——examinations of that kind. Even the process of rejuvenation might be grafted on to the other processes. I want to see a comprehensive scheme of social security operated with the minimum delay and I would be appalled, as the country would be appalled, if it were to be postponed until we got down to deal with the problem of decentralisation. Many people would say with me that, if you have a bee in your bonnet about decentralisation, you had better start with some other Department, but we are not prepared, having regard to the present inadequate social services, to wait until you survey that wide prairie before a comprehensive social scheme is introduced. It is because I want to see a comprehensive social security scheme introduced with minimum delay and to build up our social services to a decent level that I have, unfortunately, to be stony-hearted about accepting a suggestion that decentralisation should be tried on a thriving and growing Department like the Department of Social Welfare. There are other more suitable media for the trial of the virtues of decentralisation.
Deputy Davern regretted that we are taking over the National Health Insurance Society. He said it was a body that was there and he did not like anything that was there to disappear, even though Deputy Davern clearly realises that it was essential to take over the society if we were to have a comprehensive scheme of social security in operation. At all events, Deputy Dr. Ryan, with his closer appraisal of the situation, said that in his view the taking over of the society was necessary and he saw no alternative to the absorption of the society in the Department.
Deputy Lynch referred to the outlets for promotion for persons taken over from the society and absorbed in the Department and appeared to have some fears that their opportunities for promotion would not be as great. I cannot understand Deputy Lynch's fears in that respect, because those who are being transferred are being transferred to a very much larger Department than the organisation in which they work. It is an expanding Department and is likely to continue to expand according as we build up a more radical approach to our social problems. I cannot understand why Deputy Lynch should fear that transfer to a bigger Department was likely in any way to curtail opportunities for promotion. I should rather think that the opportunities for promotion on transfer to the Department of Social Welfare were widened rather than contracted. I do not think there are any grounds whatever for the fears of Deputy Lynch or anyone else in that respect.
Deputy Lynch asked what is going to happen to a person who refuses to transfer from the National Health Insurance Society to the Department of Social Welfare. Our approach to the problem of the National Health Insurance Society's staff, that is, the entire staff, pensionable and non-pensionable, as indicated in this Bill, is a radical and sympathetic approach. We say to the staff of the National Health Insurance Society, whether they are indoor or outdoor staff: "You are human beings. We propose to take you over to the Department of Social Welfare and, on transfer to the Department of Social Welfare, your conditions will not be worsened". We are taking over to the Department of Social Welfare a number of National Health Insurance Society agents whose tenure at present with the society is that their services can be dispensed with at one week's notice. Every one of these agents will be taken over, provided he elects to be taken over. Every member of the staff of the National Health Insurance Society will be taken over on terms not less satisfactory than they have at the moment. If there is any person on the staff who does not want to be absorbed into the Civil Service, who does not want the security he has in the Civil Service, who does not want the improved pension rights he will have in the Civil Service or who does not want the greater opportunities of promotion he will have on transfer to the Civil Service, frankly I cannot plumb his mentality. If there is such a person it is more the problem of the person who declines the offer than of the person who makes it. However, I do not imagine that we have simple folk of that kind careering around the country in 1950, and I think that, on reflection, they will be all glad to accept the offer that is being made to them.
Deputy Dr. Ryan's approach to the Bill was the approach of a Deputy who was acquainted with the problem. He knew what the difficulties were and did his best within Party limits to face up to the problems created by the Bill and to what the introduction of the Bill envisaged in a larger field. His approach was a sensible and realistic one to the problems which must be dealt with. I rather thought that it was to set a headline for the Fianna Fáil contribution to the discussion on the Bill and in the main I am bound to say that the tone of Deputy Dr. Ryan's speech did set the headline for the Party opposite with one notable exception. Deputy MacEntee came in to show that Deputy Dr. Ryan knew nothing of social welfare, that he was the merest amateur, that he could not read the Bill and could not see the sinister plots that unfolded themselves by the million to Deputy MacEntee's analytical eye. Deputy MacEntee regaled the House for one and a half hours talking, not of what is in the Bill, but of what he thought was in the Bill. Deputy MacEntee's entry into this Bill was characterised by all the graciousness of an elephant, but without one of the characteristics of an elephant inasmuch as that gentleman is characterised by not forgetting. He came in with none of the elephant's virtues and succeeded in distinguishing himself inasmuch as he managed to misunderstand and misinterpret every section to which he adverted. It was a pitiable attempt of a person who at one time had some responsibility for social services. It was pitiable to see him leaping through section after section, misunderstanding them and seeing conspiracies everywhere which no one on his own bench discovered and which Deputy Dr. Ryan with his greater knowledge of the problem could not discover. Deputy MacEntee told the House that the Bill was an effort to confiscate private property. The Bishop of Clonfert was brought into the Bill as if his Lordship had anything to do with it. He brought us for an excursion into Eastern Europe and no less a person than Mr. Stalin was relevant when Deputy MacEntee was talking. One would have thought that Deputy MacEntee at this stage would have reached maturity. Whatever influence the Dáil has on the Deputy it is certainly a mesmerising one and he is incapable of using temperate or responsible language when he is asked to deal with serious problems in the House. I suppose that Deputy MacEntee will continue the rôle over which he now has title deeds, the rôle of irresponsibility. We must look on the Deputy's contribution to this debate as to every other as the contribution of what is to the Dáil a problem child and I suppose he is a problem child to his own Party as well. I will try to clear some of his misconceptions on the Bill, not in the hope of convincing him, but in the hope of removing some of the vicious misstatements he has made lest others who do not know him as well as we do should think him in any way wise when he speaks on legislation of this kind.
