In this debate we had a very great number of speakers, and I must on the whole express my gratitude to Deputies for the manner in which they approached this Bill. There may have been, here and there, a tendency amongst individuals to fight old battles over again, but I think the Minister would be wiser to leave that between the individuals concerned and the individuals would be wiser to fight these battles outside. In introducing a Bill of this kind, a Bill of a type that requires that some guidance should be given to the Dáil as to the magnitude of the measure, there is an obligation on the Minister to give as much information as possible to Deputies. Every Deputy represents a constituency and a number of taxpayers, a number of people who will ask questions. They will ask how many people are likely to be involved in such a measure, what the cost of such a Bill is likely to be and, no matter who the Minister may be or what type of Minister he may be, there is an obligation on him to be as open and as candid as possible with Dáil Éireann, to give all the information which he can get with regard to the Bill in question and to give an estimate as far as an estimate can be arrived at.
In my opening statement I gave an estimate as to the possible financial involvement by way of new payments arising out of this new Bill. I introduced that particular reference by saying that any estimate was nothing more than an estimate and could not be regarded as completely accurate but that if we were to take a line from the percentages of successes and failures under the previous Acts, and apply the same percentage in this case, the figure would be approximately so-and-so. I think I should have been failing in my duty to Deputies if I had not given them some indication of that kind. Yet not one but at least half a dozen Deputies accused me of having set a limit to the amount of money that would be paid under this Bill or a limit to the number of people who could get pensions. That was an entirely unreasonable attitude for Deputies of long-standing and considerable experience to adopt in a case like this. If I had omitted any such indication, then I would be open to, and deserving of, an attack on the ground that I was not taking the Dáil fully into my confidence.
Again, with regard to the question whether this Bill will be retrospective in its effect or not, I had to give to the Dáil the considerations which had to be taken into account, the financial involvement, and, as far as I could, the lump sum that would be necessary in order to make these pensions retrospective either to 1934 or to an earlier date. If I had not given some indication as to the financial magnitude of such retrospective legislation, then I would be asking Deputies to take a decision, either to support or to oppose this Bill, in blinkers, without having the full information that they are properly entitled to get from the Minister. Yet with regard to that, I was told by one Deputy that there again I was guilty of unfairness in so far as I was trying to stampede Deputies into acquiescing in the proposals by waving in front of them the magnitude of the sum involved. Every Deputy has a responsibility, not only to the people who served this country but to the taxpayers who have got to meet the bill for any demands made.
There was a certain suggestion running through some of the speeches, perhaps unintentionally, and in the interests of the good name of this country, and of successive Governments with regard to the manner in which they looked after the soldiers of the past, I think it would be a mistake if it went out, or was read into any speech made in Dáil Éireann, that this comparatively new and young State of ours had, through its legislation, shown a lack of generosity towards the people who brought the State into being. I am saying this, not on behalf of any one Government, but on behalf of three successive Governments, each one of them in their time measuring the limited public purse and, within the limits of that public purse, trying to do the greatest degree of justice to those old-timers. Starting with the 1924 Act, you come on to the various Acts dealing with wounds and disabilities; then you come on to the 1934 Act, then on to the issue of medals and the special allowance for holders of the medals in the event of bad health or destitution. Altogether, between those various Acts passed from time to time, according as the public purse was able to stand the strain, in a little country the size of ours we are issuing the best part of £750,000 a year to one class or another of these old-timers. I think that for the good name of the country and the Deputies who have made up successive Dála, it is reasonable to call attention to and to publicise the fact that there has never been on the part of any Government in this country a lack of generosity in their approach to those whom we can now call old-timers.
Going back to the other Bills, probably none of them reflected in full what the Minister in charge or the Government beside him or the Party behind him would have liked to do. Every one of these was limited by the capacity of the public purse to bear the added strain. No one of these Bills represented the full measure of the desire of the Government of the time to help the people it was designed to assist and the process of assistance, of a little more help, a little more aid, a little further extension of previous legislation was a step-to-step process, a year-to-year process. Here in this particular Bill the proposal is to go another step forward. It may be a small step in the opinion of some; it may be a fairly substantial step in the opinion of others; but at least it is a step further along that particular road and it will add a considerable number of thousands of pounds per annum to the bill already there.
