When speaking before the adjournment of the debate, I was saying that Fianna Fail had done something for the poor and necessitous people of the country. I tried to point out that increases had been given in old age pensions, even before the Coalition Government was formed. During the elections we heard from the Labour people about the great necessity for the abolition of the means test, and during the year the Minister introduced a Bill extending the amount of means from £39 5s. 0d. to £52. When he was interfering with it at all, I wonder why he did not go further, or how far he did go, in making up his mind to increase the amount by 33 per cent. Having regard to the value of the £1 now and its value when old age pensions were instituted in 1909, when agricultural wages were only 9/- per week, why did he not take these matters into consideration? Agricultural wages have gone up by 700 per cent. but the amount in respect of means has been increased by only 33 per cent.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 66—Office of Minister for Social Welfare (Resumed).
Do you object to that?
I do object to it, certainly. If £39 5s. 0d. was the amount in respect of which a pension was payable in 1909, surely it should have been increased to the same extent as wages have increased since. The man in receipt of a pension in 1909 would not qualify for a pension in 1949, viewing it from the angle of the means test alone. A sum of £39 5s. 0d. was the amount laid down then and there has been a change of only one-third in 40 years.
What increase did you give them in 16 years?
Deputy Collins ought to restrain himself sometime.
It is very difficult.
Nevertheless, he should restrain himself. I want to say to Deputy Walsh that that would require legislation and a Deputy cannot advocate legislation on an Estimate. To raise it from £39 5s. 0d. to £52, the Minister had to get legislation, and to increase it further would require further legislation.
I am merely trying to point out how surprised I am that the Minister, who was so concerned about these people, did not take that into consideration when introducing his Bill. Under the Act of last year, it was the poorer sections of the old age pensioners who were victimised. These people who were not in receipt of a supplementary allowance got an increase of 5/- per week, whereas the people entitled to a supplementary allowance, particularly in the urban areas where they were getting up to 15/- per week, got a halfcrown. The people in receipt of 10/- got the full increase of 7/6.
I have from time to time come across a position which I have brought to the Minister's notice with regard to the payment of national health insurance benefits. It is the law, I understand, that a recipient of benefit is not paid for the first five days of his illness.
This is statute law and can only be amended by legislation.
I want to know from the Minister why it is that, during the past 12 months when he was introducing legislation, he did not take these things into account?
And the answer is: why was it not done in the past 16 years?
The Minister was more concerned, or thinks he was more concerned, about these people than other people were for 16 years.
I thank the Deputy for that compliment.
He was the only person in the House who was concerned and he neglected to do that job. Why did he not do it? Does he not know that that position exists in which people who have been contributing, perhaps for years, to national health insurance are not entitled to any benefit for the first five days of their illness?
That is wrong, of course.
It is wrong, but the Minister has not done anything to remedy it.
They do not have to be sick for five days in order to get benefit. The Deputy ought to look up the Acts about which he purports to show some knowledge.
Does the Minister not know that such a person will not be paid for the first five days?
I know nothing of the kind. It is not so.
Let the Minister make inquiries down the country and he will find that it is true.
Read the Act or get somebody to read it for you.
I am telling the Minister what is happening. If a man is ill for 12 days, he is paid for seven days. With regard to delay in the payment of these benefits, it has been my experience that three or four certificates have been handed in and yet there has been no payment. How does the Minister think that these people— many of them agricultural workers —can support themselves and their families for three or four weeks without any moneys coming in? It does not require legislation to remedy that matter.
I suggest that it would require the name and address of the person, so that it can be checked.
I will give the Minister several of them.
I shall be glad to get them.
Because it is happening wholesale. Returning to the question of old age pensions, the Minister said that he was going to give £3 per week, 26/- per week and various other sums to the old age pensioners. He finally decided on 17/6, and, in giving that amount, I take it that he regards it as an amount on which the old age pensioner could live. It was never the idea of Fianna Fáil that the old age pension was sufficient to enable an old person to live. It was meant as a help towards providing him with the necessaries of life and nothing else. The Minister, however, when out on the hustings, made promises in this connection, and, now that he is in office. I wonder why he does not fulfil the promises he made on that occasion.
Another matter to which I want to draw his attention is the method adopted by the investigation officers of assessing the income of small farmers living on very poor land. I do not know if there is a special scale laid down for these people who make these investigations—I take it there is—but I should like to know what qualifications they have, apart from whatever scale may be laid down. In the constituency I come from, a cow may have a greater value in one district than in another, because, by reason of the poorness of the land, she will not produce as much milk in one district as she would produce in another, but, at the same time, it is on the number of cows which the farm can carry and the number of acres of corn a farmer has that his income is assessed. I wonder if these people are fully qualified to give a true assessment of a small farmer's income. I have come across small farmers living on farms up to 15 acres who are in very much poorer circumstances than agricultural workers, but, when they apply for a pension, the size of the farm, the number of cows it is supposed to be able to carry and the value of an acre of corn, if they have an acre of corn, are taken into account. The result is that, in most cases, they are refused pensions. The Minister may not think this to be so, but it is a fact that at the moment it is harder for a small farmer to qualify for a pension than it was under Fianna Fáil. I should like to remind those Deputies who stated that Fianna Fáil did nothing for the old age pensioners that, in the period when our Party was in office, the expenditure on old age pensions went up from £2,500,000 to £5,000,000. In view of that, I wonder how can the Deputies opposite say that we did nothing for the old age pensioners. Certainly, Fianna Fáil did a lot for the old age pensioners. One of the first things it did was to restore the cut of 1/- in the old age pensions which the Fine Gael Party had made.
That was Cumann na nGaedheal.
They are still wearing the same jacket.
It was Deputy de Valera who was responsible for that cut by the civil war and the cost of the destruction that was done.
What wonderful imaginations you have on that side of the House.
These are the facts.
Again, it was said from the opposite side that we did nothing for the widows or the orphans. I wonder would the Deputies opposite be surprised to learn that there were 69,000 people in receipt of pensions or allowances under the widows' and orphans' scheme before the present Government came into office? There were 35,000 widows and 34,000 children in receipt of benefit. The scheme introduced by the present Minister for Social Welfare was not the first attempt to look after those people. They were well looked after by Fianna Fáil during the previous 12 or 14 years. The amount of money that was spent on these schemes in 1944 was £867,000. In addition, we had supplementary schemes under which free food, free milk and free boots were provided. All that was done by Fianna Fáil. Therefore no one can say that Fianna Fáil was not mindful of the needs of the people.
You are very unmindful of all the suffering there is in the country. I suppose we all have a share of the responsibility for that.
Deputy Hickey can demonstrate that in one way, and that is by voting against the Government.
I cannot understand all the boasting there is. I think we can all be ashamed of ourselves.
I agree with you. Will the Minister say why, when he introduced his scheme last year, he decided to increase the contributions by a certain percentage over and above the amount that he was prepared to give out by way of benefits? In the case of national health insurance, the stamps were increased from 8d. to 1s. 0½d.
The Deputy is now discussing legislation which was passed through this House. He cannot do that on an Estimate.
And he voted for it.
Can we not criticise the Minister on that?
The Deputy should know that legislation which was passed through this House cannot be discussed on an Estimate.
Well, I cannot compliment him on it.
It would worry me if you did.
All that we can do now is to look forward to the White Paper which was promised 12 or 16 months ago, and hope that it will cover a number of the points which, apparently, were forgotten when last year's scheme was introduced. If the Minister does that he may get some credit from people down the country. There has been a lot of talk in the House about this Department, but the Minister and his colleagues will have to go very far until they will be reminded by people about all the services that they were told they were to get before this Government came into office and which they have not got. I hope that the Minister will consider these things when introducing his promised White Paper.
There is just one small matter to which I desire to draw the attention of the Minister. I understand that a person insured under the National Health Insurance Act will not receive benefit if his stamped cards are not returned in due time. I suppose that is natural enough in a certain way, but yet it constitutes a very severe hardship on the average worker. Take the case of a man in permanent employment. He believes that he is insured against illness since he has handed in his card to his employer. When he becomes ill, he believes that he is entitled to benefit but then finds that, through some error on the part of his employer, his insurance card was not handed in. In consequence, the worker is deprived of the benefit to which he is legally entitled. He has the right, of course, to institute proceedings against his employer for the recovery of the amount due to him. That seems to me to be an inadequate way of dealing with the situation. I think that, if a worker complies with the law by handing his card to his employer and making his weekly contribution, he is entitled to full benefit under the law, and that if any action is to be taken against an employer it should be taken either by the Minister's Department or the National Health Insurance Society. The onus for doing so should not fall on the employee, because everyone will agree that the ordinary worker is hardly in a position to institute proceedings against his employer. Rather than do so, he probably would prefer to suffer the loss, particularly if he has recovered his health. I wonder if the Minister could do anything to remedy that injustice without introducing legislation?
I do not intend to deal very much with the Minister's Estimate. In many ways, one would be rather inclined to refrain from discussing it at all as it would seem to be almost sub judice at the moment. I do want, however, to express a certain amount of disagreement with a view which I heard expressed by Deputy Cowan to-day. He suggested that an unemployed worker is entitled to the same benefit as a person who is in employment. Now, while I hold that an unemployed worker should get the maximum assistance that can be provided for him, I think that the man who is in employment is entitled to a little more. I think everyone will agree that a man who is working will require a little more to enable him to get nourishment to sustain him, to replace worn out clothes and so on, than the person who is idle. It is the duty of the State— and I think it is well that Deputies on every side of the House now acknowledge it-to provide for the unemployed, but there is a more important duty, and that is as far as possible to prevent unemployment.
I think in the statistics that are available there is a good deal of misrepresentation of the position. There are on the unemployment register a considerable number of people who are not suitable for employment that may be available. For example, there are people who are not in the best physical condition. There are people suffering from various nervous troubles who should be assisted in some way other than being put on the unemployment register. Then there are women with dependent children and I do not know how they can be regarded as unemployed. From the point of view of the children, they are entitled to State assistance, but they are not in a position to take up employment. I think a definite segregation should be made of people who are in a position to take up employment immediately. Those people should be put in a definite classification. That would be helpful to the Department.
I do not wish to deal in detail with old age pensions, but there is one thing that struck me with reference to the administration of the Old Age Pensions Acts. There is a marked difference in one district as against another as regards the manner in which the means of an applicant are arrived at. In one district a small farmer with a certain valuation and income can obtain an old age pension, while in an adjoining district a man with the same valuation and income will be debarred by another pensions officer. It may be due to a difference of outlook on the part of the social welfare officers, but I think something might be done to ensure uniformity, because the present system makes for a wide feeling of discontent. One old person is denied the pension and he sees other individuals in similar circumstances receiving pensions.
