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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 5 Apr 1951

Vol. 125 No. 2

Social Welfare (Insurance) (No. 2) Bill, 1950—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
Debate resumed on the following amendments:—
1. To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following: "Dáil Éireann declines to give a Second Reading to the Bill because (1) it does not provide a comprehensive or balanced scheme covering the needs of all sections of the community, and (2) it would impose greatly increased burdens on both employees and employers whilst providing benefits little better in many cases than those now available."—(Deputy Ryan.)
2. To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following: "Dáil Éireann declines to give a Second Reading to the Bill until the views of the people in relation thereto have been ascertained."— (Deputy P.D. Lehane.)
3. To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following: "Dáil Éireann declines to give a Second Reading to the Bill because no provision is made therein for the payment of benefits to small farmers and casual workers who are not included in the Bill as at present constituted."—(Deputy John Flynn.)

I have one deep regret in this matter and it is that Deputy Flynn has given notice of his intention to withdraw his amendment. I am sorry to see him leave the House now, because I should like to put a few figures before him. There are in Deputy Flynn's constituency in Kerry some 21,000 farmers, if we can call them farmers, living on less than 30 acres per family. The Deputy's amendment says that no provision is made in the Bill for the payment of benefits to small farmers and casual workers who are not included in the Bill as at present constituted. I wonder whether Deputy Flynn considers that the 2/6 promised to the old age pensioners in Kerry, and which he knows as well as I know can be screwed out of the Minister whether this Bill passes or not, is a full justification for throwing overboard these 21,000 farmers who live on less than 30 acres per family in County Kerry. Is the Deputy prepared to do that? That is a question which I should like the Deputy to ask himself before he walks into the Lobby. The total income per family of these men would not be £3 a week and Deputy Flynn knows that as well as I know it.

We have heard talk about the workers. Any one of these 21,000 men —we have altogether over 250,000— living on holdings of less than 30 acres will do more work in one week than any of the so-called workers who are to benefit under the Bill would do in their whole lifetime. There is a wide difference between the man endeavouring to rear a family on the ten to 30-acre holding in this country, as a worker, and the gentleman who dishes out tickets in some trade union office and who is called a worker, and there is a wide difference between the amount coming into the household of each of these men's families in any one week and the amount coming into the household of the other man. The man in the Transport Union offices in Cork does not expend much sweat dishing out members' tickets every week and I can guarantee to Deputy Hickey that the "bucko" dishing out these tickets will knock down three times as much as any of the men who are completely knocked out of this Bill and have no benefit whatever to gain by it will get.

These men have no means of increasing their income. If any one of these trade union gentlemen finds that the cost of living has gone up, he immediately puts in his demand to his employer for an increase and he gets it, or knows the reason why, but if these farmers come even to their representatives here and appeal to them, they will find marching into the Lobby against them, to prevent them getting the increase in the price of their agricultural produce to which they are entitled, not alone the Labour Party en masse but the so-called representatives of the farmers over there. They are the same people who are now prepared, on this second occasion, for the sake of the fruits of office, to throw overboard and sell out the unfortunate people whom they pretend to represent.

An attack was made here last night on Deputy Dr. Ryan, particularly by Deputy O'Leary who is from the same constituency, in connection with the insurance company of which Dr. Ryan is a director. I can promise Deputy O'Leary that whenever he lifted the thimble off any of Deputy Dr. Ryan's insurance bills, the pea was there. If the pea was found very often under Deputy O'Leary's thimble, he would not be here at all.

I am not prepared at any time, for any Party, to vote for any Bill that will put on one side 500,000 of our people. The total number occupied in any manner in this country is 1,300,000 and that includes even the three-cardtrick man. Of that number, 503,000 are farmers, their wives, their sons and daughters over 14 years of age, working on the land; 358,000 of that 500,000 are working on holdings under 50 acres and, under this Bill, they are to be cut out completely from any benefits whatever but they are to have the pleasure of paying so that others may benefit. The unfortunate fellow who has 15 acres of Kerry bog will wake up on Monday morning and find that when he wants his little plug of tobacco for the week there will be an extra bit on it. To pay for what? We are told by the Minister for Social Services that there will be £4,500,000 taxation in the first year. That has to be paid for by this unfortunate fellow. When he buys his ounce of tobacco, he has to pay his share of that £4,000,000 odd. When he buys an ounce of tea or a grain of sugar for his children he will have to pay for it and, if he ever succeeds in getting together the price of a pint, he will have to pay for it in that also. Who will he benefit? Under this Bill, Sir, the general manager of Córas Iompair Éireann will have to pay 3/6 a week out of the public purse. We all know that Córas Iompair Eireann are bankrupt and that we have to find the money for them. When you have men such as Deputy Davin as chief officers, it is no wonder they are bankrupt. The taxpayer will have to pay 3/6 for Deputy Davin. We should be quite clear on that.

There is no use in contradicting you.

Does Deputy Davin deny that that is so? A Deputy tells me that he has retired. Thank God. I withdraw completely as that is the case. However, the present general manager of Córas Iompair Éireann comes under this Bill and the unfortunate devil that I have described, with an income of less than £3 a week, with 15 acres of Kerry bog, who is trying to drag out a livelihood, trying to support his children and trying to put boots on them to send them to school, will have to pay his share of the £4,000,000 odd that is to help to give an extra pension, along with all the other pensions he will get, to the general manager of Córas Iompair Éireann and to every bank manager. When there is so much shouting about the workers, let us examine who will benefit. Take the ordinary worker who, year after year, has had deductions from his wages for the purpose of a fund out of which he will get sickness benefit and a pension at the end of his period of employment. Now he will be asked to pay, in addition to his present contribution, a further 3/6 a week.

It just shows what you know.

I know I am getting under the hide of these well-fed, fine looking gentlemen, with their fine soft hands that have no blisters or cuts on them, who represent the workers in this House.

This is a very dignified debate.

It is a most dignified debate. It is time somebody told you where you got off—you people who come in here pretending to represent the worker and maligning the ordinary worker. Look at this beauty who is getting up now.

The Deputy should address the Chair.

I will, so long as these gentlemen will conduct themselves.

The Deputy will address the Chair without any condition whatever.

Very well, and you keep your children quiet. Take the poor old country blacksmith, who is a good, hard worker, who did his part in his parish for his people. Where is he now? What will Deputy MacEoin and Deputy McGrath do for their class here? The country blacksmith is completely cut out under this Bill. Of course, he could not be recognised by the Minister for Social Services. What has the ordinary country blacksmith to do with the collar and tie gentlemen in the Post Office? Take the case of the country carpenter, who carries out all the local repairs. What is his position under this Bill? He is also cut out. Take the country shoemaker. I said to the local shoemaker: "You are all right now that you have the Social Insurance Bill." He replied: "I do not benefit under that at all. That is for the bank managers." They have taken the people that I have referred to out of it but these people will have to pay. For whom? Where do the people in Deputy Seán Collins' constituency, who live along the Beara Peninsula, come under this Bill? Are they expected to pay £4,000,000 odd a year so that men who are at present earning £6 10s. to £12 a week may benefit? There is no trade unionist earning less than that now.

Except the farm labourer.

I will deal with the farm labourer in a minute. He has been my baby a long time before I ever heard of Deputy Dunne and he was always well looked after by me. You will find that when you come down my way. You will be welcome any time you come but I think you will go back much wiser than you came. You will not be dealing with the "haw-haw" farmers around Dublin when you come down my way. Where do these unfortunate men, the fishermen about whom Deputy Collins expresses so many regrets from time to time, come under this comprehensive Social Security Bill? The poor old carpenter, the ordinary job carpenter, who goes around to the country making a cart, a butt or a pair of wheels and who is classed as what is known as self-employed, does not come under it. The blacksmith who puts shoes on the old horses, the ordinary mason who goes around building sheds, does not come under it. All these, the whole lot of them, are cut off. The only class who benefit by this are certain types of collar-and-tie labour.

We hear a lot about the fellow in the attic. I think the fellow in the attic is pretty well provided for at the present day. Houses are being provided for them at the expense of others. I was inside an ordinary labourer's cottage recently and there were two men in that house earning. That cottage was let at a rent of 1/- a week, plus rates, and these two men had between them an income of £14 or £15 a week.

More luck to them.

The poor devil whom Deputy O'Sullivan left below in the 15 acres of bog in Kerry will pay for them. These are the classes who are cut out of this Bill. If you take all the people who are supposed to be self-employed in the first instance, take the 500,000 farmers and the relatives in the second instance and then every little shopkeeper and every man who happens to be an employer out of this 1,300,000, what have you left? Whom will this Bill benefit? There is very little use in Deputy Dunne referring to the agricultural labourer. He has gone, gone like the wind. No man would be idiot enough at the present day to work for £3 per week while he can get anything from £5 to £10 for doing nothing. These fellows are gone. You can see that by the fact that we had to buy Brian Boru's butter the other day. These classes are finished and, judging by the attitude of this House, there is now a sinister determination to finish off the last productive class in the community—the class producing the bread, butter, milk and sugar for the drones, producing these commodities at a wage, roughly, of £3 per week. The price of milk at the present day would allow of a wage of only 33/- a week for a labourer, yet Labour, led by the nose, went into the Lobby to vote that that price should not be increased.

The price of milk does not come into the debate on this Bill.

It certainly does.

Definitely it does not and cannot be discussed on it.

I am dealing with the sections of the community who are kept outside the provisions of this Bill.

A discussion on the price of milk is not relevant to this Bill.

The allusion I made to the price of milk is this——

I do not want to hear it again. The Deputy will deal with the measure before the House.

All right.

On a point of order. Would it be in order to move the adjournment of the debate to give the Deputy an opportunity of reading what is in the Bill?

The Deputy read the Bill more often than Deputy Davin and probably read it a lot more intelligently.

You are showing that now.

I had not the particular job that Deputy Davin and others had of going round from Deputy to Deputy in this House saying: "What will we put into the Bill that will get your vote"? I had not that job. We had a glaring instance of the result of that here last night in the withdrawal of the amendment by Deputy Flynn. We wonder why.

Deputy Davin frightened him.

These are the objections I have to this Bill. I am not at any time prepared to support legislation introduced here to crucify the hardest workers and the poorest paid section of the community to-day, and that is what this Bill is doing.

I think possibly it would have been better if Deputy Corry's contribution to this debate had never been made because we are coming to grips with a problem that will have to be tackled objectively on its merits. We have got to decide first and foremost whether we accept the principle that social service is necessary, and I think on that there is complete unanimity on all sides of the House. It is true that some moralists and theologians, acting and talking for themselves alone, and in many cases actuated by a deliberate bias that excluded from consideration the merits of any problem, have made far from worthy contributions to the general atmosphere that was built up round this piece of legislation before it was actually introduced. I come here to analyse, as best I can, what I feel should be the rational approach to the whole problem.

I think it is a common adjunct to the modern conception of the duty of a democratic State that there must be provision to help certain sections of the community, particularly the aged, the blind, the widows or those who are suffering from temporary difficulties owing to sickness. Now, there is a furore about this Bill. Most of it, of course, has a political background. Has anybody sat down and realised yet what this Bill really is? Its purpose is the co-ordination of a tremendous number of services already in existence, bringing out of a chaotic complex system of confusing Acts one solid workable Act to cover old age pension schemes, national health, unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance. But as well as doing that it is adding some new benefits. Let us examine these for what they are worth. Is there any Deputy who is not consious of the necessity for improved maternity benefits, and for the introduction of mortality benefits? Nobody is going to deny the Christian basis for giving better grants towards the mother in the period immediately prior to and subsequent to the birth of the child.

Is there anybody in this House who, in conscience, can object to the removal of the dread spectre which obsesses so many people during their lives that, in the end, they may find a pauper's grave?

These two principles are the main new departures in this Bill outside of what is already in existence. We had the extraordinary speech of Deputy Corry which dealt with everything but what is in the Bill. He talked about the agricultural community, which both he and I have the honour to represent, as if it were a down-trodden, brow-beaten, suffering community. Unquestionably, the agricultural community is enjoying more prosperity to-day than it has ever known in living memory. It is true that the Bill may not be as wide as some of us would like. What we have to consider on the Second Reading Stage is the broad principle of the Bill. There will be a later stage when the combined intelligent and constructive opinion of the House can be brought to bear on the Minister if we feel there are ways in which the Bill can be improved. But, surely, on this stage we have to face the simple issue whether, in fact, there is the onus placed on the State of accepting the responsibility of looking after certain sections of the community who are ill-fitted to look after themselves, and whether or not it is a good principle, a principle which is based on a contribution basis, to ensure that any person to whom this Bill applies, having given a reasonable lifetime of service to the benefit and advancement of this nation, may not, on reaching a certain age, be assured, at least of this, that he will not be cast aside on the waves of charity.

