I do not want to be taken as being unduly finicky about the manner in which the Minister is putting this Bill through, but it was invariably the custom when an important measure of this kind was before the House that the Minister in charge of the Bill, when a section was called, made a statement explaining what was in that section. We find on this Bill that the Minister has not done that once.
Social Welfare Bill, 1948—Committee Stage (Resumed).
Sections 23 and 24 agreed to.
SECTION 25.
Question proposed: "That Section 25 stand part of the Bill."
I have no recollection of any such practice.
The Deputy is obviously suffering from amnesia.
I have no recollection of a statement being made on every section of a Bill.
I concede that so far as definition and such like sections are concerned there is no necessity for an explanation, but where it is proposed to amend Acts, as Section 25 proposes to do, it has been customary for the Minister to make a brief explanation; otherwise, we are assumed to take this Bill just as it appears on the surface. That appears to be the attitude the Government Party are taking up. They do not want to explain and they do not want the people to know what is in the Bill.
It is rather odd that Deputy MacEntee is the only Deputy in the House who cannot understand this section. The Deputy is probably suffering from loss of memory. He ought to ask his colleague on his left what the explanation is.
I know what is in the section all right, but the Minister is too lazy to do his job.
It has not been customary for the Minister to explain each section but, of course, Deputies who may not know what a section means are entitled to ask for an explanation of it. Whenever that was asked in connection with this Bill so far, I explained the position. The purpose of this section is to extend the insurability ceiling for non-manual employment from £250 to £500 a year, thus bringing the limit into line with national health insurance. My predecessor introduced a Bill extending the limit for national health purposes to £500 to cover persons employed at a rate of £500 per annum, and I am doing the same on this Bill.
That is to say you are casting your net wider in order to tax more people.
I would almost have to bring in a blackboard and chalk to explain things to Deputy MacEntee. Somebody ought to take him over the kindergarten stage in respect to Bills. I am going to preserve insurability under the Unemployment Insurance Act for persons who pass out of insurance when in non-manual employment if their remuneration exceeds £250. That was the 1920 limit. I am extending that now to £500, because £250 makes no sense to-day in respect to unemployment insurability, but, of course, the Deputy has the privilege of voting against the section if he does not like it.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 26.
Question proposed: "That Section 26 stand part of the Bill."
Does this section, in fact, make any change in the existing situation? Is it not a fact that people are at present getting the rates of benefit set out in paragraph (1) of the section, that is, men of 18 years of age or over are getting 22/6, women of 18 years or over are getting 18/-, boys are getting 11/6 and girls 9/-? Is that not the existing position according to the memorandum which the Minister has circulated himself? If it is the existing position, why does this Section 26 appear in the Bill?
Section 26 does in respect to unemployment insurance benefit what the previous section does in respect to national health insurance benefit, namely it consolidates statutorily cash supplements with the basic benefit and it ensures to the insured contributor in future that his right to unemployment insurance benefit is enshrined in law and is not subject to all the vagaries which are inevitably associated with cash supplement Orders made under an Emergency Powers Act which has a limited lifetime and is capable of revocation at any time. This consolidates the benefit and gives the insured contributor, as a matter of statutory right, not revocable except by amending legislation, his basic benefit plus a cash supplement.
It does not give him one penny piece more than he has now.
Why did you not give him more during your 16 years in office?
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 27.
Question proposed: "That Section 27 stand part of the Bill."
So far as I can understand this section, it is one of those petty moves of the Department of Finance to take the few shillings that may be paid out during the time this Bill is going through. If this section were not there, the Unemployment Insurance Fund would be a few shillings stronger by the time the Bill becomes an Act, but the Department of Finance have insisted that between the 1st July, and the date of the passing of the Act, anything that is paid out by way of cash supplement will be refunded to the Department of Finance. I think that in order to strengthen the hand of the Minister in future, in dealing with the Department of Finance, we should protest against this section and try and leave funds like the Unemployment Insurance Fund and the National Health Insurance Fund in as reasonably strong a position as possible.
Deputy Ryan hardly believes what he says.
Did I say anything wrong?
No, but I do not want the Deputy to spoil his otherwise good performance on the Bill.
Did I say anything in error?
The Deputy is not, obviously, serious in his objection to the Bill. We had hoped that it would be introduced and passed before the 1st of July.
And if so, Section 27 would not be necessary?
Having decided to do that we decided to keep our contract.
With the Department of Finance?
With the Government.
Now it is coming out.
This thing means practically nothing. The Unemployment Insurance Fund is in a more affluent position now than ever it was before. The amount involved is relatively small having regard to the wealth of the Unemployment Insurance Fund.
Or the wealth of the Minister for Finance.
I assure the Deputy that it is little more than a book-keeping transaction. The amount involved is relatively negligible, especially having regard to the state of the Unemployment Insurance Fund at the moment.
It is trifling, but the point I make is that the Minister went to the trouble of getting the draftsman to draft this section and to bring it before the Dáil in order that the grasping Minister for Finance should get these few pounds out of the Unemployment Insurance Fund. The Minister should never have put in the section.
I hope Deputies who have been going up and down the country preaching about the widespread unemployment that existed in the State during the last five or six years have taken note of what the Minister for Social Welfare has now admitted, that the Unemployment Insurance Fund was never so affluent as it is to-day. That means to say, in fact, that there never has been a lesser draw on the Unemployment Insurance Fund than for the past five or six years. That is why it is affluent.
It was in a bad way last year.
When we came into office we found the fund heavily indebted to the Exchequer. It is now in a position that the Exchequer can come in and collect via the Minister for Social Welfare the few pounds which are covered by Section 27 of the Bill. Deputies who have been in this House for some time are beginning to learn a few things, and the Minister also is beginning to learn a few things. He now admits that there was no unemployment in this country when he took over.
That question does not arise.
One of the reasons why the fund is somewhat in credit is that the last Government——
Somewhat in credit!
It is due to the fact that whilst Fianna Fáil was in office a lot of people, unable to obtain employment and unwilling to sign at the employment exchanges, sought employment in Britain?
When are you bringing them back?
I shall bring them back sooner than Deputy Lemass who, in his famous statement in 1932, said that he would comb the cities of America to bring the emigrants back.
I should like to bring the Minister back to the section.
The reason that the fund is in credit is that the last Government sent the claimants to Britain.
There are more going to England now than ever before.
I would like to hear the Deputy on that.
Well I would not.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 28.
Question proposed: "That Section 28 stand part of the Bill."
I do not think that it is necessary to repeat all the arguments because we will have a repetition, I am sure, from the Minister as to certain new principles laid down for social welfare that should be enshrined in any future book that is written on the subject and that this is all necessary in order to give a man a right to insurance. He has already pointed out that Section 26 is right so that a man is quite all right under Section 26. It is only, as was pointed out on the previous section on the contributions, a case of exacting a certain levy from the employer and the employee in order that the Minister may give them increased benefits by way of old age pensions and widows' and orphans' pensions. It is hardly necessary, then to go over all the arguments again, but we feel on this side of the House that the contributions should have been left as they were until the comprehensive scheme. I do not want to be misunderstood. I agree with what the Minister said, that anybody who brought in a comprehensive scheme, whether a Fine Gael Minister, a Labour Minister, or a Fianna Fáil Minister, would have made it, as far as possible, contributory and would have therefore had increased contributions. That is true as far as a comprehensive scheme would be concerned; but we should have waited for the comprehensive scheme and that is why we do not agree with the section.