At some period the Minister will have to find a better way of dealing with very small farmers than by the methods employed now. Some valuation limit would probably be better than having officers trying to find out how many hens are on the farm, and if they are laying, how many cows or calves are there and to what member of the family they belong. All these things create immeasurable and almost insurmountable difficulties for the social welfare officers. A simple test with regard to poor law valuation and the amount of cash available might be more reasonable.
Mr. Blaney
I should like to refer to certain aspects of the policy of the Department of Social Welfare which, it would seem to me, more especially in recent times, have caused a certain amount of hardship among the unemployed. The unemployed, in the course of their applications for unemployment assistance, have to undergo a somewhat strict examination in order that it may be determined whether or not they satisfy the conditions necessary for the granting of assistance. One of the statutory conditions requires the applicant to be genuinely seeking suitable employment. On this question, I should like the Minister to tell us exactly what he regards as suitable employment. I would like him to indicate what the words really mean. Will a person's place of residence and family circumstances be taken into consideration when considering whether employment is suitable or not?
Seemingly, it is not enough that our people should be unemployed, but they have to be examined very strictly in many cases before they become entitled to assistance. Apparently, being treated harshly is not enough from the point of view of the Government, but we have Ministers publicly declaring that our unemployed are work shirkers. I hardly think that is fair to them and, on behalf of the unemployed in my own constituency, I take exception to those statements. I think it is known to the Minister and to other members of this House that the inhabitants of the counties along the western seaboard are among the best workers to be found in any place in the world.
In recent times unemployed men in my constituency were offered work on the Erne scheme at Ballyshannon. They refused to take that work and their unemployment assistance was stopped. I believe that the work at Ballyshannon is not suitable for labourers living 60 or 70 miles away, as many of them are in the north of my constituency. Would not place of residence and family circumstances exempt a man 60 or 70 miles away from the job? Would not a person in such circumstances be justified in not wanting to take that work? As well as that are the conditions on that job such that the man who would take work there would be in a position to keep himself and to send money to his dependents at home? I say that he would not be able to do so. In support of that, I might mention that at our county council meeting on Tuesday last, a motion was passed unanimously asking that an investigation be made by our county medical officer of health into the insanitary condition of the camps in which the men are housed at Ballyshannon. Lest there be any thought that the proposer of the motion had any political object in view, I may say that he is a supporter of the present Government, being one of our Fine Gael councillors. In support of his claim that the conditions are not good at Ballyshannon and are not suitable for men who would have to travel long distances to work there, he gave us some enlightening facts and I will give them briefly to the House as I heard them from him.
This is a job controlled by the Department of Industry and Commerce. I have no responsibility for the conditions there and I cannot remedy them.
Mr. Blaney
May I ask the indulgence of the House in this matter? I am talking about the suitability of employment.
Would the Deputy relate that to the fact that the Minister alleges that unemployment assistance is not withheld while the Deputy is making the point that the work is not suitable?
May I point out that I have no power to stop the payment of unemployment assistance? It is stopped by virtue of the fact that an appeal against its stoppage does not succeed and I do not interfere with that appeal. It is dealt with by a statutory body. I have no power of any kind.
Mr. Blaney
Is the Minister telling the House that he has got no responsibility for the stopping of unemployment assistance?
No personal responsibility as Minister.
Mr. Blaney
Nor has his Department?
It is dealt with by statutory procedure. In order to get unemployment assistance a person must be genuinely seeking work. Quite clearly I cannot decide whether or not he is genuinely seeking work. Quite clearly the Deputy cannot decide. Quite clearly the applicant cannot decide himself. If there is any doubt in his case it is referred to the Court of Referees. The Court of Referees does not consist of the Minister. It consists of representatives of the workers, the employers and an independent chairman. I do not come into the matter at all.
The only reason why I have allowed Deputy Blaney to continue is because there is money in this Estimate in respect of the Court of Referees. The Minister appoints the chairman to that court. Somebody must be responsible in this House for the actual activities of the Court of Referees.
I must beg leave to differ. I cannot be responsible for the decisions of a person who is an independent chairman under the Act. If I were to be responsible for his decisions, then he would no longer be an independent chairman.
The chairman is appointed by the Minister.
Yes, in the same way as a judge is appointed by the Government. But the Government is not responsible for the decisions of a judge.
The parallel does not arise. A judge can only be removed by the Oireachtas. The chairman of the Court of Referees can be removed by the Minister.
Surely, there is no comparison in the case of a judge who is paid out of the Central Fund.
I have decided that there is not.
I submit that any item in respect of which expenditure is provided for by this House in a particular Estimate is legitimate for discussion to the extent to which the Chair will permit that discussion. If it were to be ruled that because a body is set up under Ministerial responsibility, irrespective of whether or not the Minister is responsible for the individual decisions, Deputies would not be permitted to raise questions relative to that body in this House, that would curtail discussion considerably in regard to matters of public expenditure.
May I point out that any change in the procedure for dealing with these applications would require legislation altering the functions of the Court of Referees vis-á-vis the Department and the applicant?
I am allowing Deputy Blaney to make his case because the Department of Social Welfare has power to withhold unemployment insurance or unemployment assistance from people who refuse or decline for one reason or another to take work on the Erne scheme.
Mr. Blaney
In case there may be any doubt in the mind of the Minister or in the mind of any Deputy on the Government Benches with regard to what I have to say as to the suitability of the work being offered on the Erne scheme I shall give the House the facts as set out by a Fine Gael councillor at a council meeting recently. He stated that the conditions prevailing in the camps were insanitary because of the fact that no sanitary accommodation whatsoever is available in the huts in which the men are housed. He further pointed out that when the men returned from the 12 o'clock midnight shift about a week ago they were refused supper. That is hardly the way in which to treat men who have been working until midnight. We have been told furthermore that the wages for the labourers on this particular job——
The Minister has no responsibility as to wages.
Mr. Blaney
I think—possibly I may be wrong—that it is relevant from the point of view that the wages paid are not sufficient to keep a man in camp and at the same time permit him to send something home for his dependents. The figure of £4 8s. 0d. per week was mentioned. My information is that for many weeks, with the exception of the past few weeks during which good weather has prevailed, the average wage was £3 per week, not £4 Ss. Od. as alleged. Out of that £3 per week 33/- goes towards the man's accommodation. Does the Minister, or any member of the Government, believe that a man who is living away from home will have anything to send to his dependents out of a balance of 27/-. I do not think the Minister for Social Welfare will say that he believes that that can be done. I am sure no other Deputy believes it either.
There was another point brought out also at this council meeting. In Ballyshannon, a town adjacent to the Erne scheme, there are 200 labourers unemployed. When they presented themselves to the manager of the works at the Erne their cards were given back to them stamped "No work available". At the same time I know that in my own area, 60 and 70 miles from the Erne works, we had cases where men's unemployment assistance was stopped because they refused to take work on the Erne scheme. I gather now that work did not exist. Is this some kind of racket with the object of cutting out unemployment assistance altogether and at the same time leading the people to believe that it is being paid? If that is so, does the Minister for Social Welfare condone that proceeding? If he is not aware of the position the sooner he investigates it the better. We want the facts. We want to know whether or not work is available. Is it only available for men from a distance and not available for men in the locality? If there is work there why not give it to the local men? Why give it to the men who have to come long distances and to whom it is not profitable?
Surely, it is not the Minister's object to stop unemployment assistance. If it is the object of the Government, then the Government should have the courage of its convictions and it should tell the House that it intends to stop the payment of unemployment assistance. Why try to cod the people into believing that unemployment assistance is being paid when, in fact, it is not? I have given the facts. Those facts were publicly stated at a council meeting by a Fine Gael county councillor. I want to quote now from a leading article in the Donegal Democrat of Friday 24th June, 1949, lest there should be any doubt in anybody's mind that this is something introduced here with the purpose of causing a bit of a rumpus. That is not the object. The leading article says:—
"Judging by the many letters which we have received during the past few weeks relating to the question of employment on the Erne scheme a stage would appear to have been reached when the responsible Government Minister, who has labelled a not inconsiderable number of Irish workers as lazy men, should consider holding a full-dress inquiry into the position."
Was it the present Minister who said that or who is alleged to have said it in that article? There is a different Minister for Social Services now.
Mr. Blaney
No.
Was the present Minister responsible for that?
Mr. Blaney
I am not quoting this as a statement made by the Minister. I am only quoting a comment in a leading article which brings in a letter from a worker on the Erne scheme, which also appears in that paper and which I intend to read as showing the unsuitability of the work on the Erne scheme. The article goes on to state:—
"However far from the truth allegations of discrimination and bad conditions may-be, it has become clear that all is not well, not alone so far as the Erne scheme is concerned, but in regard to most Government sponsored undertakings including the turf development scheme.
From the letters which have reached us this week on the subject we selected one for publication because it shows in concrete form why it is that all men are not eager to leave their homes, unpretentious and humble as they may be, for work on public schemes, where in the special circumstances the remuneration is no more than a pittance."
With your permission, I shall read the letter to which I have already referred. This letter also appears in the Donegal Democrat of the 24th June, 1949, and is headed “Letter from ex-Erne scheme workers”. It states:
"Relative to statements by Mr. Morrissey regarding conditions on the Erne hydro-electric scheme, I wish to put the following facts on record.
As a married man with a family to support, I sought employment on the scheme ten weeks ago. Owing to the inadequate remuneration caused by small rate of pay and wet time, I found it impossible to support my family in anything like ordinary comfort. Example: Total wages for seven weeks average £2 14s. 5d., which represents shift work. As regards Irishmen refusing work on the Erne scheme, I would like to point out that I asked Mr. Burke for a transfer to a job with more overtime on it, but was refused. Owing to domestic reasons, I was compelled to go home for a week and when I came back I saw Mr. Gannon who, in ignorance of the fact that I had previously worked on the scheme, engaged me as a labourer. The reason I saw Mr. Gannon was because I thought I would get more overtime with his men."
These are, I take it, some of the foremen on the job. The letter goes on:
"However, it was necessary that the starting card would be O.K.'d by Mr. Burke, which he refused to do— as he wished to send me back to the work I previously was at When I pointed out to him it was overtime I wanted, he said it was no use arguing and refused to start me at all. The only alternative left to me was to see Mr. Vahey, personnel officer, who, when I explained my domestic position, very generously gave me work with the Electricity Supply Board."
The essential point is missing in that letter. The Deputy does not connect that with the Department of Social Welfare by showing that the man was cut off from unemployment assistance.
Mr. Blaney
The point I am making is that the conditions were such that this man could earn only £2 14s. 5d. on which he had to support his wife and himself.
The Deputy does not show that he was cut off from unemployment assistance or unemployment assurance.