It is true that there are many people to whom this Bill will not apply. Some of them were referred to by Deputy Corry—blacksmiths, travelling carpenters and various self-employed people. I am quite certain that these people will not be in the least bit grateful to Deputy Corry for his contribution to this debate. It is true that it might be possible to press for their inclusion, but if one looks at the scheme which is being operated in England one will find that the contribution of a self-employed person would be practically twice that which is being asked on the highest scale from anybody in this Bill. Nobody is going to suggest to me that either a journeyman carpenter or a blacksmith in the country is anything like the poor down-trodden individual painted for us by Deputy Corry. These men are doing extremely well in my area. In the country, it is extremely hard to get one of these journeymen carpenters or a journeyman handyman to do an odd job of reconstruction or repair about a farmer's place. I do not want to approach this Bill on any basis other than that of analysing what is the duty of the State towards those members of the community who have worked for a weekly wage over a long period of years in the service of the State when they retire. I want to analyse how far our responsibility goes to those people. Fianna Fáil say that they want social services, that they want bigger and wider social services, but they got a woeful belly ache on the morning the Minister came to the Dáil——

Not a bit of it, Seán.

——to make his announcement in connection with the long delayed and long merited increases for old age pensioners, widows and orphans. Since then, Deputy Lemass, on the one hand, and Deputy Dr. Ryan on the other, with occasional bleatings and conflicting opinions from their back benchers, have been trying to mend their hand. They now do not know where they are because their social service idea is like the alleged blue-prints of the scheme which Deputy Dr. Ryan meant to have left behind him in the Department of Social Welfare, but which could not be found. We are here, elected representatives of the people, to deliberate upon a measure which is going to bring benefit to sections of the community that I hope to prove merit our favourable consideration. It is common case that we have a responsibility to the old age pensioners who can no longer work and who are not in a position to support themselves. It is common case that we owe a duty to the family who may have lost their bread-winner in tragic circumstances. We owe it to the widows and to the orphans. Nobody will quarrel with the fact that we owe a duty to the blind. Nobody in this House will have the courage to stand up and quarrel with the fact that we are going to improve conditions for the expectant mother. I do not think anybody in this House is going to quarrel with the fact that we are going to make available to people a certain grant to ensure that when their last remains go to their place of burial they will go at least with a reasonable respect and with the reasonable equipage that we associate with the burial of our dead in this country. What are we quarrelling about here? The quarrel at times seems to be that Labour is swallowing Fine Gael. The next quarrel is: "Oh, if Fianna Fáil were there we would have given you a better one." You were here too long and we got none.

That is not true. We increased the old age pension and we provided children's allowances, in addition to doing other things. We will tell you all about it.

The position is that we in this House, as the custodians of authority in this country, as the people who put Governments into office, owe a duty to the people we serve. I think this Bill shows a courageous advance towards the acceptance of responsibility that must ultimately be that of the nation to people who, through years of toil and sweat, have helped in the development not only of the economy of the country but who have helped in the full development of the nation in the broader sense. A coordinating Bill, giving further and additional benefits in certain recognised and accepted worthy cases, has caused this mighty furore. Why did the Deputies representing the farming community not come in here and tell the truth? There is one tremendous advance in this Bill that the Opposition seem to be deliberately ignoring— possibly wilfully shelving. With this Bill goes one shocking iniquity that oppressed us in rural Ireland for too long. I refer to that iniquitous system that prevented the old man or the old woman from transferring their holdings to the young and getting their pension, unless the young man in the place was married.

You must not have read the Bill, a chara. That is an iniquity, the removal of which is long overdue. It is true that it would be hard to find a scheme which could be broad enough to include small farmers. Undoubtedly, however, an effort is made in this Bill—and I am inviting my friends on the other side of the House to come forward with a constructive and intelligent scheme to include these people and we will analyse it in this House. We can only suggest at the moment that they can band together in the co-operative union through which they can become members of this particular scheme. If you have something better in this wonderful, unfound and unfindable scheme of Fianna Fáil's to put before this country and this House for its consideration, now is the hour. It has not come so far.

If one calls the diverse views of the ex-Tánaiste and the ex-Minister for Social Welfare a constructive plan, I do not.

And do not forget Deputy Derrig.

It is best to forget him. It is true that there are defects in the way of making the scheme apply in an over-all way to the community. The thing that irks and annoys me about this complete measure is that while the basis of it is common case and while the principle is admitted, instead of getting together here as reasonable intelligent people to try and improve still further and enlarge the scheme, we come in here as a group of petty little schoolboys jibbing and gibing at each other. Immense charges have had to be met in this State up to now to enable us to discharge our obligations to certain sections of the community. We accept and the House unanimously accepts that principle. Why have we bickering and childishness on the Second Stage of the Bill when we should be getting the Second Stage through and getting the House, together with its collective intelligence, to try and make this Bill, the principle of which is accepted, a better Bill for the country in general? I think that we would be doing infinitely more service to the nation if we were to do that.

On what basis can one object to a scheme which is based on a three-way contribution—one part by the person to benefit, another part by his employer and the third part by the State? If the man is self-employed it would straight away present the difficulty that his contribution to the scheme would have to be twice that of the man who is employed. It is true that it is the aim of all individual industries to try and get some pension scheme for their employees. That is a principle that is growing more and more rapidly in our modern State. What quarrel should these people have if they are asked to fit into a national plan and if they want, above the general national plan, to make special provision, extra to that, for their employees? There is nothing in this Bill which will stop them from doing it. But is it immoral, as was suggested by some people purporting to be theological experts, to try and fix a minimum standard that is going to be something above the horrible and miserable subsistence level that some of the most necessitous classes in this country have had to face in the years gone by?

Is there something wrong, something indecent or something improper in trying to make the future a little bit brighter than the very dull past? Mind you, I am not afraid to go down to West Cork and answer the questions I will be asked on this Bill because I believe that we are bound in duty to do as much as we possibly can for the necessitous classes. If a practical and reasonable way can be found of including small farmers and their sons in the social services, I feel sure that we will get an opportunity of enlarging those services or of introducing new legislation. I have been trying to get a solution for the problem myself; I am not enamoured of a Bill that cannot be more general in its sweep, but I say squarely and honestly that this Bill is stepping out in the right direction and I will step with it. If not in the year or two before us, I hope that with a proper approach to the question, we may find unanimity and commonsense to meet a problem which at present is being put into the field of petty politics. This is a bigger problem than politics. God knows, none of us knows when the boot may be on the other foot. We do not know when we or ours may find ourselves through no fault of our own forced to make use of either the sickness or old age benefits set out in the scheme. Is it unworthy that we should remove from continuing mendicancy these unfortunate people? I think it is a worthy act. It is true that you can pinprick the Bill in many ways but on its principle we are all on common ground and believe that some type of social service is necessary. Fianna Fáil say it is necessary; they say that this is not good enough, but as yet they have not given us one practical suggestion for its improvement except: "Take out the increase in old age pensions so that we can vote against it; if you leave it in we are hobbled".

I speak as a person who is generally interested in finding the best solution possible to the problem. I take it that the Bill is put forward as a type of social security and that there will be ready agreement to its improvement if practicable. I take it that it is put forward to give a lead to the House so that if possible it may be perfected before it becomes law. I make an honest appeal to the House to get away from wondering whether you are going to lose Mick McCarthy's vote or Liam Hayes's vote and consider how to make social services practicable, workable and available in the most generous and general way to the people who need it. That is our duty as legislators.

The extraordinary thing about this measure is that while many people of different religious denominations have purported to denounce it no authoritative condemnation has come from those who are recognised as the directors of religious thought, either the Catholic or the Protestant bishops. We have had airy vapourings from one worthy gentleman who was absolutely slashing in his condemnation, but if he had removed from his poison the bias and prejudice of political allegiance and disillusion there would have been nothing left for him to say.

This Bill will give a measure of justice to some at least and I hope we are not far from the time when it may be extended throughout the country. I do not at all agree with the suggestion that this Bill will keep drones. The drones of our system are not among the lowly paid or the working class. The sooner we realise that and are fair to those decent hard-working people the sooner will credit redound to us all. It is horrible to suggest that these people are drones living on the oppressed, depressed and harried agricultural community. In their day and generation they contributed as much to this nation as any class in the country.

Let us get at this Bill and improve it where we can. Let us not impede it just through frustration, anger, prejudice or bias. Let us face with commonsense an issue that we must face some day. Let us find a way to make things better for the type of person Deputy Allen and I represent, the small farmers, the people of the rural areas. If we can find a way to do that I will press for its implementation. Let us get together and find a way to make this a better Bill and let us not tear down something to which we can offer no alternative.

Since this Bill was introduced and circulated, the Tánaiste has announced on the Second Reading his intention to amend it by making certain provisions for old age pensioners, blind pensioners and people in similar classes. There is, however, nothing in the Bill itself which makes any provision for those sections of the community not covered by contributory insurance. If any Deputy feels that the principles involved are so bad that it is necessary to vote against the Bill on the Second Reading, he can do so knowing full well that he is not voting against any proposal to increase non-contributory old age pensions or the other benefits which the Tánaiste has promised to introduce at a later stage.

Everyone will agree that, having regard to the manner in which the cost of living has risen, during the past year in particular, and even during the past few months, there is urgent need to give at least an additional half-crown to the old age pensioners. The additional price they have to pay for fuel will more than absorb that additional benefit. Therefore, there is no disagreement on that question. I think that a reasonable proposition was put up to the Government by four independent Deputies—Deputies P.D. Lehane, Sheldon, O'Reilly and myself. We asked the Government to embody the provision for an increased old age pension in a separate Bill and have it passed through the House immediately.

It could have been passed before Easter, if the Government had been prepared to meet our request; and those increased pensions could be on the way towards being paid almost immediately. There is nothing to prevent at any time the giving of this increased benefit, except the unwillingness of the Minister for Finance; but once the Minister for Finance and the Government have announced that they are prepared to concede the additional money required to meet an increase in the old age pension, there should be no delay whatever in giving that pension. It has been announced in the public Press that that increase of 2/6 is to be forthcoming and it is unfair to the aged and to the blind and to those in need, the weakest section of the community, to keep them waiting in suspense while a difficult and complex Bill is under discussion.

When did the Deputy think of this?

I thought of it immediately, as soon as the proposition was made to hold the old age pensioners to ransom, to use them as hostages, so as to ensure that a Bill which is bad fundamentally in many respects should be rushed through the House. If the proposal to give an increase to old age pensioners were an honest or sincere one, it should have been embodied in the Bill when it was being drafted. Long consideration was given to this Bill. It has been under consideration, I presume, since the White Paper was issued more than a year ago. There have been, as we know, two Bills announced. This is the second draft of this Bill that has been introduced. There was ample opportunity to embody in the Bill the provision for increased old age pensions.

It seems to me that it was only when the Government suddenly realised that there were so many independent Deputies prepared to vote against the Bill as originally introduced, that they decided that they would be forced, in order to get the Bill through, to offer this additional half-crown. That is not the way to treat this House. It is not the way to treat a very important piece of legislation. If there is anyone who can claim credit for the fact that this additional half-crown has been promised, it is those of us independent Deputies who made it clear that we were not supporting the Bill as introduced. So when Deputy Sheehan asks when did I think of this, it is necessary to ask when did the Government think of it. Why did they not think of it sooner than when they realised at the last moment that they could not get the Bill through without giving this concession to a very needy section of the community? I think that this is a dishonest proposal, and I want to assure the House that if they meet the demand which has been put up by four independent Deputies here, and the demand which is also embodied in a motion which I have tabled, that non-contentious legislation containing this half-crown be introduced into this House, then there will be no difficulty whatever in getting such a Bill through.

Will you give them half a crown?