I have a question on the Order Paper regarding Section 28. It asks with relation to the classes of employed persons mentioned here, to state what the amount would have been if the contributions had been payable at the rate prescribed in Section 28 of the Social Welfare Bill, 1948, and what on this basis the total amount of the contributions payable under all heads would have been. In fact, I am trying to find out from the Minister—and I assume that he will give me the information this afternoon—what exactly the people to whom the table in sub-section (1) of Section 28 applies are going to have to pay every year under the new proposal. I calculate that they will have to pay £250,000 or in other words, an additional taxation of £250,000 on the people. That is what the House is going to decide if it decides that the section as it is at the moment is to stand. Before the section is put to the House, the Minister should tell the Deputies exactly how much he is going to collect in additional unemployment insurance contributions from those to whom the sections apply.
The Deputy says that he has a question down and he will get the appropriate information at Question Time which will be at 2 o'clock to-day. If the Deputy wants information we can take the Report Stage next week and the Fifth Stage the week after so as to give him sufficient time to preen himself and prime himself on the Bill.
The Minister is the only person who could do something about the section or who could delete the section.
The Deputy told us that he went to the Dáil Library and indulged in scholastic research there in order to find out the cost of this and he gave us figures that he did not believe himself.
I said that they were approximate only.
He indulged in the time-honoured recreation of chancing his arm.
The House knows how much I chanced my arm.
He will not compete against the Minister in that.
Not on figures, I do not do it on figures.
The Minister only chances his arm on the means test.
I am quite sorry that I am responsible for introducing this Bill because it is obvious that it annoyed Deputy MacEntee.
You amuse me.
Anything that keeps the Deputy off the malady that seemed to affect him yesterday is a welcome diversion. We are asking insured contributors, employers and the State to bring this Bill back to an insurance basis——
At what cost?
——and this section does it. Deputy MacEntee asks "at what cost?". He is almost amusing. I wonder whether Deputy MacEntee when he was a member of the Fianna Fáil Government asked himself "at what cost" when the workers' wages were pegged down between the years 1939 and 1946.
That is not before the House now.
During a period when the cost of living was rising rapidly the Fianna Fáil Government pegged the wages of the workers as low as possible.
It is information I am asking for, not abuse.
Information! Go into the homes of the workers and you will get all the information you want. When Deputy MacEntee worries about the workers having to pay 2d. a week, let him not forget the pounds he took out of the pockets of the workers during the emergency.
Are not the road workers' wages pegged now?
If the Minister has no objection to telling us the figures, he has only to turn to the official on his right and he will tell him right away.
I have not the figures at the moment.
You do not know what it is going to cost the workers? You have been bleating here about the pounds we took from them, but you do not know what it is going to cost and you do not care.
It is going to cost in the aggregate 6d. a week.
How much in the aggregate will it be on the workers and the employers?
You will get that information at 2 o'clock.
Question put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 59; Níl, 54.
Tá
- Beirne, John.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Brennan, Joseph P.
- Browne, Noel C.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
- Coburn, James.
- Cogan, Patrick.
- Collins, Seán.
- Commons, Bernard.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, John A.
- Cowan, Peadar.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donnellan, Michael.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Sir John L.
- Everett, James.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finucane, Patrick.
- Fitzpatrick, Michael.
- Flynn, John.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Halliden, Patrick J.
- Hickey, James.
- Hogan, Patrick.
- Keane, Seán.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Kinane, Patrick.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Lehane, Con.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- MacBride, Seán.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- McQuillan, John.
- Madden, David J.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, Timothy J.
- Norton, William.
- O'Gorman, Patrick J.
- O'Higgins, Micheal J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun).
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Sullivan, Martin.
- Pattison, James P.
- Reidy, James.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Sheehan, Michael.
- Spring, Daniel.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Tully, John.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Brennan, Thomas.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, James.
- Kissane, Eamon.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Lydon, Michael F.
- Lynch, John.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- McGrath, Patrick.
- Maguire, Patrick J.
- Moran, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- Butler, Bernard.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Colley, Harry.
- Collins, James J.
- Crowley, Honor Mary.
- Davern, Michael J.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Friel, John.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Ormonde, John.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- O'Sullivan, Ted.
- Rice, Bridget M.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Mary B.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Walsh, Thomas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies P. S. Doyle and Keyes; Níl: Deputies Kissane and Kennedy.
Question declared carried.
SECTION 29.
Question proposed: "That Section 29 stand part of the Bill."
Would the Minister explain what is meant by sub-section (2), where 7/6 is being substituted for 5/-, and 2/6 for 1/-?
Under the provisions of the section the weekly allowance payable to a recipient of unemployment benefit or out-of-work benefit will be 7/6 in respect of an adult dependent and 2/6 in respect of each child dependent. Does that give the Deputy the information he wants?
Yes.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 30 and 31 agreed to.
SECTION 32.
Amendment No. 12 not moved.
I should like to draw the attention of Deputies of this House to the fact that a lot of amendments have been ruled out of order on the Bill for various reasons. Many of them are out of order for the reason that private Deputies may not move an amendment which imposes a charge, actual or potential, on State funds. Amendments, for instance, in regard to the alleviation or the abolition of the means test or for the raising of the age limit from 14 to 16 years in regard to children's allowances or for the giving of widows' pensions under 48 years are not in order. I understand, too, that urban benefits in certain cases are greater than rural benefits and that certain Deputies want to extend the benefits to a mile outside the urban area. All these amendments would obviously involve a charge on State funds and are, therefore, out of order. When an amendment is out of order it should not be debated. What happened yesterday in regard to Deputy Cowan's case was that the amendment was debated even though it was out of order. The Minister may be asked to accord certain concessions, but the amendment cannot be accepted by the Minister. He has to move his own amendment, but the other, not being moved, cannot be accepted. The amendments in order are Nos. 2, 7, 11, 15, 16 and 21, in addition to the Ministerial amendments.
As I said earlier this morning when I was notified by the Ceann Comhairle that certain amendments on the Order Paper were out of order, I accept that as the ruling of the Chair.
I hope the Deputy did not misunderstand me. He is entitled to ask the Minister to extend benefits.
That is what I am going to do. What the Minister has done here is to provide that certain houses owned by local authorities outside an urban area or a county borough will be considered as within the county borough or urban area for the purposes of this Act. The difficulty I can see is that in an urban area houses may be built within a quarter of a mile of the boundary. Under this Bill those people living in those local authority houses within a quarter of a mile of the boundary will be entitled to receive the increased rates of benefit but people living between these houses and the boundary in other houses will not be entitled to receive the increased rates. I can see that that will cause some trouble for the Minister. My reason for putting down this amendment was so that the Minister would consider the matter and, if possible, arrange an area so that it will include the people in the houses he has in mind and include at the same time those other people who may live between those houses and the boundary. I think that if the Bill in its present state stands, it will cause a considerable amount of grievance, because one individual living, say, a quarter of a mile outside the boundary will be entitled to benefit, while another individual living in a different type of house 200 yards outside it will not be entitled to it. I would suggest that if the Minister were to accept the principle of my amendment and extend the area in such a way——
Would Deputies please refrain from referring to an amendment that is not before the House? The Deputy's amendment is as little before the House now as if it had never been printed.
I would ask the Minister to consider my suggestion now.
To make a concession. Very good.
I would ask him to do something to overcome that grievance and to give a measure of justice to individuals who may not be fortunate enough to have local authority houses outside the urban or the county borough area.
Mr. A. Byrne
Might I say, in support of what Deputy Cowan has said, that he has pointed out that difficulties may arise? The fact of the matter is that difficulties have already arisen. Take for instance the Donnycarney area. One side of the road there is in the city area and the other is in the county area. The result is that certain people are being deprived of all forms of benefits. They are being deprived of widows' and orphans' pensions and tonsilar treatment which has recently been passed by the Public Health Department. We are now anxiously awaiting an extension of the boundaries so that those people who have been removed from the bad housing conditions in the centre of the city to a municipal housing scheme further out and who have been losing benefits for the past month or two will be catered for. My attention has been drawn to this matter by some of the individuals concerned and I would, therefore, urge the speedy extension of the boundary.
