Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 7 Mar 1946

Vol. 99 No. 17

Committee on Finance. - Vote 59—Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Assistance.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Lemass)

I move:—

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £29,650 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1946, for Salaries and Expenses in connection with Unemployment Exchanges (including Contributions to the Unemployment Fund), Unemployment Assistance, the Special Register of Agricultural and Turf Workers, and Insurance Against Intermittent Unemployment, for certain services in connection with Food Allowances and for Expenses in connection with the provision of Labour for Harvest Work (9 Edw. 7, c. 7; 10 & 11 Geo. 5, c. 30; 11 Geo. 5, c. 1; 11 & 12 Geo. 5, c. 15; 12 Geo. 5, c. 7; No. 17 of 1923; Nos. 26 and 59 of 1924; No. 21 of 1926; No. 33 of 1930; Nos. 44 and 46 of 1933; No. 38 of 1935; No. 2 of 1938; No. 28 of 1939; No. 4 of 1940; No. 3 of 1941; No. 7 of 1942; and No. 20 of 1943).

The House is, I think, aware that the Estimate of the expenditure on unemployment insurance and unemployment assistance is prepared upon the basis of the previous year's experience and that it is not unusual to require supplementary provision when the actual accounts for the year are known. The increased expenditure under sub-head G is consequent on the increased revenue of the fund. The Government is obliged by the law to contribute two-ninths of the amount credited in respect of each insured person and, because the contributions paid during the year were higher than estimated, an increased provision has to be made under this sub-head. Similarly, the amount provided for unemployment assistance was £26,000 less than has actually been expended or may be expended before the end of the financial year.

The Appropriations-in-Aid are also more or less consequential upon the exchanges. Because the revenue of the fund from the sale of stamps was increased during the year, the contribution which the fund is required to make to the cost of administration is similarly increased. The additional amount received under sub-head J (1) is due entirely to the fact that some of the local authorities made their contributions earlier than they might have made them. The other alteration in the Appropriations-in-Aid is due solely to a staff change.

Mr. Norton

Is the Minister in a position to give us any information as to how negotiations with the British Government——

Mr. Lemass

That hardly arises on this Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Norton

——in respect of reciprocal arrangements between the two countries, are proceeding?

An Ceann Comhairle

Would not that be more appropriate on the main Estimate?

Mr. Norton

It is a pretty important issue so far as the unemployed in this country are concerned.

An Ceann Comhairle

Quite, but does it arise on this Supplementary Estimate?

Mr. Norton

It is hardly a detail of administration——

Mr. Lemass

Therefore, it does not arise on this Estimate.

An Ceann Comhairle

It would not be relevant.

Mr. Norton

I suggest it arises to this extent, that there are considerable numbers of persons in this country who have been in insurable occupation in Britain. They have come back here, where they normally would work, and they find themselves unable to get unemployment insurance benefit.

An Ceann Comhairle

Will the Deputy indicate the relevance?

Mr. D. Morrissey

£26,000 additional for unemployment assistance.

Mr. Norton

We are providing money for unemployment assistance. The persons to whom I refer are unemployed in this country now. Unemployment stamps have been placed to their credit elsewhere. What I am anxious to know is, what steps is the Minister taking with the British administration so as to get a credit from that administration for unemployment insurance purposes here for those persons who, in the absence of that transfer of money from the British Government, will now be compelled in some measure to draw from the pool of unemployment assistance which we are providing in this Supplementary Estimate?

An Ceann Comhairle

The money held in Britain is not surely in this Estimate?

Mr. Norton

But we are providing additional moneys for unemployment benefit here——

An Ceann Comhairle

Not in England.

Mr. Norton

Some of these people will have to fish in that pool for benefit whereas, if the Minister could get the British Government to transfer to this country the moneys there to the credit of those persons who worked in Britain, it would not be necessary for them to try to share in this pool.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is scarcely relevant to this Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Lemass

The Deputy has made a valiant effort, but he knows that he is out of order.

