer personal injuries resulting, broadly speaking, from breaches of our neutrality.

A scheme under that order was formally made on the 17th September last, but in the light of subsequent representations as to the inadequacy in present circumstances of the scale of compensation provided for in that scheme, I have reviewed the whole position and have decided to make a new scheme which will revoke the existing scheme and will provide compensation on a basis which will permit of allowances to the dependents of persons suffering injury, and of allowances also instead of lump sums to the dependents of deceased persons. Briefly stated, while I have felt constrained to retain the maximum disablement allowance of 30/- a week for earners provided for in the original scheme, I propose additional allowances as follows:—In respect of dependent wife or husband or in respect of any female person residing with a widow or widower for the purpose of having the care of his children—7/6 a week. In respect of each dependent other than husband or wife—4/- a week. Disablement allowances will be reducible by reference to the percentage degree of disability. In the case of fatal injuries I propose allowances as follows:—For a widow over 45 years of age or, if under that age, in receipt of an allowance in respect of a dependent, or incapable of earning—18/- a week. For a widow under 45 years of age not in receipt of an allowance in respect of a dependent and capable of earning—12/6 a week.

For a widower dependent on deceased wife and incapable of earning—18/- a week. In respect of dependents while living with a widow or widower—5/- a week, and after the death of the widow or widower— 7/6 a week. For dependents of an unmarried man or widower or of an unmarried woman or widow—7/6 a week.

The widow's allowance would cease on remarriage and an allowance in respect of any other female dependent would cease on marriage.

I do not propose to make awards of compensation in respect of the dependents of deceased non-earners unless necessitous circumstances are established. For earners under 18 years of age the maximum disablement allowance will be 15/- a week. For non-earners over 18 years of age the maximum rate will be 18/- a week, and for non-earners under 18 years of age, 9/- a week.

As regards partial dependency, I cannot undertake to make continuing payments and I propose that partial dependency, but only in fatal cases, shall be dealt with on a lump sum basis measured by Workmen's Compensation Act standards, where the merits of a case are established.

As regards classes of dependents I propose to include, in addition to those provided for in the original scheme, a child in respect of whom the injured or deceased person had placed himself or herself in loco parentis. I have decided also that allowances in respect of children shall be payable up to the age of 18 years, unless they are prevented by physical or mental infirmity from supporting themselves, when the allowances will continue to be payable up to the age of 70 years. Moreover, any injured child up to the age of 18 who is not an earner will be treated as a non-earner for the purposes of the scheme and injury allowances will accordingly be payable in respect of young children.

Some Deputies may consider that the revised scale of compensation which I have outlined is still inadequate, but in this connection I can only say that I am bound in a matter of this kind to take into account the consideration that in providing for compensation of this nature we are undertaking an unlimited liability, and the contingency of further incidents, giving rise to claims for damage to life and property on a widespread scale, cannot be ignored. Recovery from outside sources of the cost of compensation may not always be feasible, and we must have regard to the possibility that compensation payments may in large measure fall finally on the taxpayer.

The actual payments of compensation have been provided for under sub-head A of the Estimate. Under sub-head B provision is made for payment for medical and surgical treatment, and the supply where necessary of medical and surgical appliances. It is the intention to afford such treatment at the expense of the Exchequer, on the advice of the Army Pensions Board, where it is considered that suffering may be alleviated and a reduced degree of disability secured. In addition, the sub-head provides for the refund of medical and hospital expenses incurred by applicants contemplated by the scheme.

It will be appreciated that the basis of estimation must at this stage be in large measure conjectural. It has been difficult to obtain definite figures as to how many people up to date have been killed and injured within the State by belligerent action. Forms of application for compensation under the scheme have up to now been issued in reply to preliminary inquiries concerning 50 cases of death and 181 cases of injury ascribed to such action; only 19 forms in respect of death and 62 in respect of injury have so far been returned. Claims are coming in slowly, and it is probable that a considerable number of additional claims, at least in respect of injury, may be anticipated. Round figures have accordingly been taken under each sub-head.

It has been decided that, where responsibility for a breach of neutrality resulting in loss of life or injury can be brought home to a belligerent Power, a claim for compensation will be made by the State against that Power. As indicated in the note on the Estimate, any compensation recovered will be paid into the Exchequer. Where the compensation recovered in any case exceeds the payments already made under the scheme, power is being taken to pay the applicant or applicants concerned a sum not exceeding the difference between the two amounts.