That is not for this Minister, surely.
Mr. A. Byrne
It affects the benefits.
This section seems to overcome a problem which has manifested itself in many places but more particularly in Cork than in any other part of the country. I refer to the giving of the same benefits to those people living in corporation houses. The main purpose, as I understand it, is that these people are subject to city rates in almost every respect—they pay city prices for their food and they pay city rents. I should like to support other Deputies in asking the Minister to extend it further because it is only piecemeal legislation as it stands. Problems will arise and probably have risen already. People who are living probably not as far out as some of those corporation tenants are also subject to the same rates and standards of living as these people in the corporation houses. The sooner the Minister extends the same facilities and rates to these people, even though they do not live in corporation or council houses, the sooner he will completely overcome the problem with which he is faced. Land is certainly becoming scarcer in urban areas and cities. This is probably due to the building programme pursued by Fianna Fáil. Less houses to the acre were built than existed on these acres before for the reason that the original houses were considered uninhabitable and probably unhealthy because they were too congested. Through industrial expansion in cities and in towns building space and accommodation for houses are becoming dearer and scarcer. Apart from building by corporations, private builders—who at some date will probably be able to let their houses to poor people outside urban areas—will also be moving out of the city. These people would then come under the benefits of this section if it were extended to people other than corporation tenants. As it stands it is most desirable and absolutely essential that corporation tenants benefit to the extent they do.
I am breaking entirely new ground on this section. I put this section in the Bill mainly to meet the case of two working-class areas in Cork which are slightly outside the city and where the persons concerned get employment assistance at rural rates. They do not get it at urban rates; they get it at rural rates. I put this amendment in to remedy that grievance which, as Deputy Corry admits, has been extant for the past ten years. Not even the thunderous attacks of Deputy Corry on the Fianna Fáil Government could induce them to do what I am doing in Section 32. I am meeting specially the case of those folk who reside in these two working-class areas in Cork. That is being met for the first time after ten years' agitation. I do not think Deputy Cowan's suggestion is possible of reasonable implementation because one knows where the boundary exists. One knows where the boundary ends in a town or city, but a mile from that place is a rather difficult line to draw. If you draw a line on a purely lineal basis you may discover that mathematically you bring in one person at one end of the table while another person at the other end of the table is outside. Everybody knows where the boundary of a town or urban area is, and I think that is the best line of demarcation for the purposes of a Bill of this kind.
I do not think it is possible to meet the problem in the manner suggested by Deputy Cowan. It could, of course, be met in another way, but I cannot meet the Deputy in this connection. It is a matter for the Minister for Local Government and for the local ratepayers and residents. If a local authority extends the boundary it can bring in all these people within the scope of this Bill. That is really the best way in the long run. I am meeting this problem now because it is an old problem. For ten years it has defied solution. I am meeting it frankly and openly. I am doing more than that. I am saying that where any local authority builds houses outside its own area the folk who reside in those houses will be regarded as residents of the area of administration of the local authority. Deputy Cowan wants to get a kind of blanket scheme for paying these rates of unemployment assistance benefit to folk who reside outside a town or outside the jurisdiction of an urban council. The most efficacious way of doing that is by getting the local authority to extend the area of its jurisdiction. That would bring these people in. I think I am going a very substantial distance in meeting the problem in this manner and I am sure the Deputy realises that.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 33 and 34 put and agreed to.
SECTION 35.
I move amendment No. 15:—
To add at the end of the section, line 8, the following words: "The fact of his misconduct or the fact that he left his employment without just cause must be established by independent evidence and beyond any doubt whatsoever".
This is a simple amendment. The effect of it is to provide that where it is alleged a person has been guilty of misconduct or that he has left his employment without just cause, that must be established by some independent evidence beyond the statement of the employer. I think that is reasonable. Where the matter has to be determined it should be determined in a judicial way. Where there is any doubt the benefit of that doubt should go to the applicant. I am sure the amendment will be accepted.
I think if Deputy Cowan had practical experience of a court of referees he would realise the difficulty of accepting an amendment of this kind and the impracticability of implementing it. The position is that under the Unemployment Assistance Acts, unemployment assistance officers determine whether or not an applicant is disqualified from receiving unemployment assistance. The applicant has a right of appeal to a court of referees comprising an independent chairman and representatives of employers and employees. He is afforded an opportunity of appearing in person and giving evidence as to the facts of his case. The court of referees examines the evidence so submitted and makes a recommendation based on whatever evidence is available to them.
I do not quite understand what Deputy Cowan means by his reference to independent evidence, because, as the Deputy realises, it might be completely impracticable to secure independent evidence. For instance, you might have the case of an employer who employs one man. There might be a dispute between the employee and the employer, and, arising out of that dispute, the employee might be dismissed. What can one do in a case like that to secure independent evidence? Or you might have a case of an employer who employs a number of persons in a building but, as a result of an interview with, or an altercation with one employee in one portion of the building, the employee might be dismissed. There is no other person present. What can one do in a case like that? Or you might have a case in which an employee is brought to the manager's office and asked some questions; a wordy fracas may develop between them and the employee may be dismissed. There are only two people present. How can one get independent evidence in a case of that kind?
This Bill provides, and the traditional practice has been, that if an employee is dismissed he has an opportunity of bringing his case to the court of referees. The chairman is an independent chairman. The court comprises the chairman, representatives of the employers and representatives of the employees. They hear the evidence and, on the basis of that evidence, they form an independent judgment as to whether the employee was dismissed with or without just cause. I think that is a fair way of meeting the problem. Anyone with experience of a court of referees cannot deny that in all cases which come before the court the tendency is to give the unemployed or dismissed worker the benefit of whatever doubt exists. In view of what I have said, I suggest that Deputy Cowan will realise the impracticability of implementing this amendment.
And the man has the right to bring someone with him.
He can bring a trade union official with him and his case can be put before the court of referees quite adequately. I think those who have experience of a court of referees, as Deputy Hickey has, know that where there is any doubt the court comes down on the side of the dismissed man. I think that is a desirable practice where there is any doubt.
The only effect of the amendment would be to make sure that the court does come down on the side of the dismissed man. The evidence, as I visualise it here, need not necessarily be oral evidence. It may be certain facts which would in the ordinary way be considered as supporting one side rather than the other. I must admit that I have not a personal knowledge on this matter but I have some knowledge of the machinery of appeals. I have had from time to time to do with such appeals and I did feel that certain decisions were unjust. Because of that I thought the position might be met in this way by putting the court in the position that, unless there were some independent evidence to support the employer's allegation, the issue would be resolved in favour of the applicant for assistance; and, if there was any doubt at all, that that doubt must be given to the applicant for assistance. That is an ordinary principle governing matters in all sorts of civilised tribunals. In more than 90 per cent. of the cases that come before such tribunals that principle is actually applied. The object in putting down this amendment is to ensure that the court would be bound by those principles.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section 35 put and agreed to.
SECTION 36.
With regard to amendment No. 16, might I refer Deputy Cowan to page 23 of the Bill if he has it there. The sections referred to are being repealed by the Minister, so the amendment is unnecessary.
Amendment No. 16 not moved.
Amendment No. 17 is out of order.
Amendment No. 17 not moved.
Section 36 agreed to.
SECTION 37.
Amendment No. 18 governs amendments Nos. 27, 38 and 42.
I move amendment No. 18:—
In sub-section (1), page 13, to insert at the end of the sub-section the following:—
"the expression ‘contributory pension' means a pension which is either a widow's (contributory) pension or an orphan's (contributory) pension;
the expression ‘non-contributory pension' means a pension which is either a widow's (non-contributory) pension or an orphan's (non-contributory) pension."