He said that this was a smash and grab raid on the funds of the National Health Insurance Society by a bankrupt Government. Could anybody understand that kind of irresponsible language from an ex-Minister and a Front Bench member of the Opposition? That was one of the delicacies of his speech. There were other statements which were not couched in such courteous and considerate language. This Bill represents an effort to do two things. It proposes to clear the way for the absorption of the National Health Insurance Society in the Department for a wider scheme of social welfare and it proposes to acquire a building, for which Córas Iompair Éireann is unable to pay having commissioned architects and workmen to build it, as the headquarters of the Department of Social Welfare and make available for Government or civil use other buildings now occupied by the Department of Social Welfare thus contributing to some extent to the arrest of the growing practice of the occupation of private buildings by Government Departments for office purposes. We are not doing anything new in purchasing a building with the funds of the National Health Insurance Society. The present building, Árus Brugha, was purchased with moneys which belonged to the society. It was a very wise investment at the time and proved to be even wiser with the effluxion of time because the property increased considerably in value. The building or its value is now an asset in the funds of the society. Here in the Bill there is a proposal to buy another building which is considered to be a suitable headquarters for a large Department such as the Department of Social Welfare. Money investments will be realised for the purpose of purchasing the premises, a thing which it is perfectly legitimate to do. The precedent is already there and there is an assurance in the Bill that at least the same amount as the income that money now invested earns will be earned when the money is diverted for the purchase of the building. It is very likely that we will realise moneys which are at present, and which have been for a very long time, invested in British securities for the purpose of purchasing the Store Street premises. I think it will be a very good asset from the point of view of the National Health Insurance Society and from the point of view of the society's members.
I would far sooner see £1,000,000 of Irish money invested in a building in the centre of the city than see it financing a colonial development fund, as it probably is at present, by being invested in British securities. There is no need for alarm because that has been done. I think it is a sensible approach to the problem. There is no loss to insurance funds, there is a repatriation of Irish assets at present invested in Great Britain, or likely will be. It is much better to have our moneys invested in bricks and mortar in the capital of Ireland than have them spent on our behalf, if you do not mind, subject all the time to devaluation or to depreciation on the stock market, in some place in the Middle East or in South Africa. Therefore, Deputy MacEntee's attempt to scare the public when we are going to make a prudent investment of this kind is only going to recoil on himself. Somebody with more influence on him than I have ought to tell him that even from a Party point of view those statements are irresponsible and that they recoil to his own disadvantage. When made before strangers who do not know him they are rather apt to give the Deputy a reputation much worse than, on reconsideration, he deserves. That is the complete story about Store Street. It seems to me a story which will stand any test. I do not think anybody is going to wreck the national nerves by trying to rear a bogeyman story on the simple facts which I have outlined.