I have made it clear at the outset that the half-crown is not in the Bill. The Government had not the moral justice or the sense of justice or fair play to the old age pensioners to put this half-crown into the Bill and it was only when they were coerced by us independent Deputies that they made this promise that it would be introduced subsequently. I do no agree with that dishonest type of procedure in introducing a Bill of this kind, which is of such immense importance. It is a Bill which embodies many dangerous principles, principles which have been very properly criticised by those whose function it is to study legislation and to study administration from the purely Catholic and religious point of view. Those people have studied this proposal very carefully, and I consider that their reasons were presented very moderately, very fairly and very carefully, and presented with a view to offering some guidance in this matter. They have never wished—and no fairminded person would wish—that an attempt should be made to rush this House into supporting a contentious Bill by putting in a half-crown for old age pensioners.

I challenge the Government now to bring in a Bill with this 2/6 and I can assure the Government that it will be passed as speedily as possible through the House. Then we can get down to consideration of this Bill. The Bill before us, which has been printed and put into circulation, contains no provision for the 2/6. We could consider it and after careful consideration decide whether on its merits it is worthy of support. Leaving out whatever the Minister's intentions may be with regard to amendments on the next stage, this Bill on balance is a bad one.

Like the Deputy.

It has fundamental faults and fundamental virtues, just like every other Bill. There are always some good points in every piece of legislation, even the worst piece introduced here. Everyone will agree that it was urgently desirable that the sickness benefit should be increased, particularly that it should be increased in cases where the insured person has a family depending upon him. That was urgently needed and I think every Deputy will agree that that particular provision is a good one.

The Tánaiste, however, could have gone a little further in that respect. He should have included in the disability benefit all insured persons who suffer disability through injury or accident, apart from those who suffer disability due to illness. Workmen's compensation liability should have been included in this Bill and the general community would have welcomed such a change and such an improvement. Whether a man is incapacitated from work because he has met with an accident in the course of his employment or because he has contracted some disease is immaterial. He should receive the same benefit while he is unable to work. That is a point which deserves reasonable and fair consideration.

As I said, there are bad points in this Bill and those bad points outweigh those which are good and desirable. There are three main faults in this Bill. In the first place, it seeks, and seeks very successfully, to concentrate in the hands of the central Government functions which should be, in a right society, performed by the family and some of which could also be performed by a local organisation, particularly by a vocational organisation. Secondly, it is bad because it seeks to provide certain services which in my opinion are both unnecessary and undesirable. It seeks to compel the ordinary working man to pay a substantial contribution which is just the same as any other form of direct taxation, and he has to pay that for the specific purpose of keeping a large section of the community in complete idleness.

I hold that the first function of a Government in regard to the workers is to see that they have constant employment. The usual Socialist slogan is, "work or maintenance." I hold that the slogan of a good Government should be work without the alternative of maintenance. I hold that a properly constituted Government, a Government constituted on sound principles and acting on sound principles, should be able to provide work for every citizen able and willing to work. If they fail to perform that function, and only then, they should finance the provision of maintenance, not out of compulsory contributions from the workers, but out of general taxation. I do not agree that any worker should be compelled to insure himself against the incompetence of a Government, because it is only incompetence that produces unemployment. Therefore, if it is necessary to provide maintenance for the unemployed through the incompetence of the Government, the Government should provide it by other means than a direct levy on the workers and their employers.

The Deputy knows that this has been the pattern of our insurance since 1911.

I was expecting that interruption. I know that there are a lot of things which have been wrong since this State was established and before this State was established; but if a thing is wrong that is no reason why it should be extended to such an extent that it can never be redressed. An evil like this on a modified scale is not as harmful or as dangerous as it is when it is extended and made universal. That is one of the principles upon which I am opposing this Bill— that we are extending and expanding the whole system of unemployment insurance to such an extent that we are creating a vested interest in unemployment, that we are compelling large sections of the community to contribute so much of their weekly income to insurance that they will naturally feel they are in some way entitled to recover the money which they have paid. As I say, if you fail to perform the important governmental function of providing full employment for our workers, there is only one thing you can do and that is to provide the assistance for them out of general taxation. I want to get away from the bad principle which the Minister has mentioned and which he now seeks to extend and expand so as to cover every section of the community.

Then there is another section of the community for whom the Minister has made provision in this Bill, namely, able-bodied persons of 65 years. I do not know what percentage of the total population these people form, but they must be a very considerable section, and I am certain that the provision of this retiring benefit, as it is called, will impose a very heavy liability upon the whole insurance scheme. I do not think that that service is either necessary or desirable. If we had a position in this country in which the volume of output was so high that we could not find a market for it either in this country or outside, if our external balance of payments was so favourable that it would not be necessary to increase our agricultural or industrial output, then there might be a case for shortening the working life, just as there might be a case for shortening the working week or the working day. But we have not that position here. We have the position in which we are unable as a nation to pay our way because our volume of output does not keep pace with the volume of consumption. Therefore, we are seeking to introduce by this Bill something which will retard the output of the nation and something which will impose a very heavy burden on the insured section of the community and also of course on the taxpayers.

There is no reasonable case for this retirement benefit. Under the health insurance provisions heretofore in force, and particularly under the health insurance provisions in this Bill, a worker of 65 years who is in poor health, a worker who is medically unfit to go to work, can receive benefit. On the other hand, it is the duty of the State, either in this Bill or otherwise, to make provision for the unemployed. Therefore there can be no justification for this provision which seeks to induce healthy, able-bodied persons to retire at 65 years. The whole trend of all legislation in this country should be to encourage people to work as long as they are able, as long as their doctor advises them they are capable of working, and in that way make their contribution to the general pool of goods in the country, and thus contribute to the raising of the general standard of living of the entire nation.

There is another very serious defect in this Bill. It leaves out of consideration almost half the working population of the country. I regard the health benefits and the provisions for widows and children as important and desirable but under this Bill those benefits do not apply to more than half the working population though the entire population will have to contribute towards the general taxation in order to provide them. That seems to me to be very unfair to the small farmer who may have to meet heavy liabilities through prolonged illness. So far as the middle classes and the small farmers are concerned I have never believed in providing them with completely free medical services but, if they or their families have to face prolonged illness or avail of specialist and institutional treatment involving heavy expense, I think then they do need some assistance. I think the small farmer and the middle-class farmer should benefit in that respect, the middle-class farmer who pays one or two men and who has to work hard with his own brain and muscle to provide a living for himself and his family and wages for his one or two men. That man is brought under this Bill only in so far as he is registered as an employer. He must make a fairly substantial contribution to the finances of the Bill but he cannot draw any benefit from it. The struggling farmer who employs one man and who must pay out 3/6 per week in respect of him may have very serious commitments to meet should he or any of his family fall ill. But he cannot turn to this Bill in such circumstances for assistance. There is no social security for him. In that connection, I would like to refer to the opinions of some Catholic clergymen who have considered this matter very carefully.

Do they stand over those opinions now, the opinions expressed a couple of weeks ago? They have not opened their mouths for the past month and will not do so again.

You silenced them.

The matter is sub judice now.

You are in favour of some sort of social welfare scheme; so are we and, therefore, they are all wrong.

As far as social welfare is concerned, we are all in favour of certain social services. Everybody knows that. Surely we have always had some social services ever since the introduction of old age pensions.

But it was all wrong.

Acting-Chairman

Deputy Cogan must not be interrupted.

I take it Deputy Captain Cowan thinks that the best way to prevent me making my case is frequently to interrupt me and possibly bring interruptions from elsewhere in the House, too. I do not want to be side-tracked. This is an important matter. It is important for every section of the community. I do not think these clergymen would have given the matter the attention they did give it if it were not so important. They would not have set down their opinions in writing if they did not think grave principles were involved which should be considered objectively and seriously here and I take it it was mainly with the intention of ensuring that this Bill would get the consideration it deserved that they set down their opinions in regard to it.

I want to quote now from Rural Ireland, the annual issued by Muintir na Tire. At page 101 of last year's issue Father Phelim Ó Briain refers to a statement made by the Bishop of Clonfert. The statement is as follows:—

"It is strange that in an agricultural country like ours, no account is taken of agriculture except that a comparatively small number of agricultural labourers (about 70,000) is included; but the farming community generally is excluded—the community that forms our greatest industry, employs the most workers, produces the most wealth and, as a class, receives so small a fraction of the national income. All are definitely excluded; they may not enter the scheme even if they wish."

Father Ó Briain went on to refer to the farmers' income. He said:—

"Specious and quite fallacious attempts to make a case against farming in favour of some other class are completely refuted by certain elementary economic facts that should be known to everybody. The most recent public estimate of our national income has put it at about £300,000,000. Of this sum, only £100,000,000 went to the agricultural community.... The last census shows the rural population to be more than 63 per cent. of the total population. But only 31 per cent of the whole national income reaches the farmers."

That is a complete answer to those who say that the farming community are so prosperous they have no need to fear social insecurity and they have no need for social security.

Just before I left home this week I was speaking to a small farmer with 20 acres of land. He has three pigs for sale and he found that the price he expected to get had been reduced by £3 per pig. That means that there is £9 gone out of the little income that farmer hoped to derive from fattening these pigs. There is very little social security there.

What about the worker living in the tenement?

Reference has been made to people living in tenements. How many of them are excluded under the terms of this Bill? How many small traders and casual workers are excluded?

So long as the Deputy does not refer to Moore Street and the Coal Quay I do not mind.

I have no intention of referring to any of the select quarters Deputy Captain Cowan knows so well. I do not think this Bill provides any comprehensive insurance against the hazards of life for all sections of the community There are many struggling people in the urban and rural areas who will derive no benefit under this measure. This Bill is a drastic step in the direction of State control in every walk of life and over every section of the community. It is a long step towards socialism in its simplest form.

We all know that the first fundamental consideration of any Government is to respect the rights of the family. In this Bill, certain obligations are being imposed upon a section of the community compulsorily to pay increased contributions and the whole scheme is centralised around the old bus station or the new bus station or whatever it is in Store Street. Why should we not have every function that could be transferred to the family, so transferred? I have spoken to people who have studied the social question from a moral aspect and they have said that the only justification for the State coming in to make provision which ought to be made by the head of the family is that social conditions are so bad that it is impossible for him to do so.

Was it not the Deputy's last complaint that the Bill was not comprehensive enough?

And that it was not doing things in a widespread fashion.

That is the illogicality of the whole proposition.

The Deputy says the Bill is bad, but yet he wants it extended to everybody.

That is what Dr. Hegarty says.

He has not seen that yet.

I have outlined the manner in which the Bill is bad, and I have outlined the good aspects, and I have suggested to the House the provisions which are good and which should be extended to the sections of the community who are excluded. I instanced the case of the person who pays a worker weekly and who has to contribute insurance in respect of that man, the ordinary struggling farmer. I instanced the case of the small farmer who may have members of his family seriously ill. There is no benefit provided for those people in this Bill. That is the type of provision which I would like to see made more comprehensive. I also referred to people who are excluded from the Bill, people who suffer a disability or who are incapable of working owing to injuries. They should also benefit under this measure. In other words, I am asking that the health benefits of this Bill should be extended to all sections.

I am not asking that the compulsory insurance should be extended to the small farmer. He is never unemployed. I have never asked that he should be requested to contribute towards that. I have objected to the agricultural labourer, to the small farmer and the farmer who employs an agricultural labourer having to contribute jointly towards providing money for unemployment insurance. In my view, unemployment is due to the incompetence of the Government and if they fail to provide full employment they should provide the money from other sources rather than impose a direct tax upon the lowly-paid worker.

Since references have been made to certain matters—I think Deputy Cowan is developing certain attributes as a theologian—for his benefit I think it might be no harm to quote the words of the Most Rev. Dr. Dignan, Bishop of Clonfert. He said:—

"If I were a member of a trade union consisting of men in secure and constant employment, and if I were asked to draw up a scheme for my union without considering the rights or needs of others, I would be inclined to adopt this scheme. But if I were asked to draw up a ‘national' scheme—and this scheme is supposed to be national—I could not look upon it as a model to follow. The proposals, in my opinion, violate distributive justice in imposing burdensome taxation on the whole community to pay benefits to a new privileged class. The trade unions themselves stand to benefit financially from the scheme."

From what book is the Deputy quoting?

From Christus Rex. I am quoting from an article by——

Dr. Hegarty.

The date of this particular volume is October, 1950. The Bill had been circulated at that time.

And that is a quotation from Dr. Hegarty; it is not direct from the bishop.

Yes. I am sure he would not misquote the bishop.

There are a few queer statements in it at the same time, Deputy.