Mr. Blaney
No, but men in my area who were asked to go there and work under these conditions and who refused to do so, have been cut off. I want to know if the Minister will agree that an offer of work such as is described in that letter, in the editorial and in the statements of the councillor at our council meeting last Tuesday, is sufficient justification for cutting men off from unemployment assistance. I would ask the Minister to consider the statements which I have quoted. They were made in all good faith, they are supported by my own findings and by the statements of a member of the county council who supported the Government and supports them still. I should like the Minister to look into the matter and to find out for himself just what the conditions are on this scheme because men who have refused to work under these conditions are cut off from unemployment assistance. I would ask him not to tolerate the hardships which have been created due to this offer of work on the Erne scheme. I should also like him to look into the matter to see if it is true that 200 men are unemployed in Ballyshannon town adjacent to the Erne scheme and that they have been refused work on the scheme. Seeing that they have been refused work, why should he cut off men from my area because they would not take work which apparently does not exist?
I do not intend to detain the House very long with the remarks which I have to make on this Estimate. I listened with a good deal of amazement and a certain amount of amusement to the speech delivered by Deputy Dr. Ryan on this Estimate last week. Were it not that I have a very long experience of the mentality of the man who made the statement, I could hardly recognise him as the same Dr. Ryan who at one time occupied the position of Minister for Social Welfare. He accused the members of this group of having forgotten the promises they made during the last general election campaign in reference to social security and other matters. He seemed to overlook for the purpose of his argument the fact that when this Government was established, it issued on coming into office, a ten-point programme upon which the Government proposed to act. One of the principal points in that ten-point programme was that they intended during their period of office to draft and put into operation a scheme of social security. The Deputy now knows, if he did not know at the time he was speaking, what the position is in regard to that whole matter.
I want to know from Deputy Dr. Ryan or any front bench speaker of Fianna Fáil before the debate concludes what they would have done if they had remained in office until now or what kind of social security scheme Deputy Dr. Ryan would have put into effect. It would be interesting to hear from the various Fianna Fáil spokesmen what they would have done and when it would have been done, because there seems to be a good deal of mystery surrounding the whole policy of Fianna Fáil in connection with this matter. If I wanted any indication of what was in the minds of the Fianna Fáil Party when they were in office or what they would be likely to do had they remained in office, I would read up, as I may say I have read up and listen attentively to, the statements made on his matter in October, 1947, only three months before the general election. We then had a discussion in this House upon a very modest motion calling for a modification of the means test. That was opposed by Deputy Ryan on behalf of the Government although he indicated that the approximate cost of putting into operation a slight improvement in the social services would only cost between £500,000 and £750,000. The excuse given by Deputy Dr. Ryan on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Government speaking on that matter on the 15th October, 1947, was that the country could not afford that modest sum for the purpose of improving, in the interests of old age pensioners, blind pensioners and widows and orphans, the small allowance paid at that time. If the attitude adopted by Deputy Dr. Ryan when he was Minister for Social Welfare was any indication of the amount that would be set aside at a later stage by the Fianna Fáil Government had they remained in office, the old age pensioners, the blind pensioners and the widows and orphans need not have expected to get anything like what they have got under the Act of 1948. They could not afford between £500,000 and £750,000 but, since it came into office, this Government has made provision for increased allowances to the type of persons I have mentioned amounting approximately to £3,000,000 per year. As I say, I hope it is not too late even now, before the contents of the White Paper are disclosed, for the leaders of Fianna Fáil to disclose what they would have done if they had been in office or how much money they would be willing to set aside for this particular purpose. I am not sure whether the scheme which they intended to put into operation would be on an insurance basis, whether it would be a compulsory contributory scheme to which the State, the employer and the worker would subscribe.
For a good many years I have advocated in this House and outside a compulsory insurance scheme, because I have come across too many cases where married men with dependents, when passing out of this world, left nothing even to bury them, not alone something to maintain their widows and orphans. It must be a terrible thing for any Christian-minded citizen to be given timely notice of leaving this world and to be lying in bed feeling that he is leaving the world with no provision having been made during his lifetime for those he is leaving after him. I have no hesitation in advocating a compulsory social security scheme on an insurance basis whereby every wage-earner of every class, male and female, would be made to contribute to provide for those who would be left after them. This is not the first time I have indicated my views in this House and outside.
I wonder whether these were the lines on which Deputy Dr. Ryan and his colleagues would have gone if they had been allowed to remain in office and at some time brought in a social security scheme or so-called social security scheme. If the amount they were thinking of is anything like the sum they were quibbling about on the occasion I have referred to, they would not have done any more than has been done in the scheme brought in by the present Minister in 1948.
I want to draw attention to another matter and I hope I am in order in doing so. I take it it is the duty of the Minister as head of the Department and as a Minister who has collective responsibility to make provision to ensure that, as far as it can possibly be done, work is provided for every class of unemployed citizen, whether registered or otherwise.
I have already ruled that unemployment as a problem is not relevant to this Estimate.
May I say that I sincerely believe that the present register of unemployed has no relation to realities? Some attempt should be made by the Department of Social Welfare or the Department of Industry and Commerce to make certain that when works, either locally essential or nationally necessary, are being put into operation, this out-of-date method of only providing money where there is a sufficient number of registered unemployed in the area will be done away with and that wherever the Government find that essential works can be carried out the necessary money will be provided from the central funds and an attempt made to secure the necessary number of persons to carry out the work, not only from the register of unemployed in the area, but from all available unemployed persons.
Is it the administration of the scheme the Deputy is objecting to or the method of getting employees?
I am advocating the abolition of the present method of carrying out unemployment schemes confined to the present register of unemployed, which is not a real register.
The Deputy is on the wrong Estimate.
I also want to ask the Minister what is the position of his Department in relation to the conditions of persons employed as labour exchange managers or assistant managers? On a number of occasions the Minister, as well as other colleagues of his, advocated some better provision for such persons. I know the Minister has been in touch with the organisation claiming to represent the views of managers or assistant managers of labour exchanges and I hope he will indicate at an early date some change in the existing rotten conditions of persons employed in this form of activity. I should be glad to hear from him if anything is likely to be done during the coming year in that respect.
Reference has been made by other Deputies to decisions of Courts of Referees where genuine applicants for unemployment assistance have been turned down and in regard to which— I am not sure if I am right in this— the Minister is not willing to reverse the decisions of the chairman or members of the court.
The Minister has no power in the matter. What is the use of continuing to say that?
The Minister can take other steps to see that if, in his opinion, cases have been dealt with unfairly in the past, they will be dealt with more fairly in the future. I came across a case recently which I reported to the Department and in which I am not satisfied with the decision of the Department where a blacksmith who applied for unemployment insurance benefit was turned down by the Court of Referees because, in the opinion of the court, he had not taken suitable alternative employment. Does any Deputy, regardless of what side of the House he sits on, think that suitable alternative employment for a blacksmith would be labourer's work on a drainage scheme? I do not think so. I think a decision of that kind should be reviewed. I shall not take up the time of the House in quoting the details of other cases. I think it is unfair, however, that a blacksmith who had been working at his trade for the best part of his lifetime should be refused unemployment insurance benefit on the ground that he refused to take suitable alternative employment, that employment being labourer's work on a drainage scheme far away from his place of residence. If the Minister can secure power for the purpose of reviewing cases of that kind in which he considers the decisions to be unfair, I would be glad if he would look into them in the future.
This Estimate has been discussed over a long period and the discussion has been on a rather widespread scale. Deputy Dr. Ryan opened the debate on the Estimate for the Opposition Party in the House and it was quite clear that this year, as last year, he took the general line of trying to write down as far as he could the achievements of the Department during the past year as well as doing his best to create in the mind of anybody listening to him doubts as to the progressive policy which the Department would adopt during the ensuing year.
Deputy Dr. Ryan, reeking with sympathy, passionately desired that this, that and the other thing be done. He was obviously suffering from amnesia, as he forgot to tell the House that, four months before the last general election—that is, in October, 1947—when a modest motion was introduced here to modify the means test, he himself, who was then Minister for Social Welfare, whose heart allegedly bleeds to-day with passionate solicitude for those affected by the means test, on that occasion, on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Government, said that the Government could not, and would not, find the £500,000 necessary to meet the claim contained in the motion. Yet the Deputy, who was responsible on that occasion for expressing the Government's point of view, and who declined to accept the motion asking for a modest modification of the means test, has the hardihood, 16 months after his Government has left office at the request of the Irish people, to tell the House that he is now thoroughly in favour of a modification of the means test. Some people might call that a change of mind and others might call it hypocrisy. I think I would be on the side of those who describe it as hypocrisy and I think most intelligent people would do so, too.
What is the use of mouthing about what you would have done if you were in office, or what you would do if you were put back, when you did not do those things when in office? What is the use of pretending to be sympathetic about a modification of the means test, pretending you are anxious to secure it, if, having had 16 years in office, you declined to modify the means test in any way? The means test stood there all the time Fianna Fáil was in office. They had 16 years in which to abolish it or modify it but, notwithstanding that, all the folk organised in the Fianna Fáil Party are now bursting with enthusiasm to modify it. Would it be unfair to say that Fianna Fáil would make a marvellous Government if it were kept always in opposition, as it is only when in opposition it shows or pretends to show sympathy? When it is in office, many of the things which it advocated in opposition it deliberately decides not to do—as it deliberately decided not to modify the means test, four months before the general election.
The Minister promised to do away with the means test.
And I will do so—and the Deputy will be the most miserable man in this House when the day comes.
Indeed, he will not.
Is not that the whole worry about the Government's social security scheme? Is it not the truth of the matter that Deputies opposite will have a most miserable week when they see the scheme? Is it not perfectly true that, when the Government has introduced this scheme, Deputies opposite will be hard put, at the next general election, to explain why they did not do it in 16 years?
Let us see it
They would do it now with enthusiasm, if they got back, mar dheadh. Well, they are not going to get back; they are not going to get the chance to introduce it. When it is introduced, it will be a miserable day for the Party opposite, but they will have to put up with the misery
I think it is the Minister who feels miserable.
I congratulate Deputy Dr. Ryan on having inoculated himself against two disabilities. He is certainly not suffering from any introspection and he is not in any way embarrassed by any sense of modesty as to the achievements of himself and his Government in the realm of social welfare. His whole line has been to try to write down what was done in the Social Welfare Act last year. That was the tuning note for every speaker from the benches opposite. That was the war-cry. Fianna Fáil Deputies came in armed with statistics, which had been fed to them like fodder, to try to write down the Social Welfare Act. Some of them could not even understand the statistics they got. One notable personality in that respect was Deputy Walsh of Kilkenny, who could not read even the simple figures. He thought that, as a result of the Social Welfare Act last year, the people got less benefit than they had previously. I advised him to read the Act. I think he said he had read it, and I gave him further advice, to get someone else to read it and explain it to him. What are the facts? In rural areas of County Kilkenny, prior to the introduction of the Act, the maximum amount of pension under the noncontributory scheme for a widow with six children was 22/6 per week. As a result of the Act, that person is now getting 38/- a week. Is it not a substantial improvement, within 11 months, to have the pension stepped up from 22/6 to 38/- a week? That is what is happening in the rural areas of County Kilkenny, and Deputy Derrig knows it perfectly well. I know it must be embarrassing not to be able to explain why this Government has the money to do that, when it was pleaded so often that the previous Government was unable to do it. That is very embarrassing to Deputies Walsh and Derrig.