General Mulcahy

I move that the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration. When this Estimate was first put down, I put down a motion to refer it back for reconsideration. The Minister has announced certain changes now which he proposes to make in his Personal Injuries Compensation Order which, as it were, answered to some extent my objection to the Estimate in the way in which it was presented, and which dealt with the matter for which I originally put down my motion to refer it back. However, the changes that the Minister has made, in the amounts which he proposes now to fix for compensation, are welcome, and I personally see that this is an event of a certain amount of social significance. I wished that the Minister would suggest that he appreciated that significance himself because, except we take advantage of properly considering some of the things that are arising to us now, we are not going either to be able to face them properly or to have a common outlook with regard to them.

The Minister and myself were rather at cross-purposes when, previous to the introduction of this Estimate, I moved a motion to annul the original Order No. 98 which he now proposes to annul. I should like to assure the Minister that at that time I was not proposing to torment him or proposing to be abusive to him or anything else at all like that, but I was definitely appalled at the lines upon which the proposals were drawn. The point at which we came to definite cross-purposes was when I asked him, during the discussion, how a man could maintain himself and his wife and five children on 35/- a week. The Minister previously had said that the compensation proposals were drawn on the lines of the Workmen's Compensation Act. He said, as reported in column 1134 of the Official Debates of 3rd December, 1941:

"It is not generous; it is not liberal; but I think it is just, and it is within our competence to pay."

A week later, in the Seanad, I think he indicated that he had reconsidered the matter, but that he did not see that he could bring about any fundamental change in his proposals. Well, I think he has brought about fundamental changes in his proposals, and I press the motion for reconsideration of the Estimate in order to put it up to the Minister to discuss the basis upon which he now makes these changes. He has intimated that he is going to make certain changes, but that they may not all be regarded as adequate, and that we do not know how much they are likely to cost us. What arises to my mind, however, is whether the new proposals are made in some kind of an actuarial frame of mind. If the matter is proposed from the point of view of what figure we ought to put down, then I think the proposal is utterly wrong, and I am not satisfied with those figures unless the Minister tells us that he has now approached the matter from a completely different point of view, and that he has investigated what it will cost to maintain in reasonable circumstances the people whom we are proposing to compensate.

In addressing myself to the annulment of the Order originally, I took the case of a man with a wife and five children, and I should like to ask the Minister if he has examined or caused to be examined what it would take a man and his wife and five children to maintain themselves, granted that the man was completely disabled, that the wife had to look after the home, and that the children were not capable of maintaining themselves. This is a unique opportunity of approaching the whole of this thing from the only point of view that we can afford to approach it from if we are going to have any satisfaction in our consciences that we are dealing with certain social problems in the proper way. I would point out to the Minister that comparatively recently, within the last fortnight or so, the British, who had established under an analogous order a series of war disablement pensions, have raised the rates of these pensions. Taking the case of a disabled man with a wife and five children, they propose to pay the man a pension of 37/6, having increased the original pension by 3/4.

They have increased the pension of the wife by 10d., to 9/2. They have increased the pension in respect of the first child by 10d., to 7/1, and of the second, third, fourth and any subsequent children by 5d., to 5/5. So that the total amount now payable by way of war disablement pension in the case of a disabled man with dependent wife and five children would be 75/5, or an increase of 6/8 over what it was previously.

Now, the Minister has indicated that in his new order he proposes to fix for a disabled man here 30/-, or 7/6 less than the British scale; that he proposes to fix 7/6 for the wife, or 1/8 less than the British scale; that he proposes to fix 4/- for the first child, or 3/1 less than the British scale, and for all subsequent children, 4/-, or 1/5 less than the British scale. Under the Minister's new arrangement a man, with his wife and five children, will get 57/6, or 17/11 less than the scale that has now been introduced in Great Britain. Now, I mention this simply for purposes of comparison. The British found it necessary to increase the amount of 68/9 for a family of that particular kind to 75/5, and generally, I think within the last fortnight or so, they have had to increase the rates they originally fixed by 10 per cent. We have made an advance that cannot be counted in percentages at all. It is a complete and radical change of mind, a radically different way of approaching the situation. The Minister is changing, from a lump sum of 30/- a week for a family of this kind to 57/6, and the change is more even than is indicated there by the amount. The change indicated to me that there is a fundamentally different approach. Now, I think we ought to get that approach, and one of the reasons why I suggest that we ought to get it is, that there are elements in the Minister's proposal that are disturbing and make us question whether the situation has been examined from the point of view that I think it should.

The Minister has indicated that in the case of a widow between 40 and 45 he proposes to pay 18/-, and that in the case of a widow under 40, and not having dependent children, he proposes to pay 12/6. Now, the British, in their new scheme, have found that they have had to increase the payment to a widow of 40, in similar circumstances and without dependents, from 22/6 to 25/-. So that, here, a widow between 40 years of age and 45 would only receive, according to the Minister, 12/6, as against 25/- under the British scheme.