Deputy MacEntee went after the guarantee fund. The guarantee fund intrigued him so much that, when he intervened in the debate on the second occasion, he brought tomes into the Dáil and quoted sections of the Act of 1911 and said: "You are talking about the guarantee fund. There is no reference to the guarantee fund in the 1911 Act and therefore you are misleading the House." The fact of the matter is that the section to which the Deputy referred in the 1911 Act did not in fact make any reference to the guarantee fund. The section in question was a section inserted in the 1911 Act for the purpose of ensuring that officers of societies were to give security for their honesty when administering the affairs of the separate National Health Insurance Societies and a fund was created under the section, called the guarantee fund, to enable that security to be given. That is the simple story of the guarantee fund, but for nearly half an hour Deputy MacEntee ranted about it and stated we were suggesting that there was a guarantee fund in the 1911 Act when in fact there was no guarantee fund in the Act as framed. But what he forgot to say was that on many occasions since then, even in regulations administered by the Department of Local Government when he was Minister for Local Government, there was reference to the guarantee fund in the 1911 Act. He must have known that if he was familiar with the work of his Department, but, notwithstanding the fact that as Minister for Local Government he was administering regulations referring to the guarantee fund in the 1911 Act, he still persisted in saying here on the last occasion on which he spoke that there was no guarantee fund in that Act and that I was endeavouring to mislead the House. Again, these are the simple facts, and Deputy MacEntee will find it hard to mislead the House. The only thing he succeeded in doing so far as I am concerned is establishing beyond all doubt that he knows nothing about the construction of the National Health Insurance Act, 1911, or of any Act dealing with national health insurance, because he displayed lamentable incompetence in trying to interpret any of the Acts.
Then he came to the question of appeals. He said that at present there is an appeal to the Minister for Social Welfare by an aggrieved person who is a member of the National Health Insurance Society, but if the society is transferred to the Department, the Minister for Social Welfare will be the Minister administering the funds and consequently he will be hearing appeals against decisions of his own officers. In Deputy MacEntee's view, that meant that the scales were always going to be weighted against an aggrieved person. A moment's reflection would have convinced anybody who had any memory or knowledge that the method of appeal in the case of the National Health Insurance Society's members is unique and has never been repeated in the case of any subsequent legislation. Under the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Act and, I think, under the Children's Allowances Act, if there is an appeal it is to an independent referee who happens to be a civil servant and who is a statutory officer. If there is an appeal by an aggrieved person, it goes to that referee and the matter is decided by the referee as a statutory officer without any reference whatever to the Minister. Every day in the week cases are decided by the referee and I do not even know that the cases are before him. He is a statutory officer and exercises that function. I think it is very much better that there should be a statutory officer to decide appeals of that kind rather than that the Minister, who has political affiliations, should be called upon to decide these appeals. At all events, the type of appeal for the continuance of which Deputy MacEntee was pleading is a type of appeal which has not been copied in any subsequent social legislation.
When the Bill becomes law and the society is transferred to the Department of Social Welfare, I propose to let aggrieved people avail of machinery similar to that in operation under the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Act, namely, to appeal to an independent referee and to keep the appeal away from the Minister altogether. Although that was contemplated, although it was obvious to anybody reflecting on the matter for a moment that that would be done, Deputy MacEntee saw in that a deep conspiracy to cheat the aggrieved person out of whatever rights he had. It was, again, a foolish contribution by the Deputy, but, apparently, you cannot stop the Deputy from making contributions of that character.
Deputy MacEntee talked also about the reserve fund and the central fund and of these being handed over to the Minister for Finance. As to a reserve fund or a central fund or a guarantee fund or any type of fund, once this society ceases to exist there is no need for these separate funds, and it is proposed therefore to merge them all in one fund and to use that one fund for the benefit of the National Health Insurance Society members. In accordance with the customary practice, the Minister for Finance, who is the Chancellor of the Exchequer so far as national funds are concerned, will hold these moneys, but he will hold them as a trustee for the persons who have an interest in them, in the same way as he holds and always has held the deposits of persons in the savings bank and every other type of money which is put in trust of the Government. All we are doing in this matter is merely regularising the procedure by giving to the Minister for Finance to hold in trust the separated funds brought together in one fund. He will hold these as a national trustee. They cannot be used in any way for revenue purposes. They cannot be made available for expenditure. They will be held in the same way and with the same trustee responsibility as every other security held by the Minister for Finance.
Deputy Dr. Ryan raised a question on Section 6, which is a rather short but complicated section and reads:—
"The provisions of or made under the Acts which would, if this part of this Act had not come into operation, apply only to insured persons being members of the society shall apply to all insured persons."
I agree that that is not a model of simplification, but its simple meaning is this. At present a person must pay contributions under the National Health Insurance Acts because that is the law. He must, therefore, insure himself by paying contributions under that Act, but he can only get benefit for those contributions if he joins the National Health Insurance Society. Strange as it may appear, there are still some persons who pay contributions under the Act and who are not members of the society and they can never get benefit until they become members of the society.