This seeks to define the expressions "contributory pension" and "non-contributory pension".
Amendment agreed to.
Section 37, as amended, agreed to.
Amendments Nos. 19 and 20 not moved.
Section 38 agreed to.
SECTION 39.
I move amendment No. 21:—
Before Section 39 to insert a new section as follows:—
"Section 13 (1) (c) of the Principal Act shall be amended by inserting ‘five years' in lieu of ‘three years' wherever the latter words occur."
This is to extend the number of years over which the contributions can be calculated. The present period is rather short and extending it to five years would cover a number of cases of hardship that I have in mind. If the Minister would consider it, I would be grateful.
I was doubtful as to what exactly was intended. As drafted, the amendment does not meet whatever purpose the Deputy has in view, from what she has said just now. At present, three years is regarded as the average period for ascertaining the paid contributions for the purpose of qualification for benefit. If that is made five years, the average extends over five years and it does not seem to me to make any difference. It could be two, six or ten years, but as drafted the amendment would still require you to take the average. Deputy Mrs. Crowley apparently considers an average over five years is better than one over three. I do not know if that is based on any research, but I suspect it is not.
The Deputy is probably thinking of spreading the qualifying contributions over five years, but that is not secured by the amendment. An amendment of this kind would mean taking a step in the dark. I do not know what the effect would be on applicants for benefit, and I am sure the Deputy does not know either.
Deputy Crowley discussed this amendment with me and I thought she had covered her point. A person who is paying his contributions may change into some self-employed position for two years and then go back for a year and die, and his widow is not covered, as at present he must have paid an average of 26 for three years. Under the amendment, if he pays an average of 26 for five years he would be qualified, so he could be away for two years out of the five and still qualify.
I do not know what the consequences of this would be and I do not think anyone else does. The effect of the amendment is that, where a person is insured for four years prior to the date of death or the attainment of 70 years of age, he must have 130 contributions paid or deemed to have been paid for the previous five years, instead of 78 contributions for a period of three years.
I think it would be easier under the amendment.
Whatever evidence the Department has is against that view. If the effect of accepting the amendment would be to make it more difficult to get the pension, I am sure Deputy Ryan and Deputy Crowley would not desire to press the matter.
Even on that interpretation, which I think is correct in the way the amendment is put down, is it not obvious that a person getting 130 stamps for 2½ years out of five could be away for 2½ years and still qualify, whereas under 78 he could be away only for 1½ years out of the three?
We are getting into uncharted seas. This supposes the possibility of a person in the last five years, between 65 and 70, entering into contracts.
It might be before his death. The particular case Deputy Crowley had in mind was the person who died after a period working on his own and then having gone back into employment.
I have no information on that, as I am sure the Deputy has not, but the Departmental evidence is against the view that this is an improvement, from the point of view of the claimant. The position is that, in addition to contributions paid, an insured man is credited with contributions in respect of weeks of sickness or unemployment. Considerable inquiry is necessary in any case to establish availability for but inability to obtain employment for the period of three years to make up the average of 26 contributions. So far as the Department is concerned, since these Acts came into operation in January, 1936, only 182 claims for contributory pensions were rejected because the average test had not been satisfied. Over 12 years, only 182 claims had been rejected because the average test, that is, 78 contributions in three years had not been satisfied. I am not so sure that the return would be as good under this amendment, and the Department is definitely of the opinion that the acceptance of the amendment might worsen the position from the point of view of the applicant.
Possibly in individual cases, I admit.
The Minister has talked about uncharted seas. I was wondering if the Minister at this stage could himself evolve some arrangement in the shape of an alternative type of qualifying test which would meet the case Deputy Crowley has in mind. The Minister could possibly provide himself with a section, whereby, in cases which merited special consideration, as envisaged by Deputy Crowley and Deputy Ryan, an alternative scheme could be applied.
There are Acts which provide an alternative—whichever is the more favourable to the applicant. What Deputy Collins suggests might be done.
Let us take a case and try to see what the effect of the amendment would be on it. Let us take the five years preceding the claim. If a person has ten contributions in the first year, ten contributions in the second year and 26 in the last three years, the total is 98, and he qualifies, as at present. Then take the reverse of that—the person who, in five years, has 52 contributions in the first year, 52 in the second, ten in the third year, ten in the fourth year, and five in the fifth year. That person is out.
If he had ten in the fifth year he would be in.
Of course. The information I have indicates that this is not a good amendment from the point of view of the claimant.
Would the Minister consider the suggestion by Deputy Collins that an alternative be provided?
I will undertake to look into it.
Mr. Collins
Let me take the case which the Minister did not take, of the man with 52 contributions in the first year, and no contribution in the second or third year. He is out, but the man who, over the five years' period, has 52 contributions in the first year, none in the second and third years, and 52 in the fourth and fifth years is in.
Bear in mind that, under the existing Acts, in a period of 12 years, only 182 persons failed to satisfy the test.
We have all heard of a few hard cases all the same. I know that you cannot cover every hard case because there must be a qualifying test.
You cannot deal the cards again because you get a bad hand.
There is another type of case—the local authority pensioner who dies after contributing for five, six or ten years, after being on pension for five years. His is a case which the amendment would give an opportunity of covering. Take the man who retired at 65. He contributed to the widows' and orphans' pension for seven, eight or ten years and dies after being five or six years out. He has not contributed during the time he was drawing his pension. That is a case I should like the Minister to consider, and, if possible, to meet.
My advice is that the present period is better than the five years' period.
The two together might be good.
I will undertake to look into it.
Could the Minister cover the case I referred to?
Perhaps the Deputy would raise it again on the Report Stage. I will look into it in the meantime.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments Nos. 22 and 23 not moved.
I move amendment No. 24:—
In line 50, page 14, to delete "man" and substitute "person".
This is a formal amendment. In this context, "person" is the generally used description. It is regarded as preferable to "man".
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 25:—
In page 15, to delete the table headed "Table to Section 10" and substitute the following:—
TABLE TO SECTION 10.
Weekly Rates of Widows' (Contributory) Pensions.
|
Child's (Contributory) Allowance Rate per week |
|||||||||||||||
|
Ref |
Class |
Widow's (Contributory) Allowance Rate per week |
First or only qualified child |
Second qualified child |
Third qualified child |
Fourth qualified child |
Fifth or sixth qualified child |
Each other qualified child |
|||||||
|
(1) |
(2) |
(3) |
(4) |
(5) |
(6) |
(7) |
(8) |
(9) |
|||||||
|
s. |
d. |
s. |
d. |
s. |
d. |
s. |
d. |
s. |
d. |
s. |
d. |
s. |
d. |
||
|
1 |
Widow resident in an urban areas where the person, in respect of whose insurance the pension is payable, was not an agricultural worker. |
16 |
0 |
6 |
6 |
5 |
6 |
3 |
6 |
5 |
0 |
5 |
6 |
5 |
6 |
|
so long as the widows' (contributory) allowance is payable, 7s. 6d. on cesser of said allowance |
so long as the widows' (contributory) allowance is payable, 5s. 6d. on cesser of said allowance |
so long as the widows' (contributory) allowance is payable, 5s. 6d. on cesser of said allowance |
|||||||||||||
|
2 |
Widow resident in an urban area where the person, in respect of whose insurance the pension is payable, was an agricultural worker. |
14 |
0 |
6 |
0 |
6 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
5 |
0 |
|
3 |
Widow resident in a rural area where the person in respect of whose insurance the pension is payable, was not an agricultural worker. |
16 |
0 |
6 |
6 |
4 |
6 |
4 |
6 |
4 |
6 |
4 |
6 |
4 |
6 |
|
4 |
Widow resident in a rural area where the person, in respect of whose insurance the pension is payable, was an agricultural worker. |
12 |
6 |
5 |
6 |
4 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
4 |
0 |
This amendment might take a long time to explain and any oral explanation would be inadequate. In substance, the purpose of the amendment is to ensure that, so far as contributory widows' and orphans' pensions are concerned, nobody in the future will get a contributory pension which will be lower than what he or she would get in the form of a non-contributory pension. This matter was adverted to on the Second Stage. I undertook to meet the problem. It is done by this amendment.
