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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 7 Nov 1945

Vol. 98 No. 7

Military Service Pensions (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 1945—Fourth and Fifth Stages.

Question—"That the Bill be received for final consideration"—put and agreed to.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."

On the Committee Stage, several Deputies made representations in favour of the abolition of the Schedule. I undertook to bring their remarks to the attention of the Government and I want to report now that I did so. The Government, having given very serious consideration to the facts, as I related them, and having considered extracts from the statements made here, decided that they would not go any farther than they had already gone. I have to report back here now that the Bill in its present form is the Bill to which we desire the House to give its assent.

Even at this late stage, would it be any use appealing to the Minister to have the whole matter reconsidered? It is well known that if John Brown, in receipt of a military service pension, is appointed as chairman of C.I.E., he will not suffer any deduction in respect of his pension. If he gets a job with Longford County Council, he does suffer a deduction. I think that the Minister will agree that the number of persons affected by this Act is reducing every year. Unfortunately, we are attending too many funerals of these men. Every such funeral we attend means one less of the number that have done the work of the country. Without wishing to embarrass the Government or to make political capital out of the matter, I feel that the Bill should be reconsidered and that the Government should take the generous step and cut out the Schedule completely. What is the sum involved? So far as I can ascertain, the cost to the State would be about £20,000 a year. For how many years? Not many. I appeal to the Minister to go back to the Government and ask them, as a final gesture, to do the right thing in the right spirit. I am sure that no person in this House and nobody in the country would challenge such a decision.

I do not think that Deputy MacEoin was in the House on the last occasion on which this Bill was discussed. On that occasion, I informed the House that the Government had made its final decision in respect of the Bill. In spite of that, as a result of the pleas made for the abolition of the Schedule, I undertook to take the Bill back to the Government and I did so.

As I have said, the Government gave very serious and rather lengthy consideration to the matter. Deputy MacEoin may not be as fully aware as I am that there are numerous other pleas for relief of one kind or another continually coming before the Government—relief of a kind not very dissimilar to that which is being sought here. Although it is true to state that the amount involved by the total abolition of this Schedule would add only another £20,000 to the total expenditure, the fact remains that the Government, having considered all the factors, decided that they had met the demand which was made for relief in respect to this Bill and in fact had gone further than acceding to the request put forward by the official organisation representing the men concerned. They decided that that was as far as they were prepared to go and that any other money that may be available for relief of this nature should be devoted to meeting other propositions, without going any further in this respect. It would be useless, therefore, for me to waste my own time or the Government's time in pressing the matter any further.

Question put and agreed to.

This is a Money Bill within the meaning of Article 22 of the Constitution.

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