Probably that anomaly arises because of the fact that the State imposes an obligation to pay contributions whereas a private, or semi-private, society insists that one must be a member of the society before one can get benefit since only the society pays benefit and not the State. It is the simple intention of this section that a person who pays national health insurance contributions will be treated in the same way as he is treated to-day for unemployment insurance purposes. If one pays unemployment insurance contributions one must, provided one complies with the contribution conditions, get benefit from the State. This will put everybody on the same basis as that which operates in the case of unemployment insurance. It is quite obviously an improvement on the present position.
Deputy Dr. Ryan raised a question on Section 7, sub-section (2). Here, again, the technical phrasing does not perhaps leave itself capable of a facile interpretation. I can assure the Deputy, however, that the phrase to which he referred is purely a draftsman's phrase. It merely means that, as the pension fund of the society will be transferred to the Minister for Finance and he will in future be liable for the pensions of the staff of the society, it is desired to count past service on the staff of the society for Civil Service pension purposes. The section has no other meaning but that.
Deputy Dr. Ryan raised a question on Section 8 as to the transfer of the society's pension fund to the Minister for Finance. What is happening here is quite obvious and quite simple to explain. The staff of the society will be taken over by the Department of Social Welfare. Those who are pensionable will become established and pensionable officers of the Civil Service. The Minister for Finance will in future be responsible for their pensions. The present pension fund, therefore, will be taken over by the Minister to meet the ultimate liability which will devolve upon him in relation to the pensions of these officers if and when they become entitled to such pensions.
Deputy Dr. Ryan also raised a question on Section 17. He referred to the unclaimed stamp account of the National Health Insurance Society. The present position is that if there is a sum of money in that fund which exceeds £15,000, the first £15,000 of that sum goes to the Exchequer and the balance to the National Health Insurance Society. Deputy Dr. Ryan appeared to think that the reverse was the position. With the dissolution of the society it will not be necessary in future to ascertain the amount of the unclaimed stamp account each year. It is proposed under this Bill to give the State a fixed contribution of £15,000 per annum. Only in one year since 1942 did the State fail to receive £15,000 from the unclaimed stamp account fund. What we propose to do here, therefore, is to stabilise the position in so far as we could ascertain it since 1942. That position will remain until the comprehensive scheme comes into operation when the matter will be further reviewed.
Deputy MacEntee concerned himself largely with sub-section (2) of Section 19. He thought he saw there some scheme to deprive insured persons of the additional sickness benefit provided under the National Health Insurance Acts. At present a sum of £300,000 may be made available by the Minister for certain additional benefits. The sum made available is dependent upon the surplus ascertained as a result of a valuation which takes place every five years. There is no obligation on the Minister to make available the sum that is now made available but, so far as this Bill is concerned, we are guaranteeing the continuance of the additional benefits. We say that the sum cannot be less than £300,000 and it may, in fact, be more. To that extent insured persons now have a statutory guarantee that the amount made available will not be less than £300,000. Under the position as it stands at present the amount could be substantially less. There are no grounds, therefore, for the fears expressed by Deputy MacEntee.
Deputy MacEntee and Deputy Con Lehane raised a question about the date 1st July, 1949, in sub-section (8) of Section 21. The sub-section reads:—
"This section shall be deemed to come into operation on the 1st July, 1949."
In the main this sub-section refers to sub-section (7), which immediately precedes it and which gives the Minister certain powers to do certain things in respect of acquisition, construction or reconstruction without the obligation to consult any other Minister for a period which commenced on 1st July, 1949, and runs for five years until 1st July, 1954. The object is to enable this work to be put in hands with the utmost expedition in order to ensure that nothing will delay the implementation of the scheme envisaged therein. The 1st July, 1949, was taken because it was the date on which we got general Government authority to do this for a period of five years. I hope it will be possible to do all these things in a much shorter period and I hope that 1954 will have nothing more than an academic significance in the course of the next couple of years. That is the explanation for the 1st July, 1949, and that sub-section must be construed by reference to the previous sub-section and substantially it has no other meaning except in reference to sub-section (7).
Deputy Derrig asked what was the position of the society's pension fund. The position at the moment is that it amounts to about £120,000. It is not only paying about six existing pensions but it is liable to meet, with the growing produce thereof and such additions as may be made to the fund itself, the pensions of the staff when they retire. I explained that I use the fund as an asset to meet whatever liabilities subsequently devolve on me in connection with the claims of the present National Health Insurance Society staff when they come to retire.