It is not embarrassing.
Well, the Deputy is showing no great enthusiasm. Poor Deputy Walsh read the figures upside down, or they slipped about on whatever page he was reading, as we got a pitiful exhibition of his inability to understand them. I tried to help him. However, I have written that into the records now, so that Deputy Walsh and his constituents may understand what they have got. I do not believe the people in County Kilkenny are as dull as that. I imagine that any widow who goes to any post office in County Kilkenny, since this Act was passed last year, and gets 38/-, knows the difference between that and 22/6.
Deputy Walsh may think she cannot count and that a simple-minded person would misunderstand figures as he does; but I have no doubt in the world that such a widow is not concerned with Deputy Walsh's propaganda and when she holds 38/- in silver in her hand, which she gets from the inter-Party Government, she knows that it is heavier than the 22/6 which she got from the Fianna Fáil Government. So long as she is left with a sense of touch and a sense of weight, she will not be deceived by these mendacious figures of Deputy Walsh, who himself is not suffering from any excess of brilliance in the matter of explaining.
Deputy Dr. Ryan, of course, wanted to know about the White Paper. The White Paper is Deputy Ryan's ghost— and no wonder, it ought to be—and so are many other things. I have told the House that the Government already has the White Paper and I am going to tell the House this as well, that when the Fianna Fáil Party left office in February of last year, decisions had not been taken on a whole variety of matters on which decisions must be taken before anybody could attempt to produce a White Paper. If anyone wants to look at the official files of the Department, let a committee of this House be set up and let it examine the official files, and there will be seen there on record correspondence which clearly indicates that, when the electorate last spoke, decisions had not been taken on important matters which could not be ignored if they were to be incorporated in a comprehensive social insurance scheme. Officials of my Department worked hard on the social welfare scheme of last year. The very fact that they worked hard all the year is clear evidence that decisions had not been taken and that information had not been sifted. At all events, as a result of my association with the White Paper and this Government's association with it, it is now a better White Paper than it would have been, and substantial improvements were effected even over and above the suggestions for an earlier draft White Paper, as a result of my association with that particular scheme. However, we will come to the question of the scheme at a later stage, when the House and the country will have an opportunity of reading a very informative document. When it comes to be considered, I do not suppose that we can assume that it will be considered independent of the Party feeling which has manifested itself so clearly in the discussion on this Estimate, this year in particular.
Deputy Dr. Ryan or somebody else said that in respect of the reciprocal arrangements some early efforts had been made to effect the arrangements. I want to say that I think the manner in which the whole question of reciprocal arrangements was handled in respect of unemployment insurance benefits constituted a colossal blunder. During the war we sent tens of thousands of Irishmen to work in the bombdrenched areas of Britain—Britain was badly in need of Irish workers at the time. We allowed these Irish workers to go. We gave them certificates to go. We facilitated their going. We facilitated examination as to their suitability to go. They went to Britain and we never made a deal with the British Government whereby they would give these men credit in an Irish unemployment insurance fund for unemployment benefit purposes if and when they came back to Ireland. Men went to Britain in 1939 and 1940 and they stayed there for five, six, seven, eight, nine and ten years. Over nine years about 90,000 of them came back and not a single one of the 90,000 has got one farthing credit from the British Government in respect of the unemployment insurance stamps which he put on his card when he was in Britain.
I want to know what serious effort was made to try to recover for these workers during the period of the war, credit for the stamps which they were compelled to put on their cards in Britain. The British said they must comply with their Acts, they must put on the stamps. A condition existed in Britain in which they would never need to draw a farthing there. The British knew in fact, that they would only need the benefits when they returned to Ireland and were awaiting re-employment here. They forced Irish workers to put stamps on their cards. Circumstances existed in Britain in which they could not get benefit and they refused to refund one farthing to be placed to the credit of Irish workers when they returned, having rendered to Britain all the services which they did render during the war years. Deputy Dr. Ryan has the hardihood to talk about initiating reciprocal arrangements. I know of no more colossal blunder than was committed in the gross mismanagement of that question.
No Minister would lower his dignity to go to talk to a British Minister about it. No Minister would bother to leave Dublin to go and see that tens of thousands of Irish workers got some credit for the stamps they put on their cards during the war years, and the position is that when we took office not a single farthing had been placed to the credit of any of these Irish workers who worked in Britain during the war years. If I were Deputy Dr. Ryan, I would try to envelop myself in secrecy about reciprocal arrangements, having regard to the grossly incompetent manner in which that matter was handled and the appalling losses which were suffered by Irish workers because nobody was prepared vigorously and vigilantly to enter the battle on their side. A situation was created in which a couple of hundred thousand of our workers went to Britain and subscribed to build up the British unemployment insurance fund and that during the war years, when we had a bargaining power with Britain and when we might have got something from Britain in respect of Irish workers—it did not mean much to Britain; it was a trifling sum—in fact, no effective steps were taken to recover for the Irish workers the credits which they had in the British unemployment insurance fund and which were not then or since retransferred to an Irish fund. The past is gone but I still think we must try to make a fight to get from the British what is morally due here.
The whole position has been queered by the manner in which it has been handled. Some people ought to come down off their perches. It would not have offended their dignity if they had discussed the matter with the British at the time when they had bargaining power with the British. Instead of that, their sense of face and their artificial sense of dignity would not allow them to enter into discussions with the British on the matter on a face to face basis. Apparently, our nationality would not stand the test of discussing with British Ministers during the war period the rights to unemployment insurance benefits of Irish workers.
Deputy Dr. Ryan talked about the decision to set up the Department of Social Welfare. It was advocated in this House on many occasions, particularly advocated by the Labour Party and, indeed, it was a pretty long and painstaking task to convince the last Government that it was desirable but, as a result of constant pressure and constant agitation, they were forced to recognise the fact that a separate Department of Social Welfare and a separate Department of Health were necessary if the dead hand was to be taken off the spheres of activity concerning health and social welfare. But, everybody knew that there would be no progress in these fields so long as the Cæsarlike rule of the Custom House continued and the Cæsars in the Custom House were then compelled to shed some of their dominion over these Departments and two separate Departments were set up.
Quite obviously, the function of the Department of Social Welfare was to co-ordinate the existing services which were then administered by separate Departments, to bring them all together and ultimately to weave them into a comprehensive whole. That has been done. It has been done by integrating the staffs of the different sections into one, in the first instance, to get a unified type of administration. It will be done to a greater extent by weaving our existing unco-ordinated social welfare schemes into a broad pattern of social security which might be described colloquially by the phrase "a comprehensive insurance scheme". That will be done and it is being done. So far as I am concerned, no effort will be spared to ensure that the pattern of our social services in the future will be the best we can provide for the toiling people of this country—subject, of course, all the time to the overriding consideration of what it is possible for the nation to pay and do justice to those who rendered service to it. During the past 12 months and during the next 12 months, energy without stint has been and will be put into the task of improving these social services. So far as I am concerned, my personal attitude in the matter is that I will not be satisfied with our social services until I am satisfied that they are the best the nation can afford.
Deputy Dr. Ryan may seek, if he likes, to write down what has been done—to try to minimise what has been attempted. Let me say this to Deputy Dr. Ryan. He is not a good judge of what has been done or of what ought to be done. His period in the Department of Social Welfare from what I discovered there, was a bleak and a fruitless one. I say to him now and to every other Deputy in this House to compare 1947 with 1948 in the matter of the achievements in the sphere of social welfare and then nobody will deny, so far as those affected by schemes are concerned, that they were better off in 1948 than they were in 1947. Fianna Fáil may pretend now to people that, all the time, it had a hankering after doing these things. It is not terribly easy to convince the people that you can have a hankering for 16 years and yet all the time display such an iron discipline over yourself that you would resist the hankering. "Fianna Fáil was bursting to abolish the means test. Fianna Fáil was bursting to give people higher rates of benefit." There was no impediment during the past 16 years in the matter of doing it. If it was not done one can only conclude the obvious —that Fianna Fáil did not want to do it. Now it is in the dilemma of not being able to explain why it did not do it and why money has since been found to do these things for which Fianna Fáil could not discover the money when they were in office.
A number of questions have been raised on various matters in connection with this Estimate. I should like to deal with a few of them so as to give the House a picture of the position. Deputy Beegan, I think, got himself worried over the emigration commission, as he called it. His leader. Deputy Lemass, similarly evinced a rather excited interest in the activities of that commission—to such an extent that he could not refrain from reflecting insultingly on the members who are trying to serve the nation on that commission. I do not suppose Deputy Beegan knows all the secrets of the Fianna Fáil Party——
I desire to assure the Minister, through the Chair, that I did not intend any reflection whatsoever.
I agree with that and I give the Deputy the credit that when he came to deal with the commission he did not follow the bad and unmannerly example of his leader. This is not merely a commission on emigration. It is a commission on emigration and on other population problems. The terms of reference to the commission asked it to investigate the causes and consequences of the present level and trend in population in Ireland; to examine, in particular, the social and economic effects of birth, death, migration and marriage rates at present and their probable course in the near future; to consider what measures, if any, should be taken in the national interest to influence the future trend in population; and generally, to consider the desirability of formulating a national population policy. We have got no population policy to-day. Nobody knows what is happening in the social and economic sphere in respect of these matters which have been referred to this commission. We have never had a population policy and we have not got one to-day. This commission has been set up to advise the Government on the causes and consequences of the present level and trend in population. I think every Deputy in the House ought to be glad that it is possible to select high-minded men and women to apply themselves at no cost to the nation to such a highly technical job as that.
Expenses should be no deterrent.
Of course not. I would not insult these people by reducing the thing to the level of an auction or a bargain. They have gladly put at my disposal the talents which they unquestionably possess and they subjected themselves to very considerable hardship in doing so. This has been a very technical and a very difficult task. The commission has heard evidence on no fewer than 40 occasions from individuals, from representative bodies and from Government Departments. It is doing what I think no other commission has ever done—it is sitting each week in order to continue with its work. It has now, I understand, completed the taking of evidence. It is engaged now in presenting to itself questions which must be answered in order to comply with the terms of reference and which have flowed from the evidence already submitted to the commission.
The members of the commission have assured me that they are anxious to finish this job as soon as possible. They are devoting considerable time to the task of finishing the report. They are most anxious to do it because they are men with other interests. There is no question here of trying to prolong the job. They are most anxious to do it. I have tried to get a date from them as to when the report will be available. At this stage they are not able to say when they will have it available but they have given me the assurance that so far as they are concerned they are most anxious to complete the work and that, for that purpose, they have been sitting each week at very considerable inconvenience to themselves. That information ought to be reassuring to the House and to the nation generally. We are now going to get for the first time a report on economic and social issues which we do not possess at the moment and which, in fact, we have not tried to get any year since 1922. We are going to get it now for the first time. Instead of engaging in offensive sneers against a talented commission of this kind I think that Deputy Lemass, as deputy leader of the Opposition and as an ex-Minister, ought to show some sense of good taste in a matter which affects the standing of estimable citizens of this country.