What a confession— that this Bill had been drafted in such a way that a person in respect of whom nothing was paid for pension would get more than a widow whose husband had paid for a pension. I wonder whether really the Bill was not intended to be a blister upon those who are members of the contributory side of this scheme. I have all along suspected that the Minister for Social Welfare does not like those people who pay for their own pensions, that he has been concerned to indicate to them that they might as well not make any provision for their widows and children, that they might allow, if they can, their insurability to lapse. At the same time, in trying to justify other sections of this Bill, he has been talking about the desirability of getting back to proper insurance principles. That is the reason why, of course, under these principles, we have already decided to impose increased contributions on members of other schemes and that is the reason why, I assume, that in due course, when we come to consider Section 42 of the Bill, under this part we are going to impose additional rates of contributions upon persons who are insured persons for the purposes of the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Act. I do think, Sir, it is a strange commentary upon the way in which this whole business has been handled by the Minister for Social Welfare that he should have to come in here and admit that, for the first time, on the Second Reading of this Bill, that dawned on him, as a result of representations which were made, I think, from this side of the House.
Not at all. It was decided before the Bill was circulated to Deputies.
Why did not the Minister say so, then, in introducing the Bill? Why was not he candid with the House? Why did not he point out to the House that, under the Bill as he introduced it, non-contributory pensions might in certain circumstances be higher than contributory pensions? Why did not he say that?
I said it on the Second Stage.
I did not hear the Minister say it on the Second Stage.
The Deputy was so blitzed by his figures he could not absorb anything else.
I could absorb it. Even if the Minister did inform the House, as he says he did, we must remember in regard to that, that after all we are not quite certain whether the Minister did or did not, because we know, of course, that apparently, according to a reliable Press organ, he did not deliver on this Bill the sort of speech he had intended to deliver.
That is a rag, not a Press organ. "Press organ" is a euphemism for "rag" in that case.
I suppose the Irish Independent is a good enough paper for the Minister.
I do not think we should discuss the morning papers this morning.
I wonder what Deputy Larkin thinks of the Irish Independent.
I do not mind what he thinks. Perhaps the Deputy would deal with the amendment.
Ask him what he thinks of the Irish Press.
In any event, the real point is that here is a Bill, solemnly printed, supposed to have been studied by the Minister and, according to the Minister's own statement, in introducing it to the Dáil he had to point out that the thing had been so badly prepared for submission to the House and to the Government that, in fact, as it turned out, people in respect of whom no contributions had been paid might get a higher rate of pension than they might have got if they had been contributing towards the cost of pension.
It is difficult to understand. Deputy MacEntee's mentality. Making the most sympathetic allowances for the Deputy, he perplexes me more every time I listen to him. The Deputy says that I only thought of this on Second Reading.
That is all.
In fact this had been decided before the Bill was circulated. In order to incorporate amendments of this kind, the printing of the Bill would have been delayed. It was thought better to let the printing go ahead and meet this thing on Committee Stage. In any case, who is Deputy MacEntee to talk about legislative mistakes? I remember the Deputy sitting here on these benches introducing, with a fanfare of trumpets, a Bill known as the Valuation Bill, that was assailed so much on the Second Stage that we never heard anything further about it.
I suggest that we do not hear anything more about it now.
I quite agree. I want to induce some reasonable modesty and a small quota of introspection in the Deputy, who talks so learnedly because he forgets his past.
Amendment agreed to.
SECTION 39.
Question proposed: "That Section 39 stand part of the Bill."
As the section stands, where a widow with children marries and there are children of that marriage, are the step-children of the widow included in the Bill? I had proposed an amendment, which is out of order, for the purpose of clarifying that. I am in some doubt as to whether they are in the Bill at all.
Step-children are included in the Principal Act.
There might be more children than that—all children of the woman.
If the Deputy subjects that to a test for a few moments, he will see, I am sure, certain undesirable features in including all the children of a woman after her husband has died.
I do not put it that way.
That is what would happen under the Bill if the Deputy wants to include all the children of the woman.
I do not want that, but I want to make sure that the children living at the date of death of her husband are included.
They are all covered.
Question agreed to.
Section 40 agreed to.
SECTION 41.
I move amendment No. 26:—
Before Section 41, to insert the following new section:—
No person, who was immediately before the 1st day of October, 1948, entitled to a contributory pension and of a supplement thereto under the Order of 1947, shall, on or after the 1st day of October, 1948, receive less by way of contributory pension than she would have received if this Act had not been passed and the Order of 1947 had continued in force.
This amendment is consequential on an amendment to Section 37.
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 27:—
To delete sub-section (1).
This is a consequential amendment.
Would the Minister explain why this amendment is necessary? It is a rather strange one.
It is consequential on amendment No. 18.
Amendment agreed to.
Section 41, as amended, agreed to.
SECTION 42.
Question proposed: "That Section 42 stand part of the Bill."
On the section, I should like to raise the matter of amendment No. 29.
That is the fund. The Deputy knows, of course, that his amendment has been ruled out.
On what grounds?
The grounds are that the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Fund, established under the 1935 Act, pays out contributory and non-contributory liabilities without any distinction. If the moneys in the fund are at any time insufficient, the pensions investment account meets any deficit there is and if there is any surplus it goes into that account. The Deputy's amendment provided that the moneys in the pensions investment account shall only be applied to contributory liabilities. The effect of that clearly would be to stop the source of income for non-contributory pensions. The Exchequer, therefore, would have to meet any deficit for non-contributory pensions, and clearly that would impose a charge on public funds.
Only on the assumption——
Had not the Deputy his innings on this yesterday?
The Deputy had the opportunity of saying all that he had to say on the Money Resolution.
He was for two hours on this yesterday.
The point is that I want to discuss the grounds on which this amendment has been ruled out of order. I am going to submit that this amendment would not impose a charge on public funds.
The Ceann Comhairle made it perfectly clear that potential and actual charges on public funds are ruled out. This is a potential charge.
It is not, except the Ceann Comhairle suspects what the Minister is going to do—to raid the fund.
I am not going to allow anything of that kind. The Ceann Comhairle's rulings are purely in accordance with Standing Orders, which provide for this kind of amendment. This amendment is obviously a potential source of an increase and charge on public funds.
Not if the Minister would give an undertaking that he would not raid——
The Ceann Comhairle does not ask for undertakings.
If I suspected the Deputy was going to commit a burglary next year I wonder what he would think if I were to ask him for an assurance on that.
It is not a burglary because you did not break in yet. The Ceann Comhairle must be suspicious that you were going to commit——
The Ceann Comhairle's rulings will not be discussed in that fashion.
On the Report Stage I will bring in an amendment which will make it clear to the people what the exact position with regard to the pensions investment account is. It will not impose any charge on public funds. It will, however, make it much more difficult for any Minister for Social Welfare to do what the Minister for Social Welfare in relation to this Bill and to the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Fund proposes to do.
The Deputy is blowing the sands of futility.
I did speak yesterday on what the Minister was doing with the moneys in the Pensions Investment Account. He himself has admitted that my charges were true—that he has taken £450,000 this year out of the pensions investment account to pay non-contributory pensions. I am going to suggest that, having done that, he ought to be content if he is not going to make restitution to the contributors whose funds he is taking.