I have indicated the extent to which this Bill is founded on false principles. I have indicated that it seeks to provide two services which it is not desirable that the ordinary worker should be compelled to pay a levy in order to finance. There are some people who suggest that those services would not involve very high expenditure. For that reason I want to show how much of a saving could be effected if we were to delete those services. I believe if we deleted those unnecessary and undesirable services we would not need to increase the contributions payable by the worker and his employer and we would not need to increase the State contribution; at least, we would not need to increase the contributions payable by the worker and the employer and we would not need to provide any more out of State funds than is already provided under the Bill.

The services which I consider it is undesirable that the worker should be compelled to insure against are unemployment and retirement. The retirement pension could be deleted altogether with advantage to the entire community. It serves no useful purpose. It is no benefit to the worker and it is an injury to the State. I live among farm workers who would much prefer to work to 70 years and in some cases even beyond that age.

There is nothing to prevent them working on.

There is a strong inducement offered in the Bill to workers to retire at 65, and there is an indication that this inducement may be supplemented. There is also another aspect, and I am open to correction in this respect. I understand when this Bill becomes law people over 65 will not be entitled to draw the health benefits that are provided. If that is so, it is almost coercing them into accepting retirement at 65. With regard to unemployment, I hold that that service should be financed out of State funds.

Out of taxation.

I hold that the amount required would be very small provided this country were properly governed and if every man who can work was provided with work. The sum provided in this Bill for unemployment benefit and for retirement pensions amounts to £5,150,000 out of a total of £8,800,000; that is, very much more than 50 per cent. of the money that will be extracted from the worker and his employer will be spent upon services which could, with advantage to the State, the workers and everybody concerned, be dispensed with. Deputy M.J. O'Higgins asked whether the employment benefit should be provided out of State funds or general taxation. My contention is that, with proper local organisation and effort by all concerned, we could provide almost 100 per cent. employment for all our workers. It is only a matter of getting down to the work.

There is nothing in the Bill to prevent it.

There is this. You will extract from the worker by compulsory measures 3/6 per week to insure him against unemployment. Is it not natural that that man should expect some benefit from that? Are you not creating a situation in which you have got to give that benefit?

Do you appreciate that before the first Unemployment Insurance Act was introduced in 1911 and when that levy was not collected there was much more unemployment than now?

The Tánaiste is not as innocent as he pretends to be. Very much later than 1911—in 1928 or 1929, I think—we had Ministers in this country—some of them are now associated with the Tánaiste and the Tánaiste is now supporting them—who claimed that it was not the function of the Government to relieve unemployment in any way.

Did you vote for these Ministers?

I was not a member of the House at that time.

Did you vote in 1948 for them?

Was the Tánaiste a Minister?

It was the wisest thing Deputy Cogan ever did.

Deputy McGilligan claimed that the State had no function in regard to employment. The State has a very definite function in regard to employment. That function is to provide employment without any reservation or qualification. That was not accepted as the obligation of Government in 1911. In 1928 or 1929 it was not accepted by Deputy McGilligan. It was not accepted until recent years. It is now generally accepted by Governments in all countries that they must undertake the function of providing employment for those who find it impossible to secure employment. If we deduct this unnecessary and undesirable expenditure from the provisions of the Bill, we can avoid the necessity for increasing the contributions made payable by the workers and the employer and it will not be necessary to add anything to the expenditure of the State so far as the services of the State are concerned.

I have indicated that I disagreed with the Bill on the ground that it makes for more intensive centralisation of all social activities in the hands of a centralised Department. The Bill takes away many of the responsibilities which could be left in the hands of the head of the family. It takes away a lot of the responsibilities which could be left with great advantage to a locally constituted body such as a parish council or a parish guild. We ought to approach this question on Christian lines. We ought to approach it on the lines indicated by people who have studied those questions from a Christian standpoint. I believe in the philosophy that is embodied in this volume of Rural Ireland issued by Muintir na Tíre and in this volume of Christus Rex issued from Maynooth.

It is not Maynooth.

The Bishops have not made one pronouncement against the Bill.

Permit me to read: "Editorial Offices, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth."

They happened to have an office there.

It was suggested some time ago that there were two St. Patricks. Maybe there are two St. Patrick's Colleges also?

The individual is a member of St. Patrick's staff, but he is merely an individual there.

I never intended to suggest that he was infallible, but I said I agreed with the philosophy he had set down.

The volume is not issued from Maynooth.

I believe those people are proceeding on the right lines and I believe that our socialist philosophers of the Labour Party are following blindly the philosophy of the British Labour Party and that of the Socialist Parties on the continent.

What about the Fianna Fáil philosophy?

They are trailing along behind.

It is a better philosophy.

I was impressed by the little volume which was issued by the Minister. He thought, perhaps, the White Paper was too difficult for the ordinary Deputy to understand. That was why he got out a little blue book. It shows us a nice little family, a young man and woman and two children. That apparently is the ideal family from the point of view of size according to British socialist philosophy. There is set down in the book all the benefits it is proposed to give to the different sections of the community.

You have misunderstood the significance of the two children. You have only made two statements and both are wrong.

The Deputy should be permitted to make his speech. The five yapping yahoos are trying to prevent him.

We know who is the yahoo around here.

It is hard on our legal gentlemen that they cannot get the ordinary farmer into the Dáil and cross-examine, browbeat and silence him.

Let the Deputy not try to interpret our philosophy. Let him interpret his own.

I am not worrying about Deputy Hickey. I have said that I understand and agree with the philosophy of Muintir na Tíre and of Christus Rex. I do not want to add anything to that or to take anything from it. I think it is a sound philosophy and one which we as a people would do well to study more closely, instead of aping the fashion of the British Socialist Party. We often talk about the Six Counties having to keep in step with the Government in London, but we are keeping in step even to a greater extent and perhaps trying to keep a step ahead occasionally.

It would be well to ask where we are going, in what direction we are going. It would be well to ask where is the terminus, where is the end of the journey. Is it not a complete Socialistic State, in which everybody is eating out of the Government's hands, in which the Government supplies everything to everybody and takes everything they have from them, or, rather, takes before giving because no Government can give anything to the people but what it takes from them? We ought not to allow ourselves to be rushed headlong into this measure of so-called social security——

Which you say is not comprehensive enough.

——which provides no social security and no security of any kind for a large section, which excludes a large section from the operation of one or two provisions which are good and which, on the other hand, compels ordinary workers to make a substantial contribution out of their week's wages, which levies a tax on them, because there is no difference whatever between the weekly contribution which is compulsory and the contribution he pays through taxes. It is collected compulsory and for that reason one may put it in the same category as any other tax. We are asked not to give this Bill careful and deliberate consideration and not to pay any attention to clergy or such people, outsiders, who are not politicians. We are not to give their views any consideration whatever and we are asked to vote blindly for this Bill and to rush our country blindly into a system of so-called social security from which it will be difficult to retrace our steps.

I have indicated that the one justification which one clergyman with whom I discussed the Bill offered was that, if a large section of our people are poor, the State must come to their assistance. If that is the justification for the Bill, it would be a justification only for a temporary measure, but this is a permanent measure. Take the case of the boy of 16 who has left school. Week by week, a sum of 3/6 is collected from him for the remainder of his life and that contribution is collected from him on the understanding that he will be provided with the dole, if he happens to be unemployed. That is a situation of which I cannot approve.

We would do well to advance cautiously in regard to this measure. We could very easily provide for a bettering of the health benefits and the benefits for widows and orphans. That, I think, is the greatest hazard the ordinary man in weekly employment has to face—the hazard of sickness and death, leaving his dependents unprovided for—and I would be in favour of these benefits being increased to the extent to which they are increased in the Bill, but, so far as the other services are concerned, I am against them.

Against the increase in maternity benefit?

The maternity benefit is only a small amount which does not matter very much. I have no objection to it. Deputy Collins, by his interruptions and his speech, seems to exaggerate the extent of these benefits, but they amount to a very small portion of the total expenditure involved in the Bill.

Perhaps Deputy Cogan will be allowed to make his statement without interruption.

The main items of expenditure in the Bill are unemployment and retirement benefits which represent nearly two-thirds of the total expenditure, and for that reason there is not very much in the others.

If unemployment is wiped out how would you argue that?

I do not like to have to keep on educating Deputies as they come in. They probably heard that I was giving a lecture here and came in for education, with the result that I have again to go over the ground I have travelled for the benefit of other Deputies. I want to inform Deputy Davin that I do not think it is right to coerce a worker into insuring himself against the incompetence of his own Government, into insuring himself against unemployment.

The Deputy should not repeat himself.

I think he should be allowed to finish without interruption.

He should be allowed to finish.

If it will make it shorter.

In view of the limited benefits which the Bill provides, the very undesirable services it seeks to introduce and the unfairness of the measure towards a large section of people who have to contribute, both in taxation and in weekly contribution, Deputies opposite would do well to advise and encourage the Tánaiste even by their votes to withdraw the Bill and to introduce a more acceptable measure. I have indicated the lines on which a Bill would be acceptable. I have indicated that improved health benefits and improved pensions for widows and allowances for orphans would be desirable. I have indicated that the contributions collected from the agricultural worker and the farmer need not be any higher than they are before the passing of this Bill. I have indicated also that I would make an exception in that respect, if the Tánaiste were prepared to include workmen's compensation. In that case, the former employer would be prepared to pay a higher contribution than he is paying at present. These are the suggestions I put up and I say that, because of its many faults which far outweigh its benefits, the Bill is one which ought to be condemned and the Tánaiste for that reason ought to be advised, and, if necessary, compelled to withdraw the Bill and to introduce a measure more acceptable to the House and to the people.

I do not propose to detain the House as long as some of the other speakers have done. I do not do that as a rule. I can understand, of course, the reasons for the exasperation that has been in evidence on the other side of the House with the speech of Deputy Cogan. They have not succeeded in bringing him in under their Coalition wing in connection with this measure.

They do their best to keep him out.

It is only natural, then, that these members on the Coalition Benches would be inclined to show a certain amount of impatience and exasperation with the remarks of Deputy Cogan. While I do not agree entirely with the remarks of Deputy Cogan, I must admit that there were several very sensible things that he said.

Completely divorced from their context.

Purely by accident.

He made, to my mind, a very sensible and very constructive contribution to the debate. Apart entirely from Deputy Cogan or anybody else, I must say that I am opposed to this measure. If there were nothing else to arouse my opposition to it than the way in which it was introduced, that would be quite sufficient for me. One would think from the furore that took place over there that this was the first time this country had heard of social security, social welfare or social insurance and, according to the speeches which were delivered, by Labour Deputies especially, one would think that the Fianna Fáil Government never did anything for the poor, the needy and the unemployed.

They gave free meat.

They killed the calves.

At the expense of the farmers.

It is just as well to remind the House at this stage that, before the advent of the Fianna Fáil Government, there was no such thing as widows' and orphans' pensions, no such thing as unemployment assistance, no such thing as a minimum wage for agricultural workers——

"Minimum" is right.

It has been minimum since.

——no such thing as children's allowances.

Who forced you to bring in children's allowances?

Nobody forced us.

The Labour Party did.

We had the reins in our own hands.

Deputy Dillon had a say in it, too.

We had an over-all majority here and we were in a position to do exactly what we thought was right for the Irish people.

You were very badly shaken in the election the year before.

Nobody forced us to do anything. We did our own work and we did it well in the circumstances. These social schemes and others that I need not recapitulate here were introduced by Fianna Fáil.

Forced on them.

And all that the Minister is doing now is going along the road a little further with the social benefits.

Do you object to that?

But going along the road in some directions, I admit, that I do not approve of. I said that the method of introduction of this Bill was sufficient to make me vote against it but I also submit that there is an atmosphere of blackmail surrounding this Bill that should not be there. Deputy Davin sniggers at that.

I want to repeat it, for fear there might be any misunderstanding about it.

Because you know it is untrue.

There is political blackmail surrounding this measure and certain Deputies are being coerced to support it, to vote for it, because there is an inducement held out in the background, an inducement in the shape of 2/6 increase in old age pensions. I characterise that as political blackmail and I agree with Deputy Cogan and the other Deputies on these benches who said that the Government had no right to befog the issue in that way.

To give a half-crown?

No. There is no use in talking like that.

You were against it once. That is what put you over there.

We did more for the old age pensioners than you people ever did.

You brought them back to 10/-.

Deputy Kissane is entitled to speak without interruption.