The question of social services has been raised. There was the usual cut and thrust of debate. Efforts were made to quote the views of one Minister on social services, to quote the promises of other people before elections and the speeches made by Deputies and Ministers here, there and everywhere else. I suppose the problem of social services is a wide social and economic problem on which it is possible to have a difference of opinion. Differences of opinion were even reflected here in this House by different Deputies. Some members of the Fianna Fáil Party pretended to be bursting with enthusiasm for a comprehensive scheme of social services, whereas the Leader of the Fianna Fáil Party, Deputy de Valera, talked on the matter as if he had some doubts yet in his mind as to whether we could afford a comprehensive scheme, or what kind of a comprehensive scheme we could afford. My impression, when he finished speaking, was that he would like to see a White Paper—not so much with a view to finding a date for the operation of the scheme but with a view to finding out the ideas of the people—whether we could afford such a scheme and what that scheme was likely to cost the country. He did not appear to me to share some of the wild enthusiasm of his supporters for the introduction of a scheme of that kind. I do not mind that: I do not think that is terribly serious; I think it is quite normal and natural that on such a huge problem which has played, and will in the future continue to play, an ever-expanding part in social and economic problems in every country in the world, there should be divergence of opinion. I want to put my views on record for what they are worth; I do not worry if they disagree with other people's views; they are my views at all events and I want to convert people to them because I think they are sound.
Will you be able to convert the Minister for Finance?
I do not care whom I convert.
He will convert him more easily than you converted your Minister for Finance in October, 1947.
That is one kind of view. It is an honestly held view I think. I do not agree with it myself. It is said that the need for social services arises out of the conditions of the people and that therefore the remedy is to provide the people with the wherewithal to enable them to provide against the hazards against which social insurance schemes endeavour to guarantee citizens. In other words, step up the wages and salaries of wage and salary earners, give them regular employment and in that way render unnecessary the provision of social insurance schemes to cater for the risks which are generally covered by them. That is one type of remedy for a situation which normally calls for the provision of social insurance schemes in enlightened countries throughout the world. What we have to do is to say to ourselves: is it possible that in the foreseeable future we will be able to remedy our economic conditions on that basis? Does anybody here to-day believe that it is possible, bearing in mind the fact that we have to compete in a highly competitive market with our exports, to give people such wage and salary scales as will enable them out of their own resources to provide against such risks as unemployment, sickness, childbirth, old age and such certainties as death? I am not accusing Deputy Beegan in this regard, but he will, I think, admit that it would be quite impossible in the foreseeable future to create conditions West of the Shannon and in Connemara in particular to adjust things in that way.
I am glad we have converted you. That was our policy at all times.
All I can do then is congratulate the Deputy on having kept it so secret. The Deputy can be trusted if that was his policy. Whatever other charges can be made against him, spilling the beans is not among them, but let us come back to the realities of the situation. It is obviously quite impossible to create these conditions in that area in the foreseeable future. It is impossible to imagine that among these working people, workers who get fragmentary employment for a few months of the year and whose wage rates are still probably inadequate for decent sustenance or small farmers who have to work poor, barren land you can create conditions whereby out of their own resources they can provide for all risks. In my opinion you simply cannot do it. Take other countries throughout the world. New Zealand, for example, which is one of the richest countries in the world to-day from the point of view of industrial and agriculural potential has found it impossible to do it.
There is no comparison.
It has not been found possible in the rich, highly developed Scandinavian countries with their higher standard of life than we have, their higher industrial potential than we have and their higher agricultural potential than we have. They have had to face up to the fact that left to their own resources the toiling masses could not provide against these risks and hazards. I do not believe it is possible to provide against them here in Ireland by any reasonably effective adjustment of salary and wage scales and I am not prepared to wait until wage and salary scales are adjusted in order to give people a guarantee against these risks. It seems to me quite absurd to say to a poor widow: "The social services are inadequate and do not cover you, but we have a plan for the future whereby if your husband had lived he might have got more wages and you could have provided against his death and insulated yourself against economic hardship." In our circumstances we have got to evolve a comprehensive scheme of social insurance to cover people against the risks against which they are not able to insure themselves. It is because I believe that that I am a firm supporter of the idea that the only practicable policy for use in our circumstances is the inauguration of a comprehensive social insurance scheme to provide in an organised way a guarantee under State auspices against the worst hardships which follow when misfortunes make their impact on the lives of the ordinary people who are not well endowed with this world's wealth.
There is another school of thought. You may regard social services as something indicative of the fact that the body politic is not healthy. Maybe that is right too; it depends on the angle from which you look at it, but it seems to me, in the type of society in which we live, the world in which we live and the economic conditions which we see around us, that the person who wants to wait until the body politic gets so healthy that it will not need social insurance schemes is fondling hopes which I do not see being realised at any time in the foreseeable future.
Is that an admission that some of your statements in the past were not well considered?
My statement to-day is the same as it always was. I believe that the ordinary man in the street who toils in a factory, at the dock or on a farm is not able to meet these risks out of his own resources, and organised provision must be made against the hardships which follow the impact of these misfortunes on the lives of the people under a State scheme because it is not possible to do it in any other way. There are people who stand for the philosophy of the survival of the fittest and let the devil take the hindmost. They say to the cabin boy that there is a possibility that he will be captain, but that is an illusion in our conditions of life. I believe that we must face up to the matter, recognising that in our circumstances a comprehensive scheme of social insurance is the best way to inoculate and insulate our people against the worst hardships which follow upon the impact of misfortune on their domestic life. The ordinary man in the street, in my view, is not able to provide for the rainy day, adversity or misfortune for the simple reason that in the economic world there are too many rainy days. Just because he cannot make that provision for himself we must organise a scheme whereby the State will do it for him, taking whatever is reasonable as contribution to ensure that he helps to meet the risks which he is expected to meet according to his own capacity to meet them. A comprehensive social insurance scheme will do all that. We hear in this country boasting of the fact that we are a Christian people. Now and again in idyllic moments we talk about our Christian Constitution. I have not much use for beautiful lines in a constitution which allow an unemployed man to go hungry, a sick woman to suffer the pangs of malnutrition, or which allow a woman to hawk her orphans from one door to another to get the wherewithal to live. If you are going to have a Christian constitution based on the Christian concept of life you ought to have some balance between our day-to-day relations. We ought not only to write Christianity into the Constitution in our day-to-day lives but write it in a complete and effective form into the legislation which we are passing in this House.
I do not want to see flowery language in a constitution and our institutions filled with poverty-stricken people. I want it to take the form of providing security for human beings, for flesh and blood, for our own kith and kin so that we can insulate them as far as we can against the hardships which beset our Christian life. That can be done only by a comprehensive social insurance scheme and so far as I am concerned I have always stood for that and will continue to do so in the future.
I do not want to suggest that the implementation of a comprehensive social security scheme should in any way extinguish or even diminish the obligation on the ordinary individual to provide, as far as he can from his own resources, against the risks which are inevitable in this life. I would not like to see a comprehensive social insurance scheme in any way weaken the incentive to any man or woman to make whatever provision they can against the ultimate rainy day. I do not think the one materially detracts from the other. In any scheme you build up standards for a people, and if you build up decent concepts of life for the people I venture to say you can teach them much more easily the ways of thrift and prudence than you can if you just regard them as economic flotsam and jetsam which is nobody's responsibility and with which the State is not concerned. I want to say that I am an unrepentant believer in the value from the national and Christian point of view of providing a comprehensive social insurance scheme aimed at giving some measure of security to the bulk of the people of this land of ours: to eliminate discontent and friction which bad economic conditions provoke and to make progress in enlightening the community.
Deputy Derrig apparently spent some midnight oil gathering statistics for this debate and went through the hoary tomes of other days to find speeches which might cause embarrassment to people in the course of this discussion. In the course of his nocturnal ramblings he apparently got into the realms of figures because he said that under the health insurance scheme of 1911 the people were getting 9d. for 4d. and he seemed to have grave doubts as to whether that position was being maintained or whether the reverse was the case and the people were now getting 4d. for 9d. The Deputy will be glad to know that the outlook is not as black as he thought because in 1948 approximately £897,000 was collected in contributions under the National Health Insurance Acts. That was collected between employers and employees, and if you take a rough division of that figure you will find that employees contributed roughly £450,000 but during the same year £1,342,000 was expended so that instead of getting 9d. for 4d. it will be seen that they are getting better dividends than they got under the original National Health Insurance Act.
The question of the Courts of Referees was discussed at some length on this Estimate and there were some who said they embarked on a policy of depriving the people of unemployment assistance. I do not want to see this question of unemployment assistance made a Party matter and I do not want to see it drawn into the ordinary cut and thrust of political life. There are certain aspects of unemployment assistance and assistance for the old age pensioners which merit the serious consideration of everybody concerned with the wellbeing of the people of this country.
I do not believe that the unemployed people, as such, are work shy. I do not believe the ordinary decent married man is unwilling to work. I suppose you would find in every community a percentage who will, for one reason or another find work distasteful and who are not inclined to work if they can get along without it. That is not confined to the poorer people. Quite a lot of wealthy people do very little work. The ordinary unemployed decent man with a wife and children is as anxious to work as anybody I know. If there are black sheep let us segregate them but do not let us come to the conclusion that all men, because they are unemployed, do not want to work.
I want to look at this thing dispassionately. What is the position under the Act which was passed in 1933? That was a blanket Act for the whole country and it is still in operation throughout the country. Although it has been in operation since 1933 no serious effort has been made to get down to evaluating the consequences which flowed from that Act or to measure out in any way the types of the persons claiming benefit under it. Our unemployment figures to-day are not honest figures because we are not merely taking into consideration those unemployed who had work and lost it. We take into the unemployed figures— a defect which we inherited—not merely men who had work and lost it but those whose normal occupation is to be unemployed. That is not their fault.
Is the Minister not aware that Deputy Smith visited a number of employment exchanges during his term in the Board of Works to ascertain the people who were genuinely unemployed and the people who were not fit to take employment?
I assure the Deputy that there are no reliable figures in the Department. I have collected a vast amount of information as to the types of people which constitute the recipients of unemployment assistance registered in four large areas and I am going to send out men who can look at these people and see what kind of folk they are. Are they able to work? Do they want to work? What are their ages? Where do they live? What sustains them? What kind of life do they live in their little cottages on small-holdings? It is not that I want to deprive them of one halfpenny, but, if we are to spend £1,500,000 each year on unemployment assistance, we ought at least to know who is getting it and in what circumstances it is being paid. The House will be all the richer for getting some picture of that kind. It will not be prepared by me; it will be prepared by impartial people; but the House is entitled to have that information. It has not got it at the moment and it did not get it in the past. I am going to try to collect it and a great deal of work has been done in that respect and I hope soon to put people on the road to look at these people and to ascertain where exactly the money is going, to what areas it is going and to what classes of people it is going.