Surely he is not going to be so unscrupulous as to ask the Dáil to impose the additional burden provided for here in Section 42. I suppose it is futile to ask the Minister to disclose to the House what additional income he expects to derive from the increased rates of contribution. I suppose he is not in a position to disclose that to the House, and I assume that he is not worried about it. He has made up his mind that this traffic, so to speak, will bear an increase of 50 per cent. In any event, the insured contributors have no option in the matter if the Dáil decides that it is going to increase the rates of contribution on employed persons by 50 per cent. That is the end of it, and they will have to pay and look pleased about it. Whether they will or not is another matter.
I think that one of the shocks which the people are going to get when these contributions begin to be collected is that they will then realise that by reason of the additional impost in Section 42 as well as the imposts in other parts of the Bill, they are going to have to pay an increase of 6d. per week and will get nothing for it. When they realise that they will not have as high an opinion of the Minister for Social Welfare as some of his supporters have. In any event, we ought to know how much this is going to cost the people. I am not so certain that the Minister has taken the trouble to find out how much these increased contributions are going to bring him in.
Remember, I told you last night the opinion of the actuary in 1945.
Since the Minister has mentioned the actuary, it would be very interesting if he would circulate to the Dáil the letter of the actuary to which he referred yesterday. I will tell the Dáil, and tell him, how that letter came to be written. It came to be written because we had a Minister for Local Government and Public Health then who was prepared to stand up to the Minister for Finance——
That is Deputy MacEntee?
Yes. ——and who had the matter referred to the actuary——
Brave boy.
——in order to ascertain exactly what the position was as between the non-contributory and contributory pension fund.
That is not true.
It is quite true.
It is not true.
It is quite true.
I am glad to put it on record that it is not true.
It is true—to find out what exactly the relation was.
Put down a question about it.
If the Minister will remember, in the year 1945 there was an unwilling concession on my part that we would be content with £250,000 pending a further examination of the question which was undertaken by the actuary. He reported in the terms which the Minister disclosed to the Dáil, and arising out of that we restored the grant to the fund to the original £450,000.
Would the Deputy relate that to the section?
It is difficult, but the Minister in his interruptions asked me to deal with the point, and I have done so with the indulgence of the Chair.
Gracious fellow.
I want again to press the Minister to be less coy and to be less secretive than he has been in relation to this and other parts of the Bill, and to disclose to the House what exactly this is going to cost. Now, if I give figures the Minister will say that I have confused myself in relation to the significance of the figures. I quite admit that, as a private Deputy, I have not behind me the resources of the Minister.
I am a private Deputy dealing with this matter, and I am trying to bring out, for the information of the House, some facts which the Minister ought to disclose but which, for one reason or another, he is reluctant to mention. I have a calculation, an imperfect one, an approximate one, but it is the best that most private Deputies could do. I find that under this Bill an additional £250,000 will be taken every year from persons who are contributors under this scheme. That figure may be much too low or much too high. The only person who has any precise estimate about this is the Minister. Why does he not disclose that to the House?
Within two hours you will have it.
That will be too late. We are discussing the Bill now.
You will have it on the Report Stage or on the Fifth Stage next week.
I cannot move an amendment on the Report Stage to delete this section. No member of any of the Parties supporting the Minister can bring pressure to bear on him on the Report Stage to redress the wrong he is now doing. Before this Bill goes through I want Deputies to know precisely what they are doing. Why ask them to vote in the dark? They do not know——
What do they not know?
They do not know if the figure of £250,000, the cost to the contributors of Section 42, is right or wrong.
Does the Deputy not realise that no individual will pay £250,000?
I know the workers and the employers are going to pay. There are 640,000 persons coming within the scope of the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Act.
They know what they will pay and what they will get under this Bill.
They will pay £250,000, and that represents more than a farthing in the lb. on sugar. The Minister would not have the hardihood to put a farthing in the lb. on sugar. The Minister, when he was a Deputy, used to say that we were too niggardly in relation to our social services. He used to say that the cost of living was too high. Here he is definitely increasing the cost of living. He cannot deny that. He is increasing it in precisely the same way as it would be increased for every working-class family if an additional farthing was put on the lb. of sugar.
What I am really concerned about is to try to get the Minister to be less reticent, to disclose to the House what this will really cost. He says we will have the information at 2 o'clock. If so, the information must be in his possession and why will he not divulge it? What is he afraid of? We are back to this position, that the Minister, admitting he has not got the information now, did not take the trouble to calculate how much this will cost the workers. He slammed on the additional 2d. a week on them and 2d. a week on their employers.
Call it 50 per cent.; it will sound better.
It is a succinct way of expressing it and I am glad the Minister desires to be helpful to that extent. This increases the rates of contributions by 50 per cent. and the Minister did not worry to find out how much it will cost the workers.
For the sake of expedition I was prepared to let what Deputy MacEntee said pass, but if the section is not agreed to I feel I should make some reply. Under this section we are doing what is being done under other sections, namely, we are consolidating the cash supplement with the basic benefit and giving the people a statutory right of entitlement to the new rate of benefit. That will not depend on a cash supplement Order under an Emergency Powers Act having a limited life. We are giving people a statutory right to their increased rates of benefit. That is enshrined in a statute which cannot be interfered with in the same way as a cash supplement Order. Any attempt to interfere with these benefits in the future will necessitate a Bill which will have to pass through five stages in this House, and which will have to go through the Seanad as well. We will pay these benefits on an unassailable basis from the point of view of political practicability. The workers, the employers and the State will pay an increased contribution for those benefits which are now being assured as a matter of right and not as a concession to the workers.
Deputy MacEntee asked for information. He will get it at 2 o'clock, and if he wishes he can talk on this section until 1 o'clock. He will have the information an hour later. He can resume then with all his actor-like talents on what the cost of this will be to the various people who contribute to it. The workers know that it will cost 6d. a week. The Deputy wants to suggest that it will cost £250,000. Surely figures of that kind are meaningless. Nobody will pay £250,000. The aggregate may reach a certain figure, but the worker knows what he has to pay and that he will get benefits as a statutory right in the future. Over and above all, he knows that this Government will make available £2,500,000 more for social welfare schemes, a thing which the Fianna Fáil Government did not do when it was in office.
The heading of these tables is "Second Schedule" and later on, on page 24, you again have "Second Schedule", which is rather confusing. Apart from that, the Minister has reiterated that this will give widows and orphans a statutory right to those extra benefits.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,
The statutory right the Minister refers to is conferred on the widows and orphans by Sections 39 and 40. This section is making the contributors pay. There is no reason why one should be consequential on the other or why one is necessitated by the other. The only reason for this section is that the Minister wants to make the employer and the employees pay for these extra benefits that he is giving the old age pensioners and the widows and orphans.
I do not think he should attempt to confuse the minds of Deputies here by trying to get Deputies to believe that if they do not vote for this section, widows and orphans will not have a statutory right to the increased pensions they are getting. They would have a statutory right to them under Sections 39 and 40. Anyway, the contention which the Minister has made that they have not a statutory right at present is rather thin. They have it by Order and the Minister knows that no Order can be revoked or changed in any way before a motion to that effect is laid on the Table of both Houses. I do not know that any Government would feel strong enough either against its own supporters or against the Opposition or these two combined, to attempt to amend an Order so as to lessen the amounts that widows and orphans are getting at the moment. The Minister knows very well that these cash supplements would continue no matter what Minister was there, until replaced by something better. The "something better" that should have replaced them is the comprehensive scheme about which so much has been said. The Minister refuses to give the figures which have been asked for by Deputy MacEntee as to what this is going to cost. He says the workers know what it is going to cost them, that employers know what it is going to cost them, and that old age pensioners and widows and orphans are going to get more. Surely to goodness the Minister should not treat the Dáil with such contempt that he refuses to give Deputies here information to allow them to calculate what will be the entire cost to contributors, to the Exchequer, and to all concerned, of this entire piece of legislation. He has refused to give this information all the time.