Mr. Norton

The Minister could quite easily deal with this matter in a minute or two.

Mr. Lemass

When the Minister comes here, he assumes the matters for discussion are those set out on the Order Paper and he is not prepared, without notice, to deal with any other matters, particularly matters of such importance as the Deputy is trying to raise.

Mr. Norton

I am sure the whole thing is on the Minister's finger tips and he could easily deal with it.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should realise that there are other Deputies here and, if one Deputy is allowed to stray in one direction, you might have 30 other Deputies straying in different directions.

Mr. Norton

But I am not straying very far.

An Ceann Comhairle

Not very far, perhaps, but the fact is the Deputy is straying from the Estimate.

Mr. Norton

Seeing that this matter is of such widespread importance to large numbers of persons who were in Britain and who have come home here, will the Minister say——

Mr. Lemass

The Minister is not prepared to make any statement on the matter.

Mr. Norton

——what the real difficulty is in getting this whole thing settled?

An Ceann Comhairle

It is not relevant to this Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Norton

If the Chair so rules, I have no further option in the matter, but I should like to point out that it is of considerable importance and the Minister ought to explain what the difficulties are and what he is trying to do to save Irish money when there are British funds available which ought to be brought here.

An Ceann Comhairle

If the matter is not relevant, the Deputy should not pursue it.

Mr. Dillon

This Supplementary Estimate calls for the provision of an additional amount required for the payment of unemployment assistance under the Unemployment Assistance Acts. I want to ask the Minister where are the unemployed who are drawing this money? Is it legitimate at the present time, when many important works are being held up for the want of labour, to pay unemployment assistance to single men without family responsibilities?

Mr. Lemass

I submit this is out of order.

Mr. Dillon

The work available——

Mr. Lemass

On a point of order. On a Supplementary Estimate matters of policy cannot be raised. The Dáil is confined to discussing only the matters in the Supplementary Estimate.

Mr. Dillon

The point I am bringing before the House is why we should seek to appropriate £26,000 to pay, by way of unemployment assistance, to persons who, in my submission, have employment readily available if they choose to go and take it. I suggest that that is not out of order.

An Ceann Comhairle

Discussing why they are unemployed would be out of order.

Mr. Dillon

Certainly.

Mr. Lemass

I suggest we are not entitled to raise that question, as the Minister is bound by statute to pay unemployment assistance to those who are entitled to it under the statute. The Deputy apparently wants to raise a question affecting the amendment of the law.

Mr. Dillon

Are they entitled under the statute? The Minister has no right to hand me out £26,000 under this Supplementary Estimate because clearly I am not entitled under the statute. The persons entitled under the statute are those who are willing to work, who seek work but who are unable to find work. Is not that so? If I produce a man who is not willing to work, who will not work, who does not want to find work, am I not entitled to ask, if he is in receipt of moneys charged on this Estimate, why is he getting it or why should we be asked to appropriate money to pay him?

Mr. Lemass

But you are not being asked to appropriate money.

Mr. Dillon

There may be, although labour is scarce generally and jobs abundant, individual men with heavy family responsibilities who cannot leave their own particular areas, and work which must suit them must be within reach of their own homes. I sympathise with those people, but there are large number of young men —there must be if we want £26,000 more—who can find work if they went and looked for it, without any undue hardship, who are attending at the local Gárda barracks getting qualification certificates under the Unemployment Assistance Acts and drawing this benefit to which they are not, in fact, entitled.

What I am asking is this: Is due regard being had by those who administer this Act and disburse this money to the obligation on young, unmarried men without family responsibilities to look far afield in this country if needs be to find employment rather than to content themselves with looking around the half parish in which they live and who, if they do not find an employer out in the street looking for them, walk into the Gárda barracks and say: "I cannot get work and I want unemployment assistance"? There are Deputies, coming as they do from all parts of the country, who must know that there is scarcely a small town in Ireland in which there are not people seeking work and not able to get it, yet there is a notice hanging in a window in Ballaghaderreen asking for 100 men and the man who has that notice up cannot get even one. Nevertheless, I venture to say a part of this £26,000 will be disbursed at Ballaghaderreen Gárda Station to young lads who claim they are entitled to unemployment assistance.