If I would be allowed to proceed, I would say it was dishonest procedure on the part of the Government to come in here with a Bill of this description without a single word about an increase in old age pensions in it and, when they found that there were certain members on their own benches who were in danger of voting against the measure and defeating it, they came along then with the afterthought of an increase of 2/6 in the old age pensions, for, I submit, it was only an afterthought.

Of course, any intelligent man looking at this, any man outside watching the procedure here, could see that, that it is only as a matter of expediency that the Minister and the Government are now promising 2/6 increase in the old age pension. Why was not the section inserted in the Bill the first day?

The Minister and the Government had ample time to consider it. The fact of the matter is that they had no intention whatever of doing it until they found that there was a possibility, and more than a possibility, a certainty, that certain members on whose support they counted would vote against this Social Welfare (Insurance) (No. 2) Bill, as it is called. Why do they call it the Social Welfare (Insurance) (No. 2) Bill? Because No. 1 Bill had to be relegated to the waste-paper basket for the reason that I have mentioned.

I was intrigued to hear Deputy Collins speaking on this Bill. I always like to hear him. Frequently he makes useful contributions to the debates but, having regard to his Party and his Party's past history, I thought he was inclined to be a bit over-enthusiastic about it. He said he would have no objection or no hesitation to go down to his constituency and stand over this measure. Deputy Sweetman also spoke from the Fine Gael benches. They are the only two Deputies who have spoken so far from the Fine Gael benches.

There will be five or six more. Do not worry.

We shall wait patiently to hear what they have to say. It is very strange that, despite this enthusiasm and this wonderful spirit which the members of Fine Gael are now showing for the downtrodden, the poor and the sick, they did not mention a word about this in their election manifesto.

We did—as far back as 1937.

We have heard now from Deputy Rooney and we also heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach that they put it before the people in 1937——

And ever since.

——that they included some social insurance scheme in their election manifesto in 1937. If they did, what became of it in 1938, 1943, 1944 and 1948?

It was there all the time.

If they had any such proposal as this in their minds in 1937, how is it that they let four subsequent general elections pass without referring to that so-called manifesto?

They were concerned with the main problem.

We have not seen the manifesto. I should like to see a copy of it even now, to ascertain what the social policy of the Fine Gael Party was in 1937. In any case, any thinking man must come to the conclusion, even if they had a social insurance or a social welfare scheme in their election manifesto in 1937 and forgot about it in the succeeding general elections, that they were not very much concerned about it. That is why I say that the concern and enthusiasm displayed by the few speakers from the Fine Gael benches within the past couple of days seem very unreal. The funny thing about this measure is that nobody seems to be in a position to tell us what its full implementation is going to cost the country. The Minister mentioned some figure.

You say it will not cost the country enough.

I think the Minister mentioned something like £10,500,000 for the 1st year apart from any provision for an increase in old age pensions. I may be wrong.

Any guess is good enough.

The Minister himself seems to be only guessing. That is the unfortunate part of it.

We gave you the figures but apparently you cannot understand them.

Apart entirely from the Minister's guessing, my guessing and the guesswork of any member here, there are no financial provisions in this measure for the implementation of the Bill.

There never are.

There are.

It is a budgetary matter.

We are taking, in my opinion, a leap in the dark. We are committing the country to a scheme and the extent of the financial liability involved we do not know.

That is your scheme.

I am discussing the Minister's scheme—at least I am trying to discuss it. Of course I realise that I am also entitled to discuss Deputy Dr. Ryan's scheme and to discuss the amendments that have been put down by Deputies Lehane and Flynn.

Deputy Flynn has withdrawn his amendment.

It was not moved.

Even though Deputy Flynn has withdrawn the amendment it is still there for discussion; it is on the Order Paper. As the Deputy has mentioned Deputy Flynn's amendment—I was not going to make very much reference to it myself— I must say I was very glad when I discovered that Deputy Flynn had down this amendment because I thought it meant that one individual over there on the Government Benches realised his responsibilities to the small working farmers of this country. Deputy Flynn, like myself, represents a good many small industrious farmers in Kerry and naturally I was interested to observe that there was one Government Deputy going to stand on his feet to champion the cause of these small farmers by insisting that the small farmers of the country would not be forgotten in any measure put through this House. What happened? He has decided to withdraw the amendment because pressure was brought to bear on him by Deputy Davin and a few others.

You should not say that about any Deputy, not even a Deputy from your own county.

I am entitled to state what I saw with my own eyes.

What about hearing it?

I am disappointed that the amendment has been withdrawn but, of course, that is entirely a matter for the Deputy himself. I, for one, would not be the person to try to interfere with the liberty or the judgment of any Deputy here.

Hear, hear!

Or of his constituents.

Or of his constituents.

Are you alleging that I was responsible for making him withdraw the amendment? I am not worrying but the Deputy has no grounds for that statement.

Have I not?

You have not. If you have, spit it out.

Deputy Kissane should be allowed to make his statement without interruption.

Deputy Cowan and others have been referring to statements that were made outside. I do not think that Deputy Cowan has spoken yet in this debate.

He will as soon as you sit down.

Deputy Collins made reference to certain pronouncements that were made on this social insurance Bill.

No pronouncements were made.

Well, certain opinions were expressed.

I specifically said that there were no pronouncements made by the people who should make them.

Certain opinions were expressed by eminent sociologists in this country. Can anybody here deny that Father Phelim Ó Briain is a sociologist of importance and repute?

And Dr. Dignan?

And Dr. Dignan.

We know what you did with him.

Deputy Cowan might reserve his statements for his own speech.

One would imagine from what has been said by some of these political men, that we should not listen to advice given by anybody outside. I think that the opinions expressed by an eminent sociologist who has no interest in politics——

Not the man you referred to.

There were opinions given and references made to this Bill by other people also who are not very interested in politics, and I would regard their opinions as being much more valuable than the opinions of politicians.

Why did you not accept their opinions then?

That is a different matter.

The responsibility is ours and not that of the sociologists.

The Chair will have to take serious notice of these interruptions if they do not cease. Deputy Collins and Deputy Cowan have been continuously interrupting Deputy Kissane since he got on his feet.

I got a batter of them myself when I was speaking.

When the Deputy was speaking there was not one interruption from this side of the House.

Do not be talking nonsense. There were bleatings from the opposite side.

I am afraid I must take it that my remarks are proving very irritating to the Deputies opposite. I cannot help that. I am trying to deal with this measure as I see it and as I have read it. I am trying to deal also with expressions of opinion that have been given by certain authorities outside. Now, like my colleagues here, I am in favour of social insurance.

Hear, hear!

But, at the same time, I am not one of those people who would say: "Go ahead: give this section of the people this and give that section of the people that," without weighing the consequences and counting the cost. We should all be very careful in our advocacy of a measure such as this so that we will not kill the goose with the golden eggs.

Hear, hear!

I, like other speakers, deprecate the idea of discouraging people from work after the age of 65, because I know very well that people at the age of 65, especially in rural Ireland, are almost as good at that age as they were at any time. Many of them at that age are better able to work than people who are 30 years younger. While the Minister and other speakers opposite may say that there is nothing in this Bill to prevent a man from working after he reaches the age of 65, still is it not only natural to expect that, when there are certain benefits provided by the State; when there are certain benefits made available by the State to people when they reach the age of 65, the temptation will be there for those people to give up work and accept the benefits?

Does that not show that the scheme is a good one?

But that could be carried too far, especially when we have regard to the fact that the span of life is longer now than it was 30 or 40 years ago. In fact, I would venture to say that the span of life, since the first Old Age Pensions Act was passed in 1908, is at least five years more than it was then because of increased hospitalisation and increased medical services and so on. Therefore, I do not think that any case can be made for this clause in the Bill, a clause which, I should say, virtually provides for the retirement of people from work at the age of 65, when as other speakers have said, every able-bodied person should be engaged not only in production but in increased production. We hear a lot about increased production, especially from the land. I, at any rate, do not think that this clause in the Bill will make for increased production.

We were discussing recently the deficit in the balance of payments, and we discovered that in 1950 that deficit amounted to £30,000,000. What is the only way in which we can rectify that position? The only way is to stimulate production.

How do you do that —by machinery?

By putting more people into work.

And younger men.

Our ambition should be to put more and more people into work and not to take more people out of it. Is that not so? But the latter is exactly what you are going to do under this Bill. Deputy Collins, I see, has gone.

You cleared him out.

He mentioned that there is an onus on the State to provide a measure such as this, but I would suggest that there is also an onus on the State to provide work. There is a much greater onus on the State to provide work for the unemployed, of whom we have over 60,000 in this country to-day. Here we are with no proposals before us, and no indication that they will be before us at any time in the future, to remedy the position and to provide work for the unemployed.

The number of unemployed is getting smaller and smaller every year.

It is getting smaller to the extent that these people are leaving the rural parts of the country.

Not at all.

You intended to bring back the emigrants.

There has been a depopulation of the countryside, especially of the turf areas, over the past couple of years. Were it not for that, the number of unemployed would be much greater than it is.

Look at all the work the emigrants were to get.

We have 3,000,000 people in the country now—more than were there while Fianna Fáil was in office.

And there is more good employment than there was in 1947.

Section 82 provides for the granting of the old age pension in the case of an assignment of property, up to a valuation of £25. Is there to be any equivalent in respect of personal property? Take, for instance, a potential old age pensioner who sells his land and has the proceeds which he got from the sale of the land in the bank.

Is the valuation £25?

Twenty-five pounds. Will the money which such a person would have in the bank as a result of such a sale of his land—whether that sale would have taken place six months or a year or two years previously— be taken into account and assessed as means?

How many possible cases might arise?

There are many cases.

Of course there are many. Apart altogether from the sale of land, there will be cases of people who have a certain amount of money in the bank, which amount of money would be equivalent, say, to the value of up to a certain valuation farm. That type of thing must be taken into account.

Is the means test provision not there?

I think Deputy Kissane might be allowed to make his speech without interruption.

We are only trying to get it straightened out.

I am putting that point in connection with Section 82 before the Minister for his consideration. I am opposed to this Bill because a very important section of the community is being left out of it—the farming community, the small farmers, the fishermen of whom there are a good many in my constituency and the self-employed in many walks of life to whom reference has already been made.

Is that not really dishonest when you never intended to bring them in yourself?

I am entitled to make my statement. I am giving my reasons to the Minister and to the House for opposing this Bill. I am opposing it because of the way in which it has been introduced and because of the way in which the issue is being confused in this House. I am opposing it because an important section of the community is being left out of it: they will never benefit from it and yet they will have to contribute to it.

And to your own scheme, if it ever comes about.

I am opposed to it also because I consider that the contributions are too high. I have been up and down the country recently and I have met many workers. I have found no enthusiasm amongst the workers for this measure.

The Party workers.

That is nonsensical talk. I meet every kind of individual when I go round the country. I am talking about the ordinary people who have to work for their hire—the wage earners—apart altogether from politics. They consider that this imposition of 3/6 a week is too great. That works out at over £10 a year.

That is the way you look at it.

That is the way I am putting it. That is the way it is set out in black and white in the Bill. It is over £10 a year and, of course, the employer—whatever type of an employer he may be, whether a farmer or an employer in the cities and towns —will have to clap down another £10. That makes over £20 in the year.

How much does he clap down now?

Many people hold that it would be better in the majority of cases if that money were paid in ordinary insurance. They hold that they would draw more out of it in that way. A good many of those workers will never benefit to any great extent from the scheme because, in normal circumstances, the majority of them will continue working——

And never die.

I am talking about disablement benefit and sickness benefit. They are the two important benefits. There is no use in talking about people dying and burying them when they are dying. We heard Deputy Seán Collins talking about paupers' graves. It is very seldom nowadays that people are buried in paupers' graves. I am talking about sickness, disablement and unemployment benefits. The majority of workers will derive no benefit from this measure if it becomes an Act.

I have listened to the case that has been made by Fianna Fáil against this Bill. It is a typical case. It is a very old dodge to oppose a Bill such as this on the grounds that it is not good enough, that it does not produce adequate benefits and, at the same time, that it is too costly. Many of us are familiar with that state of mind. It is a typical Fianna Fáil approach. We had it during the 16 years that Fianna Fáil were in office. When we endeavoured to get increases in wages for road workers we were told: "You cannot do it; it would seriously upset agricultural workers", and when we tried to get an increase in wages for agricultural workers we were told: "You cannot do it because it would upset the balance between agricultural workers and local authority workers."