It was only asked for yesterday for the first time.
I am sure it would not take his officials more than two or three minutes to get the figures, but evidently he does not want to give them to the Dáil. He wants to maintain the picture of the £2,500,000 a year, which we were able to show would mean an extra expenditure by this Government of only £600,000 for two years. It is like a farmer saying to his family: "Oh, we shall have plenty to eat for the next two years, because we shall eat the hens when they do not lay and then we shall eat the cattle, the pigs and so on." What is going to happen, however, when the Widows' and Orphans' Fund has been raided so far as it can be raided and when the contributors have paid these extra amounts? We want to get these figures from the Minister.
I am sorry that Deputy Dr. Ryan has taken a line which spoils the otherwise good attitude which he has so far taken on this Bill.
If I am not living up to the Minister's expectations, I am sorry.
I want to be reasonable with the Deputy in the line he has taken. I am only sorry that his attitude has not been infectious and that some of his colleagues have not been impregnated with the same kind of reasonable approach to the problem. Let us deal with a few of the points the Deputy has raised. He says that there is a Second Schedule on page 17 and there is the description "Second Schedule" on page 24. The Second Schedule on page 17 means the Second Schedule to the Principal Act, and the Second Schedule on page 24 means the Second Schedule to this Bill. I hope that clears up any misunderstanding.
The point I had in mind was that if anybody had to quote the Second Schedule to this Bill when it becomes an Act, it may be confusing.
If the Deputy looks up page 17 he will see that the words Second Schedule are in inverted commas. The Deputy said that in fact contributors had a legal right to the additional payments under the Cash Supplements Order because nobody proposed to revoke it. That may be the Deputy's simple approach to the problem, but what he has got to remember is that the workers of this country remember Emergency Powers Order 83. The Deputy has apparently forgotten that.
What is that?
It pegged down the wages of the workers during the emergency. That was done by Order.
And I remember the Act of 1924. Pensions were reduced under an Act at that time.
I have no use for that. You are not going to charge me with responsibility for the Act of 1924.
An Act is no better than an Order.
This Bill is what I should like to hear Deputies on.
I suggest to the Deputy that it is much better from the point of view of the workers to have their rights enshrined in an Act than that they should have them conceded under an Order which is revocable by the Government, so easily revocable that the Government need not go to the trouble of coming into the House and getting a Bill passed through the five stages necessary before it is enacted by the House, apart from whatever delaying action the Seanad may apply to the Bill. From the workers' point of view, I do not think it is challengeable that it is much better to have their rights under an Act as compared with having them under an Order. It is the fact of having their rights under an Act which makes sure that any Government in future is going to have a tough job before the benefits can be reduced. As Deputies know, the Cash Supplements Order is an Order which the Government may revoke or modify at any time. They cannot do that so easily once these rights are enshrined in a Bill.
We have already accepted Sections 39 and 40 which protect that right.
On the question of the increased contribution we are bringing back the existing Acts to the stage under which the whole finances of these measures were raised in the well-known way of contributions from workers and employers, with grants from the State. This is putting the whole matter back on an insurance basis. Deputy Ryan will admit that is the normal way to approach a problem of this kind. In all the discussion on this Bill he has been very careful to conceal that he himself did not approach it in this normal way. I suspect the reason is that the cash supplement is a legacy from the detestable food voucher scheme conceived at a time when the wages of the workers were pegged to a very low level. In normal circumstances such as are operating now, I think every Deputy will acknowledge that the desirable thing to do is to finance the Acts in the way in which they have been financed, for the last 35 years in some instances.
Question put.
The Committee divided : Tá, 67; Níl, 57.
Tá
- Beirne, John.
- Belton, John.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Brennan, Joseph P.
- Browne, Noel C.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
- Coburn, James.
- Cogan, Patrick.
- Collins, Seán.
- Commons, Bernard.
- Connolly, Roderick J.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, John A.
- Cowan, Peadar.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donnellan, Michael.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Sir John L.
- Everett, James.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finucane, Patrick.
- Fitzpatrick, Michael.
- Flynn, John.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Halliden, Patrick J.
- Hickey, James.
- Hogan, Patrick.
- Hughes, Joseph.
- Keane, Seán.
- Kinane, Patrick.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Larkin, James.
- Lehane, Con.
- Lehane, Patrick D.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- MacBride, Seán.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- McQuillan, John.
- Madden, David J.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, Timothy J.
- Norton, William.
- O'Gorman, Patrick J.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Sullivan, Martin.
- Palmer, Patrick W.
- Pattison, James P.
- Redmond, Bridget M.
- Reidy, James.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Sheehan, Michael.
- Spring, Daniel.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Timoney, John J.
- Tully, John.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Brennan, Thomas.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Butler, Bernard.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Colley, Harry.
- Collins, James J.
- Crowley, Honor Mary.
- Davern, Michael J.
- McGrath, Patrick.
- Maguire, Patrick J.
- Moran, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- O'Sullivan, Ted.
- Rice, Bridget M.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Friel, John.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, James.
- Kissane, Eamon.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lahiffe, Robert.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Lydon, Michael F.
- Lynch, John.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Mary B.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Walsh, Thomas.
Tellers :—Tá: Deputies Doyle and Keyes; Níl: Deputies Kissane and Kennedy.
Amendment put and agreed to.
SECTION 43.
I move amendment No. 28:—
Before Section 43, but in Chapter III of Part VI, to insert the following new section:—
(1) In sub-section (1) of Section 40 of the Principal Act, the words "eleven pence and one half-penny" shall be inserted in lieu of the word "eightpence."
(2) In sub-section (3) of Section 40 of the Principal Act, the word "sixpence" shall be inserted in lieu of the words "one half thereof."
The purpose of this amendment is to fix the rates of contributions payable for soldiers and is consequential on the preceding section.
Amendment Nos. 29, 30 and 31 not moved.
Section 43 put and agreed to.
SECTION 44.
I move amendment No. 32:—
In line 28, page 17, to delete "person" (where it occurs, twice) and substitute "man".
This is a consequential amendment.
Amendment put and agreed to.
Amendments Nos. 33 and 34 not moved.
I move amendment No. 35:—
In lines 8 and 19, page 18, to delete "person" and substitute "man".
In this instance, as in a previous instance, the description "man" is preferable in the context to the description "person", as in the main the person can only be a man.
Amendment put and agreed to.
Question proposed: "That Section 44, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
This is the section which created the anomaly that the Minister, by an amendment to Section 40, has corrected. When we were discussing Section 40, I mentioned the fact that it was rather extraordinary that the Minister had to wait until the Bill came before the House before he became aware of the position which would obtain under Section 44 in respect of a widow's non-contributory pension as compared with the position which would obtain under Section 40 of a widow in receipt of a contributory pension. I deplored the fact that the Minister was so ill prepared that he had to await the discussion of the Bill in this House before he became aware of that fact.
That is not true. I knew it before the Bill was circulated to Deputies, but I did not want to hold up the Bill to correct it.
That is what the Minister said when I raised the matter on Section 40. I have here the Minister's introductory speech dealing with Part VI of the Bill and I cannot see in the Minister's speech introducing the Bill any reference to Section 40 or Section 44.
Read my reply.
But the reply was made after Deputy Dr. Ryan, as reported in column 1639 of the Official Reports for Wednesday, 28th July, drew attention to the fact that an anomaly would exist. Deputy Dr. Ryan said:—
"Another anomaly is that, according to this Bill, in certain cases if a widow gets a non-contributory pension she gets more than if she were contributing. This is very bad. I do not say that a non-contributory pensioner should get less, but I do say that a contributory pensioner to get less is very bad."