I myself and the people alongside me have exactly the same feelings of friendship towards and respect for people who played a meritorious and heroic part in the past as any Deputy sitting anywhere around this House, and anyone in my position, if he were merely guided by his heart and left his head behind him, would bring in a far bigger scheme than I am bringing in. But there has to be a process of balancing, a process of spacing. If anybody tries to get to the end of a mile in one step, he will break his neck; a discreet and wise person will take it step by step. There is in this Bill a very considerable and expensive step forward. There are a certain number of people—we will not argue about the number—who, according to Deputies all round this House, have a strong claim, a valid claim and a meritorious claim on whom the door was locked under the Act of 1945. We are at least reopening that door and we are giving to each one of them, back to 1924, if they are disgruntled and feel that, through one kind of error or mistake of their own or somebody else's, they have not got full justice in the past, another opportunity.
Certain Deputies disputed my estimate of the number. They considered that the figure I gave was too low. Perhaps it is; perhaps the number who will benefit will be twice the number that my Department estimated for. The greater the number, the greater the degree of justice and benefit under this Bill. But, even if it were only 100 and not a number of thousands who will benefit, is it not a good day's work to be helping to some extent towards a pension for the rest of their natural lives even 100 old volunteers of the past?
Naturally, there has been a considerable amount of talk and a great number of speeches made with regard to the justice of the claim made and the injustice of not making the pensions retrospective. The way I look at things is that justice, in the legal or material sense, means that persons get their entitlement under the law. If you apply that as a standard, it is a pretty fair standard and definition of justice in the material and legal sense. What are the rights under the law as it exists of these 2,000 or 4,000 men? What are their rights at the present moment under the law as far as pensions are concerned? Their right under the law at the present moment with regard to pensions is nothing per annum; it is justice as the law stands at the moment. I am altering that law and you are altering that law and you are giving the 2,000 or 4,000 people who may succeed in their claims pensions for the rest of their lives. Is that a brutal or a humane thing to do? As a member of a Government which has to take money out of people's pockets before it can spend it, I think that is, within limits, a fairly reasonable and generous proposal. I think that every one of you Deputies, when you think it out for yourselves, see the situation in your own countryside and, let us call them, the line-ball cases that are entitled under the law at present to nothing, and see a law introduced that at least, if they succeed, will give them pensions for the rest of their lives, will say that that is a pretty fair proposition. If the condition were laid down that not only were you to give them pensions for the rest of their natural lives, but that you have to go back over 15 or 25 years, then the whole proposition would be too formidable financially for me to approach as an individual Minister or for this Government to approach in view of the finances of the country.
I had to put that financial situation to the Dáil in order to explain to the Dáil why we were not going back and making these pensions retrospective. Certain Deputies referred to it as a brutal act, as something like an injustice to individuals. We have a precedent before us under the 1934 Act when 20 claims were reopened under the 1924 Act. Not one of these pensions was made retrospective over the period back to 1924. No Government, in any place or at any time, has any liking for legislation of a financial kind that is retrospective in its effect. Budgeting would be topsy-turvy in every Parliament if Bills of a financial nature were to come in from time to time and be made retrospective in their effects. I am suggesting to the fair and reasonable minds of Deputies that we may not be doing in this Bill all that we would like to be doing for the people concerned, but we are doing something. There is the old saying that "half a loaf is better than no bread", and if a person is starving, well then it is considerably better than no bread.
Now, there were suggestions made in the course of the debate in regard to a definition, or the lack of a definition, of active service. I, together with my advisers, did consider that. My two, three or four predecessors all considered that, and each one in turn right down along the line over the last 25 years, decided that it was better leave that as it is to the discretion of the Referee flanked by advisers on both sides, one flank being a representative of the Old I.R.A. I was interested in that particular view, and I was strengthened in my belief that it is better leave things as they are by the views expressed by a number of the Deputies opposite who had intimate and internal experience of the working of a Pensions Act. I was particularly impressed by the views of one—I think it was Deputy Allen—that we would be doing an injustice: that we would be tightening and restricting the gate instead of opening it wider by attempting to get a clear verbal definition of that particular term "active service". Definitions can be helpful and definitions can be very dangerous and very tricky. There is a certain amount of flexibility about the situation at the present moment, a flexibility that leaves it to the judgement of the Referee and his assistants to say whether the type of service was a reasonable type within the four corners of the Act, and whether it was one that should carry a pension or not. I think that, on the whole, it is better leave it as it is as far as definitions go.
But remember, there is another thing. This is 1949, and this particular Bill harks back to the Act of 1934 and to the Act of 1924. If we were to inject into a Bill in the year 1949 a regid definition with regard to what is meant by "active service" or "pensionable service" we would rip up the whole administration of the previous Acts. What would come out of this Bill if we were to do that? As sure as we are here, there would have to be another Bill to review every pension already given in the light of the new definition.