On a point of order, I understand now that it will be permissible in the debate to refer to the wage structure during the 16 years Fianna Fáil were in office. We certainly intend to reply to Deputy Cowan's remarks and I should like to have that clear.

Deputy Cowan made the remark as a preliminary——

Deputy Cowan is discussing the wage structure under Fianna Fáil; are we permitted to do the same thing?

Acting-Chairman

Deputy Cowan is only making a preliminary remark before going on to discuss the Bill.

We can do the same thing?

Acting-Chairman

In a preliminary way, certainly.

I am discussing the opposition to this Bill and the mentality behind that opposition. I am not going to discuss Fianna Fáil and all their sins for the past 25 years.

Life is not long enough.

I am discussing, however, in an introductory way the mentality behind Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil established the Department of Social Welfare and Deputy Dr. Ryan was sent there as Minister to prepare a comprehensive social welfare scheme. Deputy Ryan spent a considerable time warning the House and the country that the implementation of that scheme would mean increased contributions from the workers. That was his message. All the time he was preparing the people for the fact that if a Social Welfare Bill were introduced workers and employers would have to contribute more. Now the Deputy has somersaulted and says that we do not need any increase in contributions but can raise the necessary funds by taxation. What does that show to me? It shows a Party that is dishonest. It shows a Party which knows, which must know, that it will not assume the responsibility of office again; it shows a Party in defeat attempting to gain the few miserable votes that will keep some of them in Parliament after the next election. That is the total reason for that somersault. Deputy Childers is here. He is a Deputy who, speaking in the country, holds himself out as a responsible individual who faces realities when nobody else does and I am quite sure that when he gave his consent to a scheme such as Deputy Ryan has proposed he knows that Fianna Fáil has gone the way of all flesh.

Nothing of the kind. Have an election now any time you like.

Even with the old age pensions.

Deputy Lemass came here last night and said: "Let us not talk politics about this. Let us all get around as responsible statesmen——"

A fireside chat.

"——and get an agreed measure." He holds himself out as the reasonable individual who is not going to talk politics. But what has he been doing in regard to this Bill during the last three years? Since the Minister took responsibility for the Department Deputy Lemass has been demanding the White Paper, the White Paper, the White Paper. When he got the White Paper he wanted to know when we were going to get the Bill, when we would see it, when it would be circulated and when it would get its Second Reading. He had been twitting the Government on social welfare for the last three years and endeavoured to get all the political assistance he could out of the fact that the Bill was not introduced earlier. Now that a concrete measure is before him, he, astute politician that he is, sees the danger to Fianna Fáil in the Bill, and says: "Withdraw it; let us get around a table and talk about it." He made no such suggestion for the past three years, but now when he sees it is about to become law in spite of his Party he wants us to have a chat about it. The mentality there is that nothing is right unless Fianna Fáil does it.

I heard Deputy Kissane this evening talking about some of the social welfare schemes introduced by Fianna Fáil, and he instanced children's allowances. I remember very well when in the general election of 1943 the Labour Party campaigned the country for the introduction of children's allowances, and Fianna Fáil said "No," and refused to put children's allowances into their election literature.

A good thing too, excellent.

What happened? They got a shock to find that while they were the biggest Party they had not a clear majority. At that time the Labour Party very foolishly voted them back into office instead of voting them out of office.

They kicked you out of the Labour Party at that time too.

In 1943, having got that shock, being placed in a minority, being subject to the majority rule of the House, they introduced children's allowances and went to the country to get a clear majority in 1944. I remember it very well because I campaigned all over the country.

You are mixing it badly.

What Party was the Deputy in at that time?

The Labour Party.

The vanguard?

Whatever Party I am in or am not in, I think I have never changed in my adherence to Labour Party philosophy and I defy any Deputy to find any conflict in my views on economic matters in the period since I came into public life.

The Labour Party do not think that.

You know very little about them, so the less you say the better.

Do not be annoyed.

That is the story of the children's allowances. They were put into operation by the electorate who shocked Fianna Fáil in 1943.

What about the Transport Bill in 1943?

That was 1943. Deputy Kissane and other Deputies say it is wrong to give a retiring allowance to a man of 65 who has worked probably 50 years. That is the Party that introduced here and passed into law legislation to give £500 a year pension to Ministers of the Government after a few years in office. Fianna Fáil gave £10 a week to a man after a few years in office as a Minister, yet they say it is wrong to give a retirement allowance of 24/- to a worker in the rural areas or in the city who has worked and sweated over a period of 50 years. Where is the honesty about that sort of thing? I want to know from Deputy Childers or from anybody else in Fianna Fáil where the honesty is in that. "Political blackmail" are the words used by Deputy Kissane; it was political blackmail, he said, for the Minister to provide that old age pensioners would get £1 a week, that the means test would be substantially modified, that those who were in receipt of special allowances under the I.R.A. Acts or pensions for army disability might receive the total old age pension of £1.

That is not in the Bill.

It is, in spite of you.

"Political blackmail" he called it. Those are the words Deputy Kissane used. Does Deputy Kissane remember another phase in the administration of Fianna Fáil in regard to pensions, when they went before the country and told the people that if they were elected to office they would abolish military service pensions? That is what they said they would do and over every dead wall in the country they published a list of honourable men who had served this country honestly and they headed it "The roll of honour." What was that roll? It was a list of men who had received pensions from the then Government for services to this State.

They put their own names to it since.

Having gone to the country on that issue, having put that specifically before the people as an election issue, they came into this House and instead of abolishing the military service pensions they provided military service pensions for a number of other people.

Do you object?

No. I think it was right to do it, but I am talking about it from the point of political dishonesty and dishonest procedure.

Was the plea not put up that the livelihood of those men was based on the pensions they were in receipt of?

I do not care what plea was put up. Having gone to the country and having got a mandate from the country to abolish the pensions, they were morally bound to go to the country again before they changed their decision. I think it was perfectly right to give these military service pensions in the way they have been given under the 1934 Act.

Now the civil war discussion starts on that.

This is political war.

Let the discussion open now and discuss the whole civil war.

I am engaged in political war with Fianna Fáil on this Bill.

The Deputy is using the civil war.

There will be no discussion, we hope, on the civil war.

The question of military pensions can be answered only by reference to the civil war.

Acting-Chairman

Deputy Cowan.

I am discussing political dishonesty, the political blackmail mentioned by Deputy Kissane.

The Deputy has been discussing the civil war, indirectly.

Acting-Chairman

Deputy Cowan must not be further interrupted.

Deputy Cogan comes in here and says we must be concerned with Christian principles. In other words, the suggestion is that in this Parliament in a Christian State Deputy Cogan is the leader of Christianity. He says it is wrong to bring in this Bill on Christian principles, as it has been condemned by Christian philosophers. Deputy Kissane, while complimenting him on his speech and very sensibly declaring he did not agree with him on a number of points, made some reference to the discussion that has gone on in the country in regard to this Bill. The whole principle of social welfare has been condemned by certain individuals. As far as this House and this Parliament is concerned, I am glad to see that Fianna Fáil adopt the same line as the Minister and the Government, that there is nothing unchristian in the Bill. If we have the Government side and the Fianna Fáil side both agreeing that there is nothing in conflict with Christian morals in it, it is impertinence on the part of Deputy Cogan to say that we are not dealing with the matter on Christian lines.

I have read a lot of the criticisms. I was at home one evening when I was approached by a couple of young ladies and I was asked to oppose this Bill, as a Catholic. I was told it was unchristian and entirely wrong. I asked a few questions about it. I wanted to know if it was wrong to have the old age pensions for so many years, to have unemployment insurance, unemployment assistance, and national health insurance benefits. Apparently there was nothing wrong in having those things, but when you brought them into a comprehensive scheme, when you administered them in one Department under one Minister, apparently there was something wrong. Those two ladies said to me, after I discussed it with them: "Oh, you are too clever for us, but we will give you a document which we hope will convince you as a Catholic that you must vote against the Bill."

The document they gave me was this: The Principles Against State Welfare Schemes, by the Rev. E.J. Hegarty, D.D., M.A., B.Ph., H.Dip. in Ed., Cork. I was interested and I read that document. I found in it declarations that seemed to me entirely unchristian—but it is not for me to say that they are. I explained to those ladies that in matters of religion I would be guided and directed by the declarations, statements and advice that might be given by persons in authority in the Catholic Church, and that as far as I was concerned it was entirely a matter for the Archbishop of Dublin to say that that was a Bill which was in conflict with Christian principles, but nobody else had any such right so to direct me. When I read this document I came to the conclusion that it was written by a person who was not in very close touch with realities. I came to the further conclusion that, instead of being a document of authority, it was a political pamphlet, and I use the word “political” in its broadest and widest sense—not a Party political, but a definite political document. One of the statements in this document is this:

"Tenants of corporation houses are known to saw the rafters off the roof for convenient fuel."

A statement such as that ought not to be made because it is untrue. It certainly ought not to be made by the Rev. E.J. Hegarty. He also says:

"Local schemes for giving allotments and seeds are a dismal failure. The ‘Dole' keeps 40,000 to 60,000 idle at a time when works of national importance are hindered by labour shortage. Those receiving State assistance often spend more actual money on amusements and luxuries than many farming or professional people could afford——"

Is that the whole context?

"——yet their diet, clothing and homes are sadly neglected, while their children roam the streets or are trained to beg for their father's (or mother's) pint."

That is written by the Rev. E.J. Hegarty as a condemnation of State welfare schemes. I say that the Rev. E.J. Hegarty ought to be ashamed of himself, and I make no apology to anybody for saying it. If he enters into the political field to write a political document, a document which I know to be scandalously untrue, I will answer him.

Would not outside be the better place?

I am answering him here because it has to do with this Bill. I am answering this document in this House. This document has this printed inside the front cover:—

"An article from an approved periodical, when republished separately, does not require a new imprimatur. (Code of Canon Law, Canon 1392, paragraph 2.)"

When he uses or attempts to use Canon Law for that sort of thing, I as a public representative will use this House for the purpose of condemning that document.

It would be better to do it outside.

I know where I will use it and Deputy Allen will not stop me. He can go out and make as much political capital as he can out of my condemnation of that document.

Shadow boxing.

The document proceeds:—

"If idlers will get family benefit up to £2 10s. weekly it will only encourage their parasitism, since it would hardly be worth the trouble to work at all for the duration of benefits..."

And again:—

"Better play for safety: do not work, and you get social security."

The ordinary Irish Catholic is not entitled to be condemned in the way he is condemned there—the ordinary Irish Catholic who has the misfortune to be unemployed, who has the misfortune to be ill, who has the misfortune to fall on evil days, who may occupy a cottage owned by a county council or by the Corporation of Dublin. I see Deputy Byrne is here. We have no complaints about tenants in Dublin sawing off the rafters of the roof for fuel. I do not suppose they do it in Cork.

We see to that.

I am sure you do. The reverend gentleman referred to the National Health Insurance Society and the taking over of that society by the State under recent legislation. Here is how he describes it:

"It can well be compared to the Tudor suppression of guilds, etc., and is even accompanied by a corresponding looting of funds (£6,750,000 national health assets are ‘transferred' (!) to the Department of Social Welfare)."

The action of this House in transferring funds, as would have been done no matter what Government was in office here, is described by the reverend gentleman as a looting of funds, and that is the individual who is held up here by Deputy Cogan as a person from whom we ought to take authoritative reasoning. I will not take that sort of reasoning and I hope the House will not take it. I am glad to know that the House does not take it.

He is perfectly right so far as that quotation is concerned.

He even wanders into the realm of land division in this.

It is not relevant to this Bill. Even if the author made a mistake, I hope the Deputy will not make the mistake of going too wide on this.

He uses this in his argument against a State welfare scheme. He says:

"Indiscriminate subdivision of estates is no social panacea."

That is also quite true.

The Deputy need not exaggerate that statement. It is quite harmless. It depends on what is meant by "indiscriminate".

Acting-Chairman

We are bound by rules of order as to what is relevant or what is not. When that was being written perhaps he was not bound by them.