From my close observation of the problem—and I have spent a good deal of time observing it—we are paying unemployment assistance not to a man who works for six months, loses it for a month or two and then goes back to work again. In many cases in certain countries—I do not want to discuss the countries at the moment; that is a matter we can discuss later —and even in certain groups of countries, the class of person who is seeking unemployment assistance is the small farmer who is living on a holding of £2, £3, £4, £5 or £6 valuation. He is not an unemployed man in the ordinary sense of the term. Admittedly, he will work on the bog, if he can get a job there, and, admittedly, he will work on the roads or on a drainage or relief scheme, if such a scheme comes his way; but, over the whole year, there is not sufficient employment for him. There is very little employment. He may have a good year this year, but, if a particular job is done in his area this year you cannot undo it next year and give him a job on it again. This year may be his El Dorado from the point of view of getting work and wages, but good fortune may not come to that district next year or the year after, with the result that he has two bad years of unemployment. During these years, he has to seek unemployment assistance. That is not because he is not working— there is no work in the place for him. He has not lost his job—he was employed temporarily to do a temporary job and it has finished. There is then no other work for him. His farm will not provide him with work all the year round, but he has to live all the year round and what he says is: "I have no work. My farm will not keep me and I have to live. There is an Act known as the Unemployment Assistance Act in operation and I am going to claim assistance under that Act for myself and those dependent on me".
Are there not numerous tradesmen in the same position?
We will come to that in a moment. That is what happens in many of these cases. The basic problem there is not an unemployment problem—it is an underemployment problem or an agrarian problem. If that person had enough land, he would have enough opportunities to exploit his land, but the fact that he lives on a small parcel of barren or arid land, not capable of sustaining him, means that he is not a farmer because the land is too poor and too small in area and he is not an ordinary industrial worker because there is no industry in the place. At best, his prospect is that he may get occasional employment in that way.
That is the pattern of life in some of these places. It is not an emergency condition in the same sense as unemployment. It is not something which has cropped up in the past year, two years or three years. It is the whole pattern of life in these areas, and in that case unemployment assistance is in fact a concession to life to those living in these areas. The Unemployment Assistance Act, in other words, enables them to get a type of benefit which was normally perhaps not intended for them, but which they are eligible and qualified to receive because they are not working, and they are not working because there is no work available and their general economic condition and background are such that they have to be sustained and unemployment assistance provides the means.
Would it not inflict considerable hardship on such people if they were asked to take employment 100 miles away?
I will come to that in a moment. In that respect, the Deputy's or anybody else's help will be welcomed. Much depends on the direction in which they are prepared to take up the employment. Some of these folk will take employment 100 miles or 200 miles away, if it is directly to the east, while some of them will not go ten miles north or 50 miles south, but we will discuss that in a moment.
The basic problem in relation to these people is an agrarian problem. They are now eligible for unemployment assistance. They are human beings with all the feelings of human beings. I think we might wisely deal with them in another way, instead of dealing with them through the medium of the Unemployment Assistance Act, because in that way they give a distorted picture of the whole unemployment position, but, let me say, if they are to be dealt within any other way they ought and must be dealt with fairly and no consideration merely of saving the money should influence the final decision in the matter. My view is that they do not belong to an industrially unemployed class. They belong, where they are small-holders with a certain acreage of land, to another class. There may be a case for segregating them, for regrouping or reclassifying them. That has not been considered. Even if it were considered, it ought only to be considered on the basis of appreciating the lives these people have to live and their necessities and the whole matter ought to be considered in a sympathetic atmosphere. So far as I am concerned, it will be considered in none other than a sympathetic atmosphere.
The question arises whether we should ask people to leave their areas and go to work elsewhere. There, again, I think you can make a case for it and a case against it, depending on the angle from which you approach the problem. Let me, however, without expressing an opinion, put some considerations before the House. We have two national schemes operating at the moment. One is a Bord na Móna scheme, aimed at the production of the maximum amount of machine-won turf, and the other is the Erne hydro-electric scheme, which seeks to provide greater electrical energy for the country and to render it more independent of foreign coal imports. I do not think that any Deputy will question the statement that these are two vital national schemes of reconstruction, the completion of which will add to the national estate, strengthen the economic fabric of the nation and generally improve the amenities of life in Ireland.
It is desirable, therefore, that they should be completed, and I think it is desirable that the necessary labour should be recruited in order to complete these schemes of work, but those responsible for promoting the schemes say, and say with truth, that it has not been possible for them to recruit the necessary labour. Bord na Móna complained that it could not get the staff it required for the camps, and the Erne people complained that they could not get the necessary staff for the Erne scheme. Special efforts were made to recruit these people.
Was that proposal put up to people who were married or to single men with dependents?
In an effort to recruit labour for employment at Ballyshannon, representatives of Cementation Company visited certain areas in the West for that purpose. By agreement, interviews were arranged at four special areas where the men attended for the purpose of certification of evidence of unemployment. At each of these places, the men were fully informed of the terms of employment, the terms being a rate of 1/10 an hour, which was fixed as a result of a trade union agreement, with a 48-hour week, board and lodging on the site at 33/-a week, free transport was offered to the site of the work, and a long spell of employment was anticipated. Men considered suitable by the employers' representative were interviewed and employment was offered to each man who was considered suitable. Married men were eligible for employment if they were desirous of applying, but special attention was directed to the recruitment of single men without dependents and under 45 years of age, because the employing authority felt that single men would be less, and ought to be less, restless on the job, and they wanted, in any case, to keep a reasonably low ceiling in the matter of recruiting workers for what was heavy manual work. Now, a total of 319 persons were interviewed at these four centres and, as a result of these interviews, the number who accepted employment, out of a total of 319 persons, was eight. I do not think that even the whole eight stayed on the job.
Does the Minister draw any conclusion from that?
Let me go on. The men were then interviewed and asked why did they not want to take a job at 1/10 an hour, with continuous employment, a 48-hour week, hut accommodation and so on. A record was made at to the reasons for their unwillingness to accept work. The excuse, in nearly all cases, was to a great extent the same, namely, "required at home in connection with the spring work and would not take up outside employment at present." A few men pleaded circumstances of aged or infirm relatives who needed attention, but the overriding view expressed was that they did not want to travel; that they preferred to get a job in their own districts and that, if they were at home receiving unemployment assistance they could do the spring work.
Will the Minister say how many of the number interviewed were unmarried men without dependents?
They were all unmarried men without dependents.
The 319?
Yes. Let us look at this objectively. There you have two important schemes which it would be nationally advantageous to have completed. These are the circumstances in which 319 men, all considered suitable and all single men without dependents, were offered a job on this hydro-electric scheme, and out of the 319 interviewed only eight accept employment.
Are you contending that the 311 shirked it?
Can the Deputy ever look at anything except through political glasses? This is a social problem and an economic problem at the same time, and I do not want to discuss it in any other sense.
On one point it might be useful if we could have more information from the Minister. He says that continuous employment was offered to these men. Can he say for what period? Does he mean seasonal employment, or whether it would be for a longer period?
I think the job will last for a couple of years. I think it will take that time before it is finished. Now I am not coming down against these men or for these men, but I am going to pose some questions to Deputies.
Will you tell us about the 41 Maltese who were brought over?
Let us think first of the Irish and forget about the Maltese for the moment. Here is a situation in which you have got two important schemes. For the purpose of these schemes, you look for labour which is physically fit and vigorous. Jobs are offered. Three hundred and nineteen people unemployed, mind you, are offered jobs on this particular scheme at Ballyshannon. The wages are £4 8s. 0d. a week, less 33/- deduction for board and lodging, leaving them, if they get the £4 8s. 0d. a week, 55/- a week nett, with food and lodging provided for them. As single men they probably would not have got any more than that amount as wages if they were working on the roads or on a relief scheme. This was a place where they had the chance of earning 55/- a week with board and lodging, and yet they declined to go and take up the employment.
All that I know about their reason for doing so are the reasons stated by themselves in reply to the interviewing authority, namely, in the main that they preferred to stay at home and do the spring work and that they did not want to work on the scheme. That is all right. I do not think that, in a free country, you can compel a man to work if he does not want to work. People have that right and they exercise it every other day. They decide whether they will work or will not work, whether they will live on their dividends or take up some kind of professional or other employment. But, in this case, what you have to ask yourself is this: If you have a national scheme such as the Ballyshannon scheme, in operation and if you want to bring it to fruition, should you continue to pay unemployment assistance to single men without dependents who will not leave their own areas to work on this nationally desirable project at Ballyshannon? Should you say to men: "Although we need your help there because it is a very desirable scheme, if you do not go and will not go, we will still continue to tax the community to pay you unemployment assistance to which you yourself contribute nothing?" That is a serious economic and social problem. Nobody will deny that. What is the wise thing to do in circumstances of that kind? I should like to have more information about it.
In another case which came to my notice in connection with the same scheme, some of these people who were interviewed, single persons without dependents, said they were waiting for work to turn up on the roads. They were asked "Will you go to Ballyshannon until such work does turn up? At least you will get food, you will get board and lodgings there, and you will still have 55/- a week. You are not being sentenced to stay there, because you can come back." They said "No, we will hang on until the road job turns up."
Mr. Blaney
Although £4 8s. 0d. has been quoted as the wage, the fact is that £3 has been the average wage there and that was for the weeks when the weather was good.
I am not purporting to investigate this matter here. I think it needs further examination. It may be that that is the explanation, but bear in mind that there is a trade union agreement in operation there and there are very large numbers of people working there already.
And quite content.
And as Deputy Maguire says, quite content. Again, there are very large numbers of people working in the turf camps and there, too, you have a trade union agreement. What you have to ask yourself is: are you going to say to the single man without dependents that, although there is work available for him elsewhere he need not take it, and if he does not take it we will still give him unemployment assistance? Deputies can think over that problem. I am not going to come down on one side or the other to-day. It is a problem that we all shall have to think over, because this may very well be the incipient stage of a social abscess which can have very serious repercussions in our national life. I want to be quite fair and I do not want to make up my mind until I am satisfied that this matter has been thoroughly examined. I propose, from the unemployment assistance aspect to have it further examined to see what the explanation is.
Let me say in passing that, in another case, where workers were being recruited by the same firm, one of the reasons given by some of the single men who were offered employment on the scheme was that they were going to work in England, where they had never been before. They were going to travel a couple of hundred miles to work in a city where they never worked before and they could not be induced to work in a place 40 miles away among their own kith and kin.
They would be among their own kith and kin in such a place as Glasgow.
You made a good contribution in your time to see that they would not be lonely there.