Deputy Lehane raised a number of points in connection with Sections 20 and 21. I have already dealt with the position so far as it relates to Section 20 (2), namely, the modification of the Acts, and I hope I have convinced the Deputy that it is a reasonable provision. Let me say, however, that I keep my mind open. If the Deputy thinks that something else works equally well or better he will not find me tied as to matters of dogma with regard to Section 20. I have explained the position to Deputy Lehane in connection with Section 21 (8).
Now we come to the question of staff. This matter was raised by Deputy Larkin, Deputy Cowan and Deputy Lehane. I should like to explain my approach. Before this Bill was introduced I sent for the trade unions catering for the National Health Insurance Society staff, though I have no responsibility for their wages and conditions. I was prepared to meet the union people to discuss this matter with them, to see what problems they were worried about and to see whether any misconceptions and doubts and fears could be removed. I think none of the unions will deny that I gave them a long and sympathetic hearing. Their recorded views in writing confirm that. I decided, instead of dealing with the question of compensation to people who are able to work in their present employment, and work satisfactorily, but who cannot probably find another job if you push them out on small compensation, that this was a human problem and ought to be dealt with in the way human beings ought to regulate their relations one with another. I decided, therefore, to take over the whole indoor staff of the National Health Insurance Society. That left me then with the problem of the agents, most of them part-time agents, on the outdoor side. There again you are dealing with human material. It might be urged and I could make a case myself that I would not need all these people. However, I did not like the idea of pushing a man out, with short service, if he is 45, 50, 55 or 60 years of age. I realised the considerable difficulty of men, especially in rural areas, who are agents, getting any other kind of alternative employment and I realised that any compensation they would get would, on the whole, be so microscopic as not to be able to provide for them for the rest of their lives. Bear in mind that they are not pensionable. They are not even full-time officers. I decided, therefore, that I would take over all the agents, about 300 in number; that I would continue for the present the existing method of payment of National Health Insurance benefit, and that I would allow these people to continue in that capacity.
If wastage occurred by deaths, resignations or retirements in the ordinary way, well and good. That would be something that would accrue ultimately to the society. In the meantime, however, I was going to keep these people in employment on at least their existing wage and allow them to remain in the employment which they had been following for many years. I think nobody will deny that that was a new approach to the problem. I must say that I thought it was sympathetic.
I say to all the staff of the National Health Insurance Society, whether indoor or outdoor, that they will be taken over by the Department of Social Welfare. I do not think they can be given the statutory guarantees for which Deputy Cowan and Deputy Lehane sought and I shall give the House the reason in a few moments. However, I feel the staff ought to feel satisfied that a person who approached the problem as sympathetically as I approached it is not likely to try any tricks on them and to try to cheat them out of any rights which they have and that such a person is not likely to turn an unsympathetic ear to any grievances which they may have. When these staff organisations came to see me on this matter I was pressed, as Deputy Lehane and Deputy Cowan have done this afternoon, to give them the statutory guarantees that their rights on transfer to the Civil Service would be at least the rights which they had and that if, at any time in the future, ten, 15, 20 or 30 years hence, anything happened during their evolution down the Department which might not have happened had they remained in the society, a tribunal would be set up and that its function would be to hear and adjudicate on their grievances and to permit them to retire with compensation. I felt that that was a perfectly unreasonable proposition. Bear in mind that these people were not being transferred to any doubtful kind of employment. They were being transferred to the State. They were to be transferred to secure employment. They were being converted from private employees into civil servants. I pointed out that when they come into the Civil Service not only do they get the security of a civil servant but they have to line up with the rest of the civil servants and take what is coming to the class and the grade as a whole. I pointed out to them that where there is in the Civil Service a grade known as the clerical officer grade with, say, 3,000 members in that grade, it would be wholly improper and anomalous that the grade itself had none of the guarantees which a rather relatively small number of national health insurance officials were looking for on assimilation to the clerical officer grade.
Let us take an example. Let us assume that the whole indoor staff of the National Health Insurance Society are made clerical officers. They are then made members of a grade which already numbers 3,000 in all. The suggestion made to me was that 300 people who are not yet civil servants but are being made civil servants and getting credit for their past service in private employment—getting Civil Service conditions generally, Civil Service pensions, Civil Service rights and Civil Service prospects—could come into the Civil Service and get there guarantees and the right of access to a special tribunal which the existing civil servant has not got even though he may have more years of service in the Civil Service than the other person has years of age to his credit.