Then he talks about "the Chosen Ones". The workers who have been successful in organising themselves into trade unions are the "Chosen Ones". I agree there are some of our workers who are not yet members of trade unions, though I think they ought to be members of trade unions. I would like to see all our workers in trade unions. But they are the chosen ones, the trade unions. I cannot help coming to the conclusion that this form of attack has been used in connection with this Social Welfare Bill because the Bill has been introduced by a Labour leader. That is why I say I consider this to be a political document. "Why," the reverend gentleman says—and I think this has been quoted already in the debate—"why ought people to bother with any form of marriage at all if the State will care for them from the cradle to the grave?"—is not that a reflection on our community?—"by maternity benefits, children's allowances, public housing, free education, free medical attention, vouchers for food and clothing and fuel, free dole for the idle, finally a life-pension, a grant at death, and pensions for widows and orphans? If we have all these," he says—and we have some of them at the moment and we shall have more of them when this Bill is passed into law—"why bother with any form of marriage at all?" Then he says: "There is much sober truth in the paradox that we have as much right to free love as to free spectacles." That is the sort of document that has ben circulated throughout this country in condemnation of the principles of social security. I would not object so much if that document had been written by a professed politician or a professed sociologist; but when it is written by a clergyman, when it is supposed to carry on it an imprimatur and when it is circulated by religious organisations, then I think it ought to be condemned here and throughout the country.

If Dr. O'Hegarty, or anybody else, wants to enter into political discussions in relation to social welfare he is perfectly entitled to do so, but he is not entitled to do so under the cloak of an imprimatur and through the medium of certain organisations which believe that they are doing a Christian duty in circulating such a document. Dr. O'Hegarty condemns the White Paper. “It goes the further logical step,” he says, admitting that “schemes of social insurance and assistance ... are, in effect, a redistribution of the national income,” and then he asks the question: “Who gave the State this authority?” Who gave the State authority to redistribute the national income? That is the question Dr. O'Hegarty asks. Professor Ó Briain complained that the national income is not properly redistributed. Dr. O'Hegarty wants to know what right has Parliament to redistribute it. I think Parliament has every right to redistribute it.

Deputy Cowan has expressed his opinion.

I have expressed my opinion in condemnation of this political document. Some of the allegations in it are an improper censure on our Catholic people, on the ordinary citizens of our country. These references to the mother's pint and to the cutting-down of the rafters in the houses for firewood would be bitterly resented had they been made by an enemy; I condemn them when they are made by an alleged friend.

It is an extraordinary thing that Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno have not been mentioned here. They have been in existence for a long time. Both have laid down the models which the Christian State should follow. It is significant that while we praise the theories in these excellent documents we find great difficulty in applying them in practice in our own State. Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno have been in existence for many years. What attempt has been made to model this State on the lines set out in those documents? None whatsoever. But when we try to bring in this social welfare scheme, when we try to abolish poverty and misery and hunger, when we try to give a new life to many of our citizens, when we try to give them the security to which they are entitled we are immediately told we must not do that but we must rather try to put into practice Christian principles. I have yet to learn that it is a Christian principle to allow people to go hungry, to allow them to be without shelter, to allow them to live in poverty; no one has ever taught me that that was a Christian philosophy or that they were Christian principles. I do not believe they are Christian principles and I do not believe it is a Christian philosophy. In any effort this Parliament makes to abolish poverty and want and misery and insecurity they are doing a Christian duty.

Every Party here has said at one election after another that we must bring our social welfare schemes up to the level of the social welfare schemes in the Six Counties and in Great Britain. Every Party said that was a sound practical step towards the ultimate abolition of Partition. I think that is a very sound view. Our Catholic colleagues in the Six Counties have been living under a social security scheme for a number of years. Our Catholic colleagues in Great Britain have been enjoying the benefits of a social security scheme for a number of years. I would like to meet the individual who, because they are enjoying the benefits of a social security scheme, would suggest to them that they are living in sin. I would like to meet the individual who would suggest to them that they ought to give up these benefits, that they were immoral and wrong and contrary to their principles and philosophy. But that sort of malicious propaganda can be used down here; it can be used down here for political purposes against the Minister and against trade unionism.

This Bill, when it becomes law, will bring us closer to the social security schemes in both Great Britain and the Six Counties and it will help to narrow the gap that divides us from them in matters of social welfare. It does not go as far as I would like it to go. It probably does not go as far as the Minister would like it to go but, in present circumstances, it is a solid attempt to create a sound foundation upon which we can build the finished edifice of social security and social welfare. I much prefer the bird in hand to the bird in the bush. I much prefer the bird that the Minister gives us here in this Bill to the bird that is flying around the Fianna Fáil bush and that may never be trapped.

We have it.

That is what I want, and that is why I want this social security scheme passed. This is not the last Social Security Bill or Social Welfare Bill that will be passed; clearly, it is not the last, and there will be many more of them passed. But we must start off with a solid foundation. There is this solid foundation, and I think it is a wise foundation—the solid foundation of contributions. When the worker contributes to social welfare, when he pays his 3/6 a week into that fund, an increase of 1/7 over what he was paying, he is contributing to a fund to which he has a moral right, a fund which must pay out the benefits that he pays his contributions for; he is not at the mercy of future Ministers for Finance who may, for Budget purposes, reduce those benefits. By the system of contributions, we are putting the worker in the position of being able to say: "I am contributing well to that fund; I am entitled to those benefits."

No politician, no matter what his political views may be, no Minister for Finance, can disturb or interfere with those important benefits. I will not go over them in great detail, but those benefits that are enshrined in the Bill are better than Deputy Dr. Ryan could give us through an insurance company. Deputy Kissane said that an insurance company could give greater benefits. I am quite certain Deputy Dr. Ryan has had this matter examined, and very closely examined, because he has facilities for examination and, taking it that people are going into this scheme irrespective of their state of health or age at the time they go in, I am quite certain that Deputy Dr. Ryan has been advised that no insurance company in this country, on the same contributions, could give the benefits that are laid down in this measure. If he has got an opinion from an actuary to the contrary, I defy him to produce that opinion to this House or to the public.

This is a good scheme and Deputy Dr. Ryan knows it is a good scheme. It is a scheme that will be of advantage to many thousands of our people. It will drive away the spectre of hunger and misery. We have had too much of that hunger and misery in this country for the past 25, 28 or more years. I do not mind what hunger was in this country before we got control of our own affairs, but it has been a lasting disgrace to the country, a lasting condemnation of the representatives of the people, that we should have had hunger and misery during the past 29 or 30 years when we had control of our own affairs.

The moralists will say: "You are asking the farmer to contribute something and he may not get benefit out of it." That is a new one. The political moralists are now saying that it is unfair to ask the farmers to contribute through taxation to this scheme because they may get no benefits out of it. This Parliament has been giving to the farming community in the past 25 or 30 years very substantial sums, amounting to millions. The farming community has been getting that from the taxpayers.

In what way?

They have been getting it in relief of agricultural rates, amounting to millions in the year.

Not at all.

Let us have this clear. Are our farmers not getting relief of agricultural rates?

They are not? Then I would like the farmer Deputies to discuss it with me. All I know is that the Book of Estimates provides for millions this year for the relief of agricultural rates and that money is paid out by the workers of Dublin, the workers of Cork and elsewhere.

That is not so.

And the farmers are not paying half their share of income-tax, either. They are no paying their fair share of income-tax.

Let me finish on that point. The farmers have no objection in the world to taking that relief of agricultural rates, amounting to millions of pounds and contributed by some of the gentlemen that the Rev. Dr. Hegarty refers to. Dr. Hegarty has no concern about the millions of pounds that such people as the people in Moore Street and Coal Quay are contributing in taxes in order to give the farmers that relief amounting, as I have said, to millions in the year. He forgot that. If we look at the thing in a comprehensive way we know it is right that there should be some relief given to farmers——

Are you not getting cheap food, and be satisfied—the cheapest food in the world?

I am getting cheap food, not because Deputy Walsh wants to give it, but because he cannot get any more money out of me for it.

This discussion is becoming very wide.

I am only making one point. This Bill is condemned because the farmers are asked to contribute to it and may not get any benefit out of it. I say that we, as a community, are contributing millions a year through taxation to the relief of agricultural rates, and the farmers are not a bit ashamed to take them from us.

Will the Deputy now come to the Bill?

It is always good to stop on a good point and I think that is a very good point to conclude a speech on. I said to Deputy Childers that this is a war. It is a war; it is a war between progress and reaction, progress here and reaction there.

Between Socialism and anti-Socialism.

It is a war between progress and reaction and progress is going to win now, as it always won. I am sorry to see a great Party like the Fianna Fáil Party, that had such a grand future, slipping back into reaction.

Do not worry about us.

I am sorry to see that, but we cannot stop it. Once Fianna Fáil have taken the line of opposing progress, there is a war on between the progressives and Fianna Fáil and in that warfare Fianna Fáil are going to the wall. They deserve to go to the wall.

I do not know quite how to begin to refute some of the nonsense talked by Deputy Cowan about Fianna Fáil, but I suppose I might start by saying that for the last 25 years we have preached in Fianna Fáil the conception of a progressive advance in social security measures. We started ourselves about half the social insurance schemes of this country. We extended them gradually and we have always adopted the point of view that if associations of producers and manufacturers or workers were unable or unwilling to insure themselves voluntarily against the different risks that occur in people's lives the State would have to do it. That has always been the policy of Fianna Fáil and, so far as I know, it always will be.

A great many of us regret that we did not secure independence at a sufficiently early date so that we could progress by the voluntary method as, for example, in the case of Denmark, where a great many of the social security schemes were started and promoted by co-operative societies, where people began by coming together in districts and insuring themselves against old age, sickness and disease. The principle gradually grew and the services increased until the State found it necessary to ensure a universal standard of efficiency, and found it necessary to provide a contribution for these societies. Unfortunately we only secured independence partially in 1921, and it was necessary for us to catch up, so to speak, on time that had been lost.

I wish to reiterate that Fianna Fáil has always stood for the principle of social security. That does not mean that we cannot criticise freely any Bill that is placed before us in this House. That does not mean that we are not in a position to say that you are spending too much on one particular service and too little on another. It is perfectly legitimate for us in Fianna Fáil to question the whole of the Social Security Bill on the grounds that the Government is increasing expenditure so wildly and with such an absolute lack of plan that the effect of expenditure on social security instead of being to help the worker might simply be to increase inflation and raise the cost of living by the mere fact that it threw another few millions a year into circulation on top of an already unbalanced Budget. that does not mean that we are opposed to the idea of social security.

When you have, first of all, the Social Security Bill, and then the offer of increased old age pensions—I might add, one of the lowest political bribes made in the history of this country in order to maintain the votes of certain individuals—plus an unknown amount for medical services, plus an unbalanced Budget of about £7,000,000, plus all the other plans they may have in mind so long as they can keep in office, we have a perfect right to say what we think about it.

I suppose we may have to repeat again for the hundredth time in this House what we did do about social services because Deputy Cowan talks about this Social Security Bill as though it were the first step in the history of the country to counteract poverty, as though poverty has never been fought before. He talked as though it was the first step to implement the Papal encyclicals. Such appalling ridiculous nonsense. For 16 years Fianna Fáil was in office, and in every year of its existence it passed measures in this House which had the general effect of implementing what might be described as a broadminded middle path interpretation of the encyclicals.

We started widows' and orphans' pensions. We started unemployment assistance. We initiated children's allowances. We initiated wet-time insurance. We increased widows' and orphans' pensions twice during our period of office. We increased old age pensions twice during our period of office. We increased unemployment assistance and unemployment insurance twice during our period of office and we also improved the national health insurance code and increased the benefits in it twice also.

And free milk.

And we did a great many things to help the people of this country on the lines of the Papal encyclicals.

Deputy Cowan, in the course of his speech, made an attack on a leaflet written by a clergyman against this Bill. I think that one of the most interesting and stimulating things in this country is the fact that you can read leaflets on the subject of social welfare written by clergymen of a number of denominations giving their individual points of view with regard to a social problem. I see no reason why they should not do it.

It is a little ridiculous for Deputy Cowan to suggest that when the word "imprimatur” was written on the front cover it was supposed to mean it was infallible. We all know that was a perfectly ridiculous suggestion and that was the idea that Deputy Cowan tried to convey. As I have said, it is a very interesting thing to have stimulating conversations and discussions on this question written by people who have regard to religious doctrine. The more we have of it the better so long as everybody understands that there are various interpretations of these things.

I might add, too, that while Deputy Cowan made this attack on this clergyman who chose to oppose the Security Bill, he did not mention the fact that two of the principal leaders of Fine Gael, in speeches made since this Government came into office, indicated that they agreed substantially with every word written by that clergyman.

Will you quote them?

Deputy McGilligan.