Their own kith and kin have been there for generations.
Mr. Blaney
Will the Minister bear in mind the point I raised? It has been alleged that there are local men unemployed in the town of Ballyshannon, signing on at the employment exchange there. When they presented themselves for work to the works manager they would not be accepted.
The position in that respect is this. Anybody at Ballyshannon who was considered by the manager to be suitable for employment on the scheme was sent forward for employment, but the decision to employ or not to employ rests with the company which is carrying out the contract. They cannot be forced by my Department, at all events. I have nothing to do with the firm or the institution for which that firm is working, to enable me to force them to employ people they may not want. All the unemployed at Ballyshannon considered suitable for employment on this scheme were sent to try to get employment. If they were not employed, that responsibility is the responsibility of the employing company. If they were not employed because they were not suitable for employment they, of course, retain their right to unemployment assistance and, of course, they continue to draw it.
May I ask the Minister if he has conducted any examination or investigation into the conditions there, or if it is possible that the conditions there are responsible for the desire of men to avoid going there?
That is a matter for the Minister for Industry and Commerce. It is an Electricity Board contract, executed for the Electricity Supply Board by a private firm. I have no control over the Electricity Supply Board or the contractors employed by them. It is, therefore, primarily or secondarily, not my job to investigate conditions there. There are trade unions there and they have made agreements with that firm. They may undertake an investigation or the Minister for Industry and Commerce may undertake it but, quite frankly, I have no power to undertake it. I shall endeavour to make what inquiries I can in the matter, but the responsibility of an investigation does not rest on me and I am sorry I cannot undertake it.
A state of affairs such as has been outlined is, I think it will be agreed, indicative of matters of grave social import. In these circumstances, does the Minister not think that some authoritative statement should be made to the House if not by him by his colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and, if conditions there are satisfactory, then some type of propaganda should be circulated in order to encourage people to go there.
There is the danger that wet time and broken time may be practised to too great an extent there.
What the Minister is asking us to accept——
I am not asking the House to accept anything. I am merely giving Deputies the facts objectively. I shall have further inquiries made in order to see what is the real explanation. It may be just a case where, if an Irishman wants to work he wants to work near his home, and, if he wants to go away, then he wants to go a long distance away. That may be the psychology revealed by probing the matter deeply. I am not going to do that to-day. It is a problem that every intelligent person must face up to because it has a deep social and economic significance.
Some questions were raised by Deputy Lynch about the means test. I think I have dealt with that already. Deputy Lynch then got a bit gloomy and he said that on examining the Estimate he saw savings under some headings. I can assure the Deputy that no matter what the headings were, the over-all Vote is much higher than last year and the sections of the community who rely on social services are getting more than they got last year. The Deputy need not worry unduly that any savings of a rather automatic kind, due to variations of one kind or another, have in any way brought about a reduction in the benefits paid to recipients; on the contrary, the benefits are higher than they were last year.
Deputy Lynch also referred to the Wet Time Act. He wanted it extended and the rates of benefit increased. I suggest to the Deputy that that is a position he could very well leave to the trade unions concerned. This Wet Time Act was brought into operation to provide some kind of benefit during periods of wet weather on housing schemes. As a result of the operation of the Act, workers, both skilled and semi-skilled, now get certain benefits if they are obliged to stand-off employment during periods of wet weather. I have discussed, orally and by correspondence, with the Trade Union Congress and the Congress of Irish Unions the question whether the benefits should be increased and the scope of the Act extended. These are matters which require very careful consideration, because I do not think we have yet reached the stage when it is possible to say that there is a reasonable balance struck between what comes into the fund in contributions and what goes out in benefit. For instance, as a result of a very wet year in 1947, the balance in the fund was reduced from £93,000—the figure at which it stood in March, 1947—to £63,000 by the following March, showing that any abnormally wet season might very well affect the stability and the solvency of the fund. I think most people would desire that we should have a little more experience of the demand on the fund and the vagaries of the weather we may have to meet before coming to any decision to reduce rates of benefit.
On the question of extending the scope of the Act, I have told the trade union congresses that I am willing to discuss that matter with them in a helpful and sympathetic way. They, of course, appreciate that this sum of £69,000 in the kitty at the moment has been put there by the building trade workers and their employers.
It is a good job that somebody remembers that there was an abnormally wet season.
It has got finer since the Deputy's Party went out of office. I do not think the Deputy need fear any return at all to blizzard conditions. At all events that £69,000 in the kitty at the moment was, as I was saying, put there by the building trade workers and their employers. Any effort to extend the scope of the Act to bring in other workers will immediately bring them in with a right to draw on a pool which they did not create and any suggestion of doing that will immediately give rise to considerable difficulties, especially with the unions responsible for creating the pool. I have said, however, to the congresses concerned that I am willing to discuss the matter with them if they can come along to me with an informed view as to what additional classes they want covered by the scheme and if they can talk authoritatively for those whose contributions have created the wet-time surplus.
I think the labourers are displeased that they are not getting their share of the money that is in the kitty.
I have discussed this matter with both congresses, orally and in writing, and I have invited them to come along and see me. I shall be glad to discuss the matter with them.
The question of the Courts of Referees was discussed. I think I have already explained what happens in that respect. I do not know of any fairer machinery when one has to decide whether or not a man is genuinely seeking work than to constitute some kind of tribunal for that purpose. That type of tribunal is constituted by the Court of Referees, representative of trade unions, on the one hand, and employers on the other with an independent, neutral chairman—a person who is adjudged to be capable of holding the scales evenly between both sides. In the main, he has been a gentleman of legal standing. Some Deputies—I suspect those Deputies who have no intimate knowledge of Courts of Referees—have complained that the decisions are not always given in favour of the aggrieved person. On the other hand, one finds an experienced trade union official, like Deputy Hickey, with an intimate day-to-day and week-to-week knowledge of Courts of Referees saying, with a critical eye on the operations of these courts because of the point of view he represents, that he thinks the Courts of Referees work very well on the whole and that the cases are dealt with sympathetically. That is the machinery provided at the present time under the law for dealing with these particular cases. That is a much better type of machinery than to allow a Government Department to decide the cases. If I were an aggrieved person I would prefer a tribunal of that kind to deal with my case rather than have it dealt with by the Departmental machine.
Do the appeals not come up to your Department?
I am glad the Minister does not consider the machinery obsolete.
The machinery is there at all events. It seems to me to be as good in its general character as any other kind of machinery one could evolve. If, however, Deputies are prepared to say that, based on their intimate experience of Courts of Referees, there is room for improvement here or there, we can have that matter examined particularly in connection with the comprehensive scheme in order to discover the type of machinery that ought to be established to deal with these particular matters. I do not see any reason why the chairman ought to be opposed to the applicant. Neither do I see any reason why he should be violently in favour of the applicant. It does not matter to him. He has no personal interest in the matter. All he has to do is to decide is the applicant genuinely seeking work, or is he not? It does not matter what he thinks of the man. If the worker's representative and the employer's representative think that he is genuinely seeking work, then the chairman has no view. It is only when the employer's representative and the worker's representative disagree that the chairman is called upon to exercise a casting vote. I think we would need further evidence that the present machinery is not effective before we engage in the doubtful experiment of changing it merely for the sake of change.
Has one man the right to select the chairman?
The chairman is appointed by the Minister from a panel of recommendations which come up to the Minister.
But in Dublin there are several chairmen. Is that not the position?
There is only one chairman.
Would the Minister not consider that these cases should be dealt with finally in the local areas instead of sending them up here to be dealt with by a junior officer?
I have a tremendous amount of sympathy with the idea of getting away from excessive centralisation. I think too much centralisation can become a malady. I have a great deal of sympathy with the idea of permitting a very wide discretion.
We want more than sympathy. If we are not going to see anything except what we got from our own Government, it will be no improvement anyway. You opposed all that. Now you are satisfied to leave it as it had been under Fianna Fáil. That is good enough for us.
It is good enough for you. What about the old age pensions?
Deputy Dunne raised the question of the insurability of agricultural workers under the comprehensive scheme. That is a matter for consideration in connection with that scheme. I am sure the Deputy will appreciate that it would be undesirable for us to discuss it in advance of the scheme.
Deputy Briscoe raised the question of the conditions of persons employed as branch employment managers, as I understood him, and Deputy Davin raised a similar question. Last year I indicated that I was not enamoured of the system under which branch employment offices exist in the Department of Social Welfare. These branch employment offices are placed where the managers are employed allegedly on a part-time basis and paid on the basis of the units of work with which they deal in the office. Naturally, the less work he has the less pay he gets. The more unemployed, therefore, that he has in his particular area and the more transactions he carries out the better will be his scale of pay. These people are not civil servants. They are hybrids discharging important functions closely analogous to those performed by civil servants in those branch employment offices which are staffed with civil servants. I do not like that type of employment which is associated with these branch employment offices and I hope to get rid of that type of employment in connection with the comprehensive scheme. I think it is bad in its conception. I think it is most objectionable in its operation. I cannot say yet what the ultimate destiny of the folk concerned will be. All I want to convey to the Deputies interested is that so far as I am concerned I would like to get rid of that type of employment and I shall do my utmost to get rid of it. What the solution will be I cannot at this stage indicate. Deputies will learn that in due course.
Deputy Dr. Ryan was responsible for a most egregious error when he was discussing old age pensions, a subject about which one would imagine he should know something. He contended that people got very little increase under the Social Welfare Act of last year. In case anybody else suffers from a similar loss of memory I want to reiterate the facts now. One hundred and four thousand persons who were getting from the Department of Social Welfare a pension of 12/6 per week before the Act came into operation had that pension increased to 17/6 per week.
Were they getting 2/6 from the local authority?
Hold on a minute and I will tell you all about it. Do not be so impetuous. An otherwise stable man like Deputy McGrath has got to restrain his impetuosity in this matter. I cannot understand why he gets so annoyed that old age pensioners have got an increase of 5/- a week. The fact is that 104,000 of them have got an increase of 5/- a week and 25,000 of them an increase of 2/6 a week. The position now is that there are more people drawing old age pensions in Ireland than ever before. They are getting more than they ever got before and the means test is easier than ever before.
They are getting older.
Somebody said that the local authority made a contribution. They did but they were empowered to do that only in rural areas. Deputy Dr. Ryan did not know that they could not do it in the cities and Deputy Dr. Ryan is an ex-Minister. Deputy McGrath says he knew it all the time but the ex-Minister did not know it. Here is what happened. Under the scheme, by which local authorities in rural areas were allowed to increase the amount of old age pensions—that is where a person had 12/6 a week— the local authority conducted another odious inquisition into the means of the applicant. Although the person got through the Department of Social Welfare means test to get 12/6, the local authority had another round with the person and put him through another test to get the other 2/6. Then when the person was awarded 2/6, he or she had to trek after the home assistance officer to get that 2/6.
You are the man who said that the boards of assistance were not shouldering their responsibilities.