In my submission, that kind of business is bringing the whole unemployment insurance system of administration into discredit. I believe there is not a Deputy here who does not know that, but it is considered to be a dangerous thing to get up and talk that way about the boys on the "dole", because there are too many of them and you might vex them and they would not come out to work for you on the next election day. A great many Deputies know that to be true.

I suggest to the Minister that sooner or later we ought to face that and insist that only those who genuinely cannot get work will get unemployment assistance. Will the Minister say to the House that he is satisfied that all the persons who will receive benefit under that sub-head J (1) are persons whom he honestly believes to be genuinely unemployed within the meaning and the letter and the spirit of the Unemployment Assistance Act? I do not believe they are and I believe it is a great scandal and a source of great demoralisation throughout rural Ireland that young fellows are permitted to draw unemployment assistance which they do not require but which enables them to fool about at home without going out and doing an honest day's work for the money they draw.

So grave and serious do I consider that aspect of the unemployment situation at present that I elect to refer to no other matter on this Estimate. I wish, however, that some of the Deputies who know these facts as well as I would, at least in private, if they are afraid to tell the Minister in public, urge upon the Minister the necessity for putting an end to this abuse, not primarily for the purpose of protecting the Exchequer but primarily for the purpose of protecting the morale of these young fellows who are being demoralised by the habit into which they have got of refusing to work because they prefer to live on their parents and to avail of the dole for pocket money wherewith to buy cigarettes and pay their entrance fees to cinemas and dances.

Let me repeat that I am excluding deliberately from my censure married men with heavy responsibilities who should not be required to fare forth, to break up their families and leave their children without paternal care. It is right that they should hang on to their homes and expect to get reasonable employment within a distance which will enable them to get home at night and maintain the family on the proper basis. I am dealing only with the young men without family responsibilities of any kind and in respect of that class I emphasise all I have just said.

General Mulcahy

The Minister, in his original Estimate, estimated that he would get from local authorities £233,600 as a contribution to the Unemployment Assistance Fund. He now expects a deficiency of £14,600.

Mr. Lemass

Oh, no. It is an increase in the Appropriations-in-Aid. We are getting more in this financial year.

General Mulcahy

The Estimate has a note: anticipated deficiency on receipts from county boroughs, etc.

Mr. Lemass

That is right.

General Mulcahy

So the Minister anticipates that he will get £14,600 less from local authorities this year, and, if I understood his remarks correctly, he suggested a reason for that — that the local authorities had paid that amount before their time. I take that to mean before 1st April, 1945.

Mr. Lemass

That is quite right.

General Mulcahy

It must have been an awful shock to the Minister——

Mr. Lemass

That is what happened.

General Mulcahy

——when we consider how much behind time local authorities are in paying their own workers and in making other payments.

Mr. Lemass

It may have been payments for previous years. Amounts which were expected to come in in this financial year, in fact, arrived before 31st March and were included in the Estimate for that year.

General Mulcahy

That is, arrears which were expected to be held for a longer period.

Mr. Lemass

They may not have been arrears.

General Mulcahy

The increased amount being sought under sub-head G would suggest an increase in employment, while the amount in sub-head G (1) would suggest an increase in unemployment. Could the Minister say whether he has estimated what the increased employment and increased unemployment in the country are?

Mr. McCann

I want to ask a question relating to men who leave the Army and who had unemployment insurance stamps before entering the Army. These men, when leaving the Army and reporting to the labour exchange, would prefer to go on unemployment assistance for a good reason —that when they are on unemployment assistance they will get relief work. I am thinking of the Dublin Corporation area, and I want to ask whether it is a rule in the Minister's Department that the demobilised soldier who had stamps to his credit before entering the Army must draw these stamps before going on to unemployment assistance. In normal times, if a man had a few stamps, he would have got a few weeks' relief work and could, when finished with that relief work, go back on unemployment assistance, because he would then be qualified for relief work or for work under the Board of Works.