That is what Deputy Dr. Ryan said after the Minister had introduced the Bill. The Minister, in his introductory speech, did not draw attention to that anomaly, but what Deputy Dr. Ryan said was followed up by something which Deputy Keyes said, and I grant that the Minister, in reply, referred to Deputy Keyes' speech, ignoring Deputy Dr. Ryan's speech, and said that he would have the matter attended to.
I merely rise to point out that it is rather regrettable that an important measure of this kind should be introduced into this House without the Minister being fully aware of what the consequences would be of an important provision in the Bill. He was not previously aware of the fact that the section we are now discussing would, if the position were not corrected, have created the anomaly which Deputy Dr. Ryan pointed out, and which I regretted when dealing with Section 40.
You would imagine at this stage of his life Deputy MacEntee would be almost inured against the churlishness and childishness which he displays in discussing an important Bill of this kind. I told the Deputy that we realised that once we made a certain change in the non-contributory section of the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Act, this alternation, which has already been made, would be necessary. In order not to hold up the Bill and to enable the House to get it at the earliest possible opportunity in advance of the summer recess, the Bill was circulated, I having decided that I would take in the amendment on the Committee Stage and that is being done.
You did not say that in your introductory speech.
There are millions of things I did not say in my introductory speech. The debate lasted two days on the Second Stage. I gave Deputies an explanatory memorandum and I am glad of that, but it has not produced much effect on Deputy MacEntee. Still, I gave it to him, hoping to enable him to understand the Bill. No doubt, Deputy Killilea is more intelligent than Deputy MacEntee. I issued an explanatory memorandum and I explained the provisions of the Bill. We spent yesterday discussing the Bill on the Committee Stage and we are discussing it again to-day. Deputies can have next week on the Report Stage and the week after on the Fifth Stage. My desire is that they should know everything that is in the Bill.
Except what the increased contributions will bring in.
The Deputy will get that in 70 minutes' time and I will put the Report Stage of the Bill down for next week and the Fifth Stage for the week after to enable Deputy MacEntee to pose as the saviour of the people in connection with these increased contributions of 6d. per week. I want to tell Deputy MacEntee and Deputy Killilea that under Section 44 we are increasing widows' and orphans' non-contributory pensions very substantially. Deputy Killilea represents what might be described as a rural constituency. He knows the problems of the people in rural areas and the problem of the widows and children in rural areas. Let me tell him what we are doing for them under this Bill. Under the Fianna Fáil Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Act a widow with one child in a rural area gets 11/6. She is getting 16/- under this Bill. Where she has two children she gets 12/6 at present; we propose to give her 22/-. Where she has three children she gets 15/- at present; we propose to give her 26/-. Where she has four children she gets 17/6 at present; we propose to give her 30/-. Where she has five children she gets 20/- at present; we propose to give her 34/-. Where she has eight children at present she gets 27/6 under Fianna Fáil legislation; she will get 46/- under this Bill. Where she has ten children she gets 32/6 under Fianna Fáil legislation; she will get 54/- under this Bill. That is a pretty substantial improvement, as Deputy Killilea will admit.
That is no more substantial now than what was done by Fianna Fáil under the conditions then existing.
Fianna Fáil's conception of non-contributory pensions was a very pauper-like conception. When I quote these figures of what they got under Fianna Fáil, bear in mind that they include the cash supplement. We are giving now, basic benefit, cash supplement and what, in most cases, is a 75 per cent. increase in the non-contributory pensions. That is a good job. Deputy Killilea can assure all the widows in his area that they are going to be better off under this Bill than before. As I said earlier, there would not be enough white horses to lead the Deputy to his residence if this were a Fianna Fáil Bill doing this for widows and orphans under the non-contributory Acts.
We were the first Party to understand their pitiful position and come to their assistance, unlike your Fine Gael friends, who did not recognise their existence and you did not even remind them.
The road to hell was strewn with good intentions.
Which you have now forgotten.
The Minister has told us a great deal about what he is going to do for the non-contributory widows. He might at least disclose that he is going to do it at the expense, mainly, of the insured workers in this country.
Of course not.
Of course he is. That is the whole purpose of the increase in the contribution under all the social insurance schemes which the Government have imposed to-day. Their sole purpose is to defray the cost of the non-contributory pensions. The total amount which is going to be brought in will be about £820,000 or £850,000, I do not know which, and the Minister says that the annual cost to the Exchequer of the proposals regarding non-contributory pensions will be in the neighbourhood of £860,000. I am perfectly certain, knowing the Minister's technique, that he put the highest figure he possibly could on the additional cost of the non-contributory pensions. That is what he did and he is going to take that £860,000, not out of the pockets of the income-tax payers nor of the motor users or anybody else, but out of the pockets of the insured workers.
Surely the Deputy is not serious.
That is the sole reason why, in this Bill, the workers who contribute to unemployment insurance, to national health insurance and to the widows' and orphans' pensions insurance are going to have to pay, as the Minister puts it, an additional 6d. per week.
It is a good cause.
Most of these things were being given to them already without their paying anything. Deputy O'Leary has not yet grasped that fact.
He could not, because it is not true.
I want to come back to the statement which the Minister made.
Before Deputy MacEntee comes back, I want to point out that there is no quorum and I think it is scandalous to see Deputy MacEntee with only one other Fianna Fáil Deputy carrying out these delaying tactics.
The Deputy cannot address the House without a quorum.
I would point out that there is no member of the Clann na Poblachta Party nor of the Labour Party present.
There are only two Fianna Fáil members present.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted and 20 Deputies being present,
I was going back to the astonishing statement made by the Minister that he was aware of the fact before he came to the House with the Bill on the Second Stage that there was an anomaly between the rates of non-contributory pensions which will be paid and the rates at which contributory pensions will be paid in certain cases and that he had intended to bring in an amendment on the Committee Stage of the Bill to rectify that position. It has been the invariable practice when a Minister introduces a Bill and proposes to make an important amendment in it to mention that fact when he is introducing the Bill. The Minister, however, pleads that in this case he has departed from that practice. I take leave to say that the reason the Minister for Social Welfare did not mention the fact that he was going to bring in this amendment is that he was not aware that it was necessary.
The truth, of course, condemns you.
We had a general election not so very long ago. One of the matters that was circulated extensively throughout the country was that if there should be a change of Government after the election, the widows would lose their pensions. There is no doubt about that. Deputy MacEntee, having been associated with——
I was not associated with that——
——the Party——
——nor do I believe that was issued.
——that circulated that rumour amongst the people is now concerned about the pensions the widows are going to get.
Oh, it was a rumour.
As the Minister has set out, the widows, particularly in the rural areas, are going to benefit substantially when this Act is brought into force. I have listened to Deputy MacEntee yesterday and to-day, and I must say that I have never witnessed such a display of artificiality. Not one bit of sincerity has Deputy MacEntee had in connection with anything that he said in this House, and his worst piece of brazen effrontery was when he said this morning, deliberately for the Irish Press columns to-morrow, that he heard me making a statement yesterday which, in fact, I did not make at all.
What has that to do with this section?
It is as much on the section as Deputy MacEntee was.
It is as much in order as the bread subsidy.
Let the Deputy work his passage back. That is what he is doing now.
He is not. If it were a question of making a passage in any way, Deputy MacEntee is making sure that he is going to drive every person on this side of the House into a strongly-welded unit. Why he wants to do that I do not know. It is not in the interests of Fianna Fáil. It is not common sense.
What has all this to do with the section?
We will say what nice boys you are, now that you have wrapped the blue flag round you.
There is no blue flag whatsoever. Some of us, and I am one of them, are trying to look at this piece of legislation in a sensible way and to try to improve it.
Deputy MacEntee would not understand that.
Progress reported.