Now that person in the rural area goes into the post office with the old age pension draft, puts it down on the counter just as a person would go into the Bank of Ireland with a cheque for 17/6 and gets his money. There is no hunting the home assistance officer. That recreation is over.
The most destitute are the least that have benefited.
Let me tell you what it cost. The total amount spent in the year 1948 in the supplementary allowances of 2/6 a week, 75 per cent. of which was recouped by the State, was only 5½ per cent. of the total expenditure. In other words, local authorities supplemented the normal total expenditure on home assistance by 5½ per cent., and 75 per cent. of this 5½ per cent. was recouped by the State. Of course, Deputy McGrath, in his less impulsive moments, knows very well that these people have done very much better under the Social Services Act than they had done previously. Deputy McGrath's only annoyance is that he could not induce the Fianna Fáil Government in its day to do what we have done. He is annoyed only because they missed the tide.
The 26/- a week is what annoys you.
You will still be in the prime of life when they will be getting 26/-, and if the Deputy can manage to come in under the scheme, he will not be doing badly.
Do not imagine that you are too young yourself.
I have dealt with most of the major matters raised in connection with the Estimate. The question of printing cards in Irish has been raised by Deputy Ó Briain, and I shall have that matter examined. Whether it is possible to do anything as a result of the examination, at this stage I cannot say, but at all events I shall have it examined to see whether it is possible.
Deputy Cogan raised the question of persons insured under the Acts being likely to lose benefit if their cards were not stamped in time or were not returned to the Department in time. All I can say to the Deputy is that there is on the insured person an obligation which he is asked to exercise only once in 365 days—that is an obligation to get his card at the end of the period from his employer and surrender it himself. That is not a very onerous duty but it is a desirable duty because it puts a check on the employer. It is not too much to expect of an insured worker, from his own point of view and from the point of view of his wife and children, that he will at least see that his employer will surrender his card. It is at least a guarantee that the card has been stamped and it is an assurance that if the insured worker gets sick, or becomes unemployed, he and his dependents will not be in the position in which they will not get any benefits. I think it is a reasonable check to apply and my only desire is that insured workers would discharge that duty with more enthusiasm and alacrity than they do at the moment. In any case, employers should realise the serious hardship which they may cause to employed workers by withholding their cards. Admittedly the worker can recover from an employer who is guilty of negligence in returning a card but that is often a slow remedy. A much more effective remedy is to have the cards collected when they are due for return to the society and thus avoid the difficulties which might arise.
Deputy Cogan also mentioned the fact that he thought there were various interpretations as to what was means as between one old age pension district and another. Conceivably there might be, human nature being such a variable commodity, but at all events there is at least the guarantee that if a pension is awarded by a local pensions committee, and if either the applicant or the social welfare officer appeals against the decision, the appeal goes to the central pension authority in Dublin and there is dealt with by the one group of people all the time, so to that extent at headquarters you get a reasonable interpretation as to what is means. In the main I think you get a common pattern as to what is means—at all events, the social welfare's officers' method of assessing means. It is a standard method. It varies from the standpoint that barren land has not the same value as fertile land and that stock on poor grass is not as valuable as stock on rich grass. These variations are allowed for, so far as it is humanly possible to do so, and the general instructions which have been issued to investigation officers have not changed in any way since the Social Welfare Bill of last year.
Therefore, under that Act, with a modification of the means test and with the old standards of value maintained although agricultural produce prices have risen, it is now easier to get an old age pension than it was previously and it is easier to qualify now than it was relatively some years ago.
Have any new instructions been sent to the pensions officers in the cities?
No new instructions whatever.
I suggest that there should be, as the wages earned by old age pensioners previous to getting the pension are assessed against them at the moment. I believe that the pensions officers are too timid to discard that and I know cases where they have claimed that that is the law.
If the Deputy will give me one of these cases I will have it specially investigated to see what sort of mind was brought to bear in ascertaining the means of the applicant.
Who has the final say in regard to awarding or refusing pensions?
The final say lies with the Central Pensions Authority in Dublin.
Does the local pensions officer abide by that?
What happens is that the matter is dealt with at first by the local pensions committee. They award or refuse a pension or award a partial pension. The social welfare officer, who is familiar with the case because he investigates all the circumstances, may appeal against the local pension committee's decision. In that case, the applicant is notified that the social welfare officer has appealed and the applicant is told that he can submit any evidence he wishes to the Central Pensions Authority against the social welfare officer's appeal. The social welfare officer puts in his case, the applicant puts in his or her case. They both go to the Central Pensions Authority in Dublin. They look at the applicant's case and the social welfare officer's case and, in an atmosphere in which neither the applicant nor the social welfare officer is present, the Central Pensions Authority decide what in their view is the pension payable on the facts as presented.
The social welfare officer has to abide by that?
Absolutely. That is the end of it.
Is there any obligation on the social welfare officer to attend the local pensions committee when requested?
Can any social welfare officer raise a question subsequently?
Only if he is satisfied that there has been a substantial increase in the means of the applicant. Even if he does, there again the applicant can come back and put in his or her case and the same authority will decide the matter.
What is the machinery by which an applicant makes an appeal?
He sits down at the kitchen table and sets out why he should get a full pension. In my experience, they show no shyness in doing so.
The social welfare officer has no hesitation in appealing in the majority of the cases.
The social welfare officer has no instructions to do that. He only does it if he is satisfied that there are grounds for doing it. He has no instructions to appeal in every case.
No instructions from the Revenue Commissioners?
He has nothing to do with the Revenue Commissioners. He is not controlled by them, but by the Department of Social Welfare. I do not know anybody in the Department who desires that the social welfare officer should do anything except give the person the rights which the person has under the Act. I do not want to deprive any persons of any pension to which they are entitled.
With regard to the cases before the Central Pensions Authority in which there is no statement of claim or rebuttal of evidence by old-age pensioners, what is the proportion of cases in which old-age pensioners submitted their cases to the Central Pensions Authority?
I could not say that without asking the section concerned to collect statistics. If the Deputy puts down a question, I think I can give him information as to the number of appeals that reach the section, the number decided in favour of the applicant and the number decided against the applicant. I will also, if I can, get the other information which he asked for.
Does the Minister think it would be advisable to issue instructions to local pensions officers that they are not to try and prevent applicants from getting pensions? If they have instructions not to try and prevent applicants from getting pensions, will he issue instructions to them to co-operate with applicants in trying to get a pension? The general belief is that the local officers try by every means in their power to prevent applicants from getting a pension.
I know that is a commonly held view and is of old origin, when inspectors normally were not the bearers of good news and inquisitions of that type had a malevolent intent behind them. The social welfare officer has been told in a letter to which my signature is affixed that I desire that he should co-operate to the fullest extent with applicants and help them; that his function is to administer the law; that if applicants are entitled to pensions under the law, they ought to get them, and he ought to help them.
I want to refer to another matter to which I might have made fuller reference in my opening remarks, and that is the position in connection with the Blind Welfare Consultative Council which I set up last year. That council was set up for the purpose of co-ordinating the activities of various blind welfare organisations, to get them to establish, as it were, a kind of clearing-house for the grievances of blind welfare organisations. The chairman of the council is Deputy Martin O'Sullivan. The council has held a number of meetings and I have got from it ten pretty comprehensive recommendations affecting the welfare of the blind.
Some of these recommendations affect Departments other than my own but, in so far as they do, I am having these recommendations transmitted to the other Departments for examination in the hope that they will be sympathetically considered and adopted if possible. So far as the recommendations affect the Department of Social Welfare, I want to assure Deputy O'Sullivan and those interested in the matter that they will be examined with a sympathetic and understanding mind. I might perhaps avail of this opportunity to express my very sincere thanks to the public-spirited men and women who constitute the consultative council for the very valuable work which they are performing on behalf of our sightless community. I feel sure that, as the work progresses, then in the same ratio will the welfare of the blind community be improved.
Might I ask a question in connection with the Workmen's Compensation Acts? In some cases men have been advised by the Department to consult a solicitor in relation to the increases provided for in the Act passed last year. There is no provision for payment for the services rendered by the solicitor. Have beneficiaries under the Act to pay their legal expenses?
That is a question in respect of an Act passed by this House and refers to legislation.
If a person sues an employer and succeeds, it is a matter for the trial judge to decide what he is going to do about the costs.
These are cases in which persons already have gone to court and succeeded in obtaining a certain weekly amount. Under this Act, increases were provided for in certain cases. I know of one case in which the person concerned was advised by the Department to consult a solicitor with regard to getting an increase in his payment.
Is it a case where the employer will not pay?
The insurance company did pay but the solicitor wants his money.
What did he do for him?
He probably wrote a letter to the insurance company.
Will the Minister consider further helping institutions for the blind? We have one particular institution for the blind and they had to sell half their capital investments last year to cover the expenditure. I know the Minister is very interested in these institutions and I told the committee that he was. I wonder if the Minister could do something to help institutions like that.
I do not know at the moment what their precise financial position is or what the difficulties are. The Deputy might bear this in mind, that last year I asked local authorities to step up the allowance from £20 to £40 for each person, and other allowances from £5 and £13 to £20. In addition, the State grants towards blind persons in blind institutions, which was £20 for the last 28 years, was stepped up to £40. To that extent, we improved substantially the financial position of those institutions and I think they all acknowledge that they were dealt with in a very fair and generous way. I do not know what the financial position in Cork is, but I will undertake to have the position examined to see what can be done, if the responsible authorities write to me on the matter.
I acknowledge what the Minister is doing, but they have to sell part of their capital investment this year to meet some of the expenses.
Let them write to me.
Will the Minister say if it is to be understood from his remarks about the live register that it is his intention to recast that register to distinguish between industrially unemployed and those who find employment on public works?
At this stage, I am going to do no more than examine the whole thing thoroughly, to see it in its local setting. It will be examined and surveyed to get the full facts. I do not want anything done in haste, and would deprecate that; and I do not want to see anything done unfairly.
Is that investigation to be applied also to the live register in towns and cities?
Ultimately, yes. The main problem is to get a picture of certain areas at the moment. My desire is that we should have a thorough examination of the position. It is not just good enough to count heads. You have to find out how old the heads are.
The Minister has said that eventually he is going to apply the test to the towns and the cities. I take it he now intends to carry out this investigation only in respect of the rural unemployed?
Not necessarily. In the course of the inquiry which is already being undertaken, towns come into it as well.
Urbanised towns?
Yes, urbanised towns.
If the Minister is aware, as he has been reminded, that an investigation has taken place already under the previous Government—under the Special Works Branch of the Office of Public Works, I think—there is a point in what Deputy Bartley has mentioned, that if there is going to be an investigation, it should not be the position that particular areas are being selected as if they were in some way bearing some special responsibility or guilty of some special sins in this matter.
I want to get the broadest picture I can, merely from the point of view of finding out what problem confronts us and what the unemployed classification in all areas is.