I do not think that the situation here can have been fully examined. In a country such as this, with so little opportunity of employment for women of that kind, as compared with England, why should we fix the age at 45 for getting the widow's full pension when the British fix the age at 40? Nor do I think it reasonable that the discrepancy represented by 25/- and 18/- should exist as regards the amount of pension paid here. The Minister indicated in the Seanad that one of his difficulties was that this scheme had to be applied to men of the Local Defence Force, A.R.P. and Local Security Force. I agree, but that makes it all the more important that we should look at the basis of the scheme. I suggest that it must be applied also to the Army. In the light of modern circumstances, the provisions contained in the Army Pensions Act, 1927, are utterly insufficient for what they are required to do. The Army Pensions Act of 1923 provided for payment of 42/- in the case of a man with 100 per cent. disability, with an additional 10/- if he had a family. Therefore, a disabled man with a wife and family got 52/-, irrespective of the size of the family. The 1927 Act changed that. Instead of getting 42/- for himself, he was, under that Act, to get only 26/- and instead of 10/- for the family he was to receive only 5/-. At present, if a soldier is disabled as a result of his military service and if he has a wife and five children, he can get, under the 1927 Act, only 31/-. When going through the House, the 1927 Bill received considerable criticism. It was framed when we had passed away from the realities of the situation in which disabled men had received 52/- a week. I suggest that these provisions have, again, to be extended to the Army. Possibly that will mean large expenditure. When we consider the size of the Vote on Account, what it represents in general taxation, we must ask ourselves what it is all for if it is not to help our people to live a better existence, so far as their material comforts are concerned, and thereby to be more productive and to have a chance of developing their mental faculties, which it is necessary to do in order to have spiritual wellbeing. I do not hold back for financial reasons from anything we may have to face provided we face it with a knowledge of what we are doing. If we are not able to do it, that is another question.

We cannot face these matters in a proper frame of mind unless we are agreed upon certain fundamental things. I think the time has come when we ought to co-operate in such a way as to get a clear realisation as to the amount necessary for a man, his wife and family to live. An individual going into a house could get an impression of that kind. I have done it in the case of quite a number of people in different ways recently, but I think it ought to be faced systematically and as an official duty by the State. When presenting to us proposals for compensating people who have been injured as a result of war accidents, it is due to our people and to the circumstances that the Government should show that their proposals are based on a definite conception of the conditions in which the families affected are likely to be. It is because I fear we have approached this matter from the Stone Age point of view of 30/- a week, that I am urging the Minister to go further and tell us that his proposals rest on an examination of the human position, adducing his facts to show that this is so. When the new order comes forward, I shall consider it my duty to move to have it annulled, merely in order to discuss its details. I shall do that in order that we may understand what we are doing and because I want the Minister and every group of Deputies to do the right thing in a matter of fundamental importance.

Mr. Dillon

When may the people who have lodged their claims for loss of house property, goods and chattels expect to receive payment of the claims? If the Minister would answer that query, I should like to follow up what Deputy Mulcahy has said. I agree that this series of proposals, which envisage the minimum income necessary for a man, his wife and family to live decently, places upon us the burden of co-ordinating them and finding a common underlying principle. I think that Deputy Mulcahy would agree with me that when we contemplate an injured man, with his wife and five children being provided with 57/6 to live upon, our minds must turn to the man working 54 hours a week as an agricultural labourer, with a wife and five children, who is very lucky if he gets 33/-. I do not want to be taken as maintaining that we should consider 33/- a week a defensible income for any citizen of this State who has a wife and five children depending upon him. I think that that is iniquitous.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy has departed from the Estimate.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy Mulcahy has advanced the thesis that family responsibilities ought to be envisaged in every compensation scheme brought before this House.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy may not debate the question of family allowances, which is irrelevant.

Mr. Dillon

If it be true—and I agree with Deputy Mulcahy—that any compensation scheme brought before this House ought to have regard not only to the injury done but to the responsibilities of the person injured, surely neither Deputy Mulcahy nor the Minister nor I will be content to stop with our examination of social liabilities at that point. If, as I think is true, Deputy Mulcahy's submission is correct, this House must go a step further and ensure that, if justice is done to the injured, it will be done also to those who are working in order that the injured may be maintained. I invite the Minister, even though I may not be permitted to pursue this aspect of the problem in dealing with this question, to allow it to mature in his mind so that he or his successor, whoever that may be, will come to this House with a comprehensive co-ordinating scheme designed to secure for all incapacitated people a reasonable standard of compensation calculated in the light of their family responsibilities, and that annexed to it he will feel himself constrained to say: "Having made provision for those who are injured and who have family responsibilities, I do not propose to forget those who by their labour are maintaining this State in existence and filling its Exchequer, and to those having responsibilities the public purse acknowledges its liability as well."