Mr. Larkin (Junior)

I was particularly interested in Deputy Dillon's contribution because it is in such marked contrast with our experience in Dublin in relation to the administration of unemployment assistance. A great deal of our time in the trade union movement is taken up with trying to advise the applicant for unemployment assistance and to steer him through the rigid regulations, one of which is the insistence of the employment exchange and courts of referees on unemployed persons trudging day after day, and perhaps week after week, from one job to another to prove that there is no work available for them when everybody is quite well aware that no work is available. More shoe leather is wasted in that fruitless effort to prove to the employment exchange what the employment exchange knows—that no jobs are available while these people are willing and able to work—than probably anything else.

Possibly the administration of the Act in Dublin and other urban centres is different from its administration in centres like Ballaghaderreen, and, if so, it seems to me that we in the urban centres have a legitimate objection. If it is true, as Deputy Dillon says, that there is a notice in a window in Ballaghaderreen for 100 able-bodied young men to take up employment under what are in the opinion of the labour exchange reasonable conditions of employment and rates of wages and if these young men will not take up that employment, I suggest that the Minister has a very serious charge to answer, because it is quite clear on Deputy Dillon's suggestion that public money is being handed out in an entirely different manner in Ballaghaderreen.

I do not believe that situation does exist, and it seems to me that, before we can proceed on the basis to which Deputy Dillon referred, there are one or two questions to which we should apply ourselves. We have in Dublin City employment offered to men and women through the employment exchanges which apply a very rigid interpretation of reasonable rates of wages and hours of work, but even with that rigid interpretation and their desire to save public moneys, in nine cases out of ten, they are often led to say that the employment is not suitable and that, in all fairness, they cannot expect any reasonable person to take up employment under those conditions.

In addition to the aspect mentioned by Deputy Dillon of hundreds of able-bodied young men in these more or less rural areas unwilling to take up work, we have the other side of the problem, that through the Minister's Department, and finally another Department, many of these young people are allowed to go out of the country. They are not supposed to be allowed to leave if they have voluntarily left employment, or if employment is offered to them and they refuse it. It seems to me that, in the light of the statement made by Deputy Dillon, the Minister has not only to face a charge of the loose paying out of public money in certain areas, but of deliberately allowing out of this country men and women who could be provided with employment.

My experience is totally different from that of Deputy Dillon. I remember certain occasions in the past when employment was offered to Dublin men outside Dublin, but the conditions of which were such that even the State had to admit that they could not expect men to remain. Whether Deputy Dillon has in mind that in cases of employment being offered 50 or 100 miles from Dublin, men or women should be required to take that employment, without having regard to their family commitments, I do not know; but even taking it that they have no family commitments whatever in Dublin, it seems to me to be clear that the rates of wages, and very often the conditions of employment, offered to men and women going from Dublin into a strange town— having to live in "digs" and without any family on whom they can fall back to help them to eke out their small wages—are entirely different from those which may be offered to local men and women. It is because of the disparity between the normal charges that fall on a man going from Dublin to take up employment in a provincial centre, and the normal charges that a person living in the locality has to meet, that there is difficulty in getting a more easy transference of labour from one part of the country to another. We have cases in Dublin of men who are expected to work for 25/- or 30/- a week. We have also cases of that kind outside Dublin. Even taking the case of a single man in Dublin, nobody would expect him to be able to live in present conditions on a wage of from 30/- to 40/- a week.

Mr. Dillon

Who offered that wage?