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I appreciate the tone of the remarks made by Deputy Mulcahy to-day. It was very different from the tone of the remarks he made when this matter was under discussion before in the House. I think I made a reasonable statement when I defended that Order before. Deputy Mulcahy evidently did not think so, and I think he was quite unreasonable in his attitude. However, that is over and done with now. I am not an unreasonable person at any time, and I am always open to listen to any arguments put up by the Opposition. I do not say I always agree with the arguments put up, perhaps for good reasons. No matter who speaks in this House and makes suggestions to me, I certainly do earnestly consider the suggestions made, and the same applies to the Seanad when I go there. I found there, when a similar motion to the one Deputy Mulcahy put down here in relation to this matter was put down there, a reasonable critical attitude and I met it in a reasonable way, as I am prepared to meet any reasonable criticism here. I claim to be as kind-hearted and humanitarian in my instincts and perhaps as liberal even as Deputy Mulcahy or Deputy Dillon.

I should like, especially as a politician, to be able to play the role of the generous, benevolent, large-hearted public benefactor especially to people of the type we are dealing with in this Order, people who, for no reason of their own, have suffered because the neutrality of the country has been violated and have been injured—some of them met their death—because of bombs falling here or some similar reason. That is the type of person that naturally everyone with reasonable human instincts would like to go to the fullest length to succour and help and benefit.

That is the view that has been put forward by Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Dillon. Normally it is a view with which I would find myself in full agreement. But I have to consider the matter from the other point of view, from the point of view of the Minister for Finance, and, if Deputy Mulcahy or Deputy Dillon occupied my position, I think they would naturally, having the responsibility of the Exchequer upon them, consider it from that point of view tinged with their own human instincts and feeling. I have to balance one with the other. There is the urge to treat those people who have suffered and who are likely to suffer as generously as possible, and there is the need for considering the very heavy burdens already on the taxpayer.

Deputy Dillon next week or the week after, and I am sure Deputy Mulcahy also, will be telling us how very heavily the taxpayer is burdened, and that we are grossly extravagant in expenditure. Language of that type, I am sure, will be modest compared with the language Deputy Dillon and Deputy Mulcahy will use about the Estimates which have been brought in. The changes will be rung on that. Instead of being kind-hearted, generous, public benefactors, they will be the very vigilant guardians of the taxpayer. They cannot have it both ways. Admittedly, they do try to have it both ways. I am not saying that they are not sincere in asking for generous treatment for these people. I do not deny that at all. That is the fortunate position of those who are in Opposition—they can have it both ways. Unfortunately I cannot; I cannot even try.

Our financial resources are not to be compared with the British resources. There is no use in comparing our resources here with those of the British. If the British give 75/5 to a family and we give only 57/6, well, Britain is by far the richest nation on the earth; not even America can compare with it in wealth. They are spending fabulous sums of money at present. They think it is right to do so, because they are fighting for their existence. But we cannot compare with them. For the type of family that Deputy Mulcahy referred to, when, even by comparison, we pay 57/6 to that family and the British pay 75/5, I am not saying that the family are not entitled to a great deal more, but, taking into account all the circumstances, I think we are not ungenerous.

If we could measure to any extent actuarially what we have to face, we might be able then, measuring our resources, to go a great deal further. But there is no way of measuring what our liability is likely to be. There is no yard-stick by which we can measure it. Therefore, we have to be careful. Deputy Mulcahy, or whoever introduced the Military Service Pensions Bill in 1923 and the amending Bill in 1927, had some measure to go by, because the Government then knew the size of the Army, had actuaries to tell them what the possibility of death in the Army in normal peace times would be, and could measure the extent of the bill. We have no way of measuring it. In these circumstances, while I would as a humanitarian agree that, if we had the resources, we might do better, I think in the circumstances we have done as well as can be expected by those unfortunate suffering people.

Mr. Dillon

When is the Minister going to pay the claims?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Some have been paid already. I gave the number in answer to Deputy Norton to-day. I think 181 claims have been completed.

Mr. Dillon

For house property, furniture, and things like that?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

Yes.

General Mulcahy

My question to the Minister was whether in putting up the new scheme he had caused any examination to be made of the circumstances of a family, such as that of a disabled head of the house would be, the living and the food conditions necessary to keep them in a reasonable way.

Mr. O Ceallaigh

An examination of that kind has been carried out and I personally went around to some families and investigated conditions as to how they live. I know that in some cases, such as a man with a wife and five of a family, under present conditions they will find it very hard in the circumstances.

General Mulcahy

Is the Minister prepared to put any information, as a result of these inquiries, before the House?

Mr. O Ceallaigh

I do not think so.

Motion to refer back, put and negatived.

Vote put and agreed to.

Vote reported and agreed to.