Mr. Larkin

I was at a meeting of my union last night at which we were dealing with cases of that kind. I can give the Deputy the names afterwards. In one case the man was married. So far as the administration of unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance is concerned, speaking from what knowledge I have of the city, I think there can be no suggestion that there is any looseness in connection with the payment of benefit under either Act. In regard to seeking to prove that work is available, the employment exchange goes to considerable lengths, and places a considerable burden on the ordinary artisan, especially on shoe leather, in making him prove that he sought work and that none was available. In certain cases hardship is imposed on men and women by asking them to tramp to ten or 20 places seeking work, although they know that it is not available. They do that in order to build up a case when applicants go before the referees. There is also the final drag net of the means test and if they escape that they are very lucky. In regard to the payment of unemployment assistance, my experience is different from that of Deputy Dillon. If there is something in Deputy Dillon's case, it seems to me the Minister has something to answer.

Mr. Blowick

I do not know where the fault lies in connection with the payment of unemployment assistance, whether it is that the officials do not inquire into cases to see if the applicants qualified for the assistance, or whether the qualification ceased at a certain date. Cases have been brought to my notice where unemployment assistance was paid during the whole period of summer, when these people were supposed not to have qualified for it, and after a lapse of some months claims for a refund of amounts that it was alleged had been overdrawn were made. I wish to draw the Minister's attention to that. That should not occur. In the cases brought to my notice there were claims for £19 and £32 from persons who drew unemployment assistance during the summer months. The persons concerned had made reasonable efforts to find work. As they had no other means of livelihood, when asked to refund the amounts, they could not do so unless they sold their furniture. I suggest that the request for refunds in such cases was a hardship. They spent the money they received at the time, and could not possibly refund it. That happened in a few cases. I do not know if it is widespread, but it should not have occurred.

Mr. O'Leary

I do not agree with Deputy Dillon's attack on single men. These men must sign the register before they qualify for benefit, I am surprised at Deputy Dillon's statement. I wonder would he make such a statement during an election campaign, or suggest that single men should get no benefit. They only get 6/- a week and to get that they must have attained a certain age. Take a case where there are three young men over 21 years of age in a family. Does the Deputy suggest that they should get no benefit but should remain living at home on the farm? Deputy Dillon is out of touch on this matter with the position of working-class people. I think he was out of order. In my opinion more money is wanted for the labour exchanges.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy will have to be content.

Mr. O'Leary

Men are being demobilised from the Army and there is no work available for them. They have to be provided for and given something to live on. Deputy Dillon mentioned that in Ballaghaderreen there was work for 100 men. If men sign at the labour exchange and refuse to go to a job their unemployment assistance is cut off. Consequently, I cannot understand why men would not go to a job if they were signing at the labour exchange, seeing that otherwise they would lose the unemployment benefit. Many of those who are signing are single men. Does Deputy Dillon suggest that these men should be thrown on the scrap-heap? They cannot get a job unless they sign at the exchange, and if they sign they qualify for relief work. That is the position in my constituency. In the rural districts, these men sign at the Gárda barracks. They are notified when certain work offers and if they do not turn up to take it they are disqualified. I was surprised at Deputy Dillon's attack, in view of the fact that young men have to walk one or two miles to the labour exchange to qualify for 1/- a day. Would any man continue to do that in order to get 6/- a week if he could get work? In the area from which I come the amount paid to married men is 14/- with vouchers. No man wants to continue doing that if he could get another job. The standard wage in the district is 45/- and bonus. As a trade unionist I could not listen to Deputy Dillon without explaining my position.

Mr. Lemass

So far as Deputy Dillon's statement is concerned, the law provides that no person, married or single, is entitled to receive unemployment assistance if there is work available for him which is regarded as suitable within the definition of the Act. The question is decided by the unemployment assistance officer, and the claimant for unemployment assistance has the right of appeal to the Court of Referees. If there is work available, and it is held by the unemployment assistance officer to be suitable, having regard to the physique of the person, together with the location of the work and certain other factors, unemployment assistance is not paid. Deputy Dillon asked me if I could say if there was anyone drawing unemployment assistance for whom there is work available. There should not be. It is a widespread organisation, and it may be that men occasionally receive unemployment assistance who are not entitled to receive it. The whole purport of the legislation, and the system of administration, is to ensure that unemployment assistance is payable only to those genuinely seeking work and unable to obtain it.

Mr. Dillon

Is not there force in what Deputy O'Leary says, that a lot of people are drawn on to claiming, not because they require the assistance, but because they want to qualify for employment on public work schemes and would not get work if they were not drawing the dole and if that urge was not on them they would not seek it at all?

Mr. Lemass

That may be so but when the Deputy says that people may claim unemployment assistance without requiring it, he is forgetting one other provision of the Unemployment Assistance Act. Before a person becomes entitled to claim he must qualify under the Act and get a qualification certificate. That qualification certificate contains a statement of his means. Maintenance in the house of a parent who is an owner of land or in permanent employment is calculated as means and in many cases persons have had their means assessed at a level which makes them ineligible to draw unemployment assistance, even when they are unemployed. The aim of the Unemployment Assistance Act is to provide the standard rate of unemployment assistance for those who have no means, a lesser rate for those who have some means, and no assistance for people who have means, as determined in accordance with the requirements of the Act and stated in the applicant's qualification certificate.

Deputy Mulcahy asked whether the increased provision required under sub-head G is an indication that there was increased employment during the year and whether the increased provision required under sub-head J (1) is an indication that there was increased unemployment. Neither is correct. What the increased figure reveals is that the amount required under each sub-head was greater than was estimated at the beginning of the year and involves no comparison between the position this year and in previous years or at one part of the year as against another. In fact, the number of persons drawing unemployment assistance in each week from the determination of the first Employment Period Order, 1945, until the end of January was less this year than in the previous year. That, in itself, was no clear indication of what the unemployment position was because the full dimensions of our unemployment problem can be ascertained only by examining these statistics, the statistics relating to payment of unemployment insurance benefit and the statistics relating to unemployment relief work confined to unemployed persons. The law does not require anybody to draw unemployment insurance benefit and a claimant may, in fact, elect not to draw benefit due to him on stamps but to receive unemployment assistance. Very few do because, ordinarily, the amount of unemployment insurance benefit receivable by an unemployed man is greater than the amount of unemployment assistance he can draw, but it is open to an unemployed person entitled to draw unemployment insurance to leave his stamps to his credit and to draw unemployment assistance instead. In the case of the demobilised soldiers to which Deputy McCann referred, that would be the position except where the demobilised soldier had failed to take out his qualification certificate or had not completed the process of getting it. Before a person becomes entitled to unemployment assistance he must first have received a qualification certificate under the Act.

I would not agree with Deputy Larkin that the employment exchanges go too far in requiring applicants for unemployment assistance to produce evidence that they are genuinely seeking work. It may be that they have to adopt stereotyped tests which are not always perfect but it is well known that there are in parts of the country people who do occasional short periods of work without reporting the fact to the employment exchange and draw unemployment assistance for these periods. The purpose of the employment exchange officials is to ensure that that does not happen and it is in the interests of these beneficiaries under these Acts that it should not happen because if this system of public health and unemployment insurance is to have public support it must be, as far as it can be made, free from abuse. Where a person has been found to have drawn unemployment assistance when not entitled to it because employed or not available for work, there is, apart from any legal penalties that may be imposed, an obligation upon the employment exchange authorities to recover the amount overpaid. The cases to which Deputy Blowick referred were probably of that character. Persons had received unemployment assistance in certain instances when they were not entitled to get it. Once in a very large number of cases a person may not have known that he was not entitled to unemployment assistance and might therefore be surprised to get the demand for a refund, but in the great majority of cases anybody who gets unemployment assistance without being entitled to it knows quite well what he is doing and is taking a chance that he will not be detected. If he is detected, however, the obligation is on the employment exchange authorities to recover the amount overpaid.

The alteration in the amount of the Appropriation-in-Aid in respect of contributions from county boroughs and urban area councils arose, as I have said, out of the fact that payments were credited to the previous financial year that it was assumed would not be received until this financial year. Consequently, the amount of the Appropriation-in-Aid under that sub-head was less than was anticipated.

Vote put and agreed to.