Dr. Hegarty spoke generally against what he described as the adverse social effects of State social security. I have not the reference here but somebody on this side of the House can give it possibly and the reference made by Deputy Costello, the Taoiseach, in 1949, in which he spoke of social services as medicine bottles to be taken out of the cupboard on the rarest possible occasions. Nobody can deny that the speech was made. It has been quoted a dozen times in this House and he has never refuted it.

The statement made by Deputy Childers was that a specific article which was read in the discussion here was approved in statements by two Ministers. He has made reference to a speech made by the present Taoiseach when, I think, he was in opposition.

Possibly when he was in the Government. I would ask the Deputy to give the quotation where there was specific endorsement of the views read out here to-day.

I do not suggest that the Taoiseach directly approved of the pamphlet written by the clergyman in question. What I do say is the view he expressed that social services could be regarded in the nature of medicines coincided to a considerable degree with the general view expressed by the clergyman. I did not say he gave it his specific blessing.

I now have the actual quotation and maybe it is just as well to read it to the House to indicate how far prominent Ministers of Fine Gael are prepared to sacrifice their own point of view in order to maintain a Government in office. Speaking on 13th May, 1947, at column 73 of the Official Debates, the Taoiseach said:

"Money is wanted for social services. That is the justification for all the extravagances that have been perpetrated and inflicted upon this country by Government profligacy in the last six or seven years. ... The existence of social services is an indication of ill-health in the body politic. In any case, as has been said, they are nothing more than a row of medicine bottle showing disease in the household."

That is not the point of view of Fianna Fáil. We have never had any objection to the idea that if associations of men and women of the various professions are unwilling to collect amongst themselves the amount required to provide for the expenses and difficulties of life, the State can come in, and, by way of contributions from workers, by way of State taxation and contributions from employers, redistribute a portion of the national income and, in fact, effect compulsory saving. That is what this Bill does and what Deputy Ryan's proposals do. They both compel people to save for themselves against disaster and against the difficult circumstances of life. It is a compulsory saving Bill and it is just as well that we stopped a lot of the claptrap being talked about it, as though the money were coming from nowhere, as though the people were not paying for it. Like all other measures of social security, it is compulsory saving and nothing else, and people are being made to save in spite of themselves by this Bill. The rich pay a little more than the poor in the way of saving, but the vast majority of the people will be paying for the vast proportion of the cost of these services.

Deputy Cowan suggested that the Fianna Fáil Party, because of its attitude towards the Bill was showing signs of defeat. I am quite agreeable to accept his challenge. I would not mind if we went to the country and had a general election, and even if we went so far as to say that we will postpone the Social Security Bill for one year until we can see if we can find enough money to put this country into a state of preparedness in view of the present emergency. If we put that to the people of the country, I am absolutely certain that we would gain an over-all majority and I would not be in the least afraid of accepting the challenge on that basis. That is my answer to Deputy Cowan when he suggests that we are a Party in defeat.

So far as the details of the Bill are concerned, I want to refer in particular to the absence of any improvement in the children's allowances and to the fact that they are included in the scheme put forward by Deputy Ryan. I am becoming a little ashamed of the degree to which we exploit the old people of this country in order to get votes. I am tired of all the talk that is carried on with a view to attracting the votes of 158,000 old age pensioners and I believe that the vast majority of these old age pensioners are not going to accept any bribe offered to them. I am tired of hearing so much talk about the old age pensioners, who represent 5.26 per cent. of the whole population, or one in 20, and so little talk about the children of the country who have no votes and about whom one cannot arouse the same popular political clamour.

I might add that when Deputy Cowan suggests that the 1944 election was fought on the subject of children's allowances, he was talking the most arrant nonsense. Everyone who remembers the 1944 election knows that it was fought on a number of general issues and that children's allowances were scarcely mentioned in it. On very few occasions did Fianna Fáil specifically offer a particular social service on the eve of an election. Most of the great social services we instituted were either scarcely mentioned in our election programme or instituted during the period in between elections as was the case with widows' and orphans' pensions.

I think it is time we talked a little more about children in this country. We hear a great deal of talk throughout the country about old age pensioners and about the great increase being offered by this Government, but we hear no reference to the fact that the previous Government twice increased old age pensions and we hear still less reference to a far more important subject, the whole question of the support to be given to people with large families. We hear everywhere about old age pensioners getting a half-crown more a week, but we hear very little about the dull and nonpolitical national nutritional survey prepared by a group of experts and presented by the present Government and with absolutely no contentious or adverse criticism by the present Minister for Health, the implication being that there is nothing wrong in the reports, nothing which need be criticised and that the information in them is correct. This kind of stuff is dull and does not draw votes, but in it lies a clue to the solution of a great deal of the problem of poverty in this country.

Every one of these five reports shows that if there is any real grinding poverty left in this community, if there are any adverse circumstances affecting people's lives which require attention, it is in the case of families of four, five and more children. These five reports are full of dull statistics but these statistics are fundamental. They may be dull but they deal with the amount and kind of food eaten by people of various grades of society, of every grade of society, according to the size of the family. They show beyond all doubt that there is too little spent on food in numerous families among the working people; they show beyond all doubt that there are far too many bread-and-spread meals amongst workers' families, small farmers' families, congested district farmers' families and agricultural workers' families, where there are four and more children. They show also that in many large families there is a great and serious deficiency of certain kinds of vitamins and foods. They show that workers who have large families provide a monotonous and deadly diet for their children, try as they will to produce the best they can for them.

Every one of these reports shows that No. 1 upon the programme of the Minister for Social Welfare should have been an increase in children's allowances. There is not the faintest evidence that there is the same condition of poverty or strain of existence in workers' families where there are only one, two or three children. They have their difficulties. The cost of living is very high, but the real core of the problem is among the persons with large families. I want to give it as my private point of view that again I think it is a great pity we were not an independent nation a long time ago, because in relation to a country like ours, where families are large and marriages are late, if ever there was a case for all trade union wages being based on the size of the family, it exists in this country.

I know perfectly well that it would be asking an enormous amount of both employers and trade unions to reorganise the wage structure of the country so that people would be paid, as they are in certain continental countries, on the basis of the number of persons in their family and their marital state. I know well it would be extremely difficult to work out the whole problem of ensuring that there would be no discrimination against married workers and workers with large families by employers. I am not asking trade unionists to do it, because I realise it is an almost insuperable problem; but the only alternative to it is a gift by the people with no family and with small families and by the unmarried people to the people with large families. There is no other solution of the problem of the poverty of the worker with a large family, and my criticism of this Bill to-night is that it does not provide sufficiently or, in fact, in any way, for an increased scale of children's allowances. I am not ashamed and not in the least afraid to say, putting it this way, that I do not want particularly to see £1,000,000 spent on increased old age pensions unless, before that happens, a certain amount of money is spent on increased children's allowances, and if it is decided that we can afford increased children's allowances, I am prepared to agree that, with the present cost of living and under present circumstances, it is a good thing to increase old age pensions by another 2/6 per week but, as I have said, to my mind, the whole question of children's allowances should be considered.

To my mind also there is very great need for an extension of child welfare in the City of Dublin. There is very great need for an extension of child welfare of every kind by contributions to voluntary societies and, if necessary, to societies to some degree stimulated by the State for looking after the children of large families in Dublin. A great deal of the poverty and a great deal of the mortality of which Dr. Browne, the Minister for Health, has spoken exists because of the difficulties of mothers in looking after large families, particularly when the family is increasing or about to increase in numbers, and the Minister for Health's scheme, which forms the subject for another discussion, does nothing to deal with that social difficulty. It is dealt with partly by charitable societies and by the conventual orders. It is not dealt with sufficiently. It still exists, and it all adds to my argument that the children in large families deserve the first consideration of the Government, before anyone else.

I do not know whether it is necessary for me to quote from this report. Not half enough about it has been spoken in the country in general. I do not know whether it is necessary for me to read the figures, in order that they should be recorded in the House, in connection with the differences in expenditure by people with large families and by people with small families. Some of the information is very interesting and it seems to me that it should receive far more study from members of the House. For example, I take the dietary survey of the farm workers' families and I deal with table 4 (b)—the average expenditure per diet head weekly on food in 177 farm workers' families, classified according to the number of persons in the family—and I find that the total amount spent on food per diet head in the case of a family without children, per week, is 19/6; the total amount spent per head in a family of eight, nine, ten or eleven persons is 10/1, which is just about 50 per cent. less. If anybody tells me that there is not need for readjustment of the children's allowances, in face of that simple statement that in farm workers' families where there is a large number of children there is spent about onehalf of that which is spent by a man and his wife without children, I should like to hear the criticisms of the suggestion that more should be done.

In the summary of the Report on the National Nutrition Survey, the following paragraph occurs—No. 2, on page 11:—

"The consumption of meat, milk, eggs, vegetables and fruit increased consistently as income increased, and decreased with almost equal consistency as the number of persons in the family increased....

Milk consumption at 5.1 pints per head per week was low for a rural survey; the figure in Dublin City was 4.8 pints and in farming families was 9.2 pints."

In other words, agricultural workers with large families were drinking half the milk of the farmers living around them and were drinking very little more milk than persons living in Dublin City.

I do not want to take the time of the House by repeating the main conclusions of these reports but they go to indicate what I said before that children's allowances deserve the first consideration of the Minister.

I would like to ask the Minister, in connection with this Bill, what he thinks will be the social effect of the provision in the Bill whereby a farm of under £30 valuation can be assigned without any conditions being attached thereto. I should like to ask him whether he thinks it will encourage the settlement of the farm on younger people or whether he thinks it will have any adverse effect. I should like to hear what views he has to express in regard to that matter.

I am very disappointed that, when the Minister decided to introduce an increase in the non-contributory old age pension of 2/6 a week, he did not reconsider the whole question of the character of the means test. As I understand it, three-quarters of the persons of age over 70 in this country are now receiving an old age pension of some kind or another. They amount to just over 5 per cent. of the entire population. One in every 20 people you meet is getting an old age pension of one kind or another. It is a very large number of people. It seems to me there are two simple courses that should be adopted, either one of which might get over the difficulty of the means test which involves an examination of savings, an examination of the income attached to small plots in the case of cottage dwellers, an examination of all the elements of thrift in the life of an applicant for an old age pension. The first is, to give everybody in the community an old age pension automatically, which would cost a considerable amount of money, which does not on the whole seem fair to me; the second would be a simple valuation limit, such as has been proposed in Deputy Dr. Ryan's alternative proposals. If three-quarters of the people over 70 years of age are entitled to draw an old age pension, is there anything socially unfair in simplifying the means test, particularly in rural districts, in making the means test depend on valuation and having, in addition to that, the question of the maximum amount of cash that can be held? Would not it save a great deal of administrative expense and would not it save, as I have said, the continuous examination of a man's thrift in life? Would it create any abuses? Can the Minister for Social Welfare say in what percentage of cases there might be a very unfair refusal of an old age pension to a person because he happened to be above or below the line? It seems to me this suggestion is well worth considering before the Bill reaches its final stages, because such a huge proportion of the older people do finally get a pension and they amount to such a large proportion of the community.

Deputy Cowan and Deputy Cogan, in speaking on this Bill, discussed the question of unemployment. I cannot understand Deputy Cogan's point of view that the Government must guarantee work and cannot and should not guarantee maintenance in lieu of work. The problem that affects this country is that which affects most countries, the fact that labour is not mobile to a considerable degree. The people will not leave their homes in many cases. Another section of the people in the community like to leave their homes or have to leave them under compulsion. There is a great deal of winter unemployment, while in summer in many areas it is difficult to find workers. Workers have neither the desire nor have they the training, in many cases, to move from one occupation to another. It struck me as extraordinarily old-fashioned of Deputy Cogan to suggest that the Government has only a right to guarantee work and should not guarantee maintenance in lieu of work, because the Government that could provide work for the people of this country to the degree of 100 per cent. all the year round, in winter and summer, in rural and urban districts, if there was a profound depression in England and if there was absolutely no employment for workers who have been leaving this country for many years—in very large numbers under the present Government, I might add—would be a miraculous Government under the circumstances. There must always be some insurance provision, some assistance provision, for those who are unable to find work either temporarily or for considerable periods. In fact, a great deal of what Deputy Cogan said struck me as being extraordinarily old-fashioned, something like what one would hear coming from the British Conservative Party about the year 1910. He seemed to refuse to accept the general principle of a social security plan under which the Government would undertake to provide necessities for persons unable to provide for themselves. In conclusion, I should like once more to ask the Minister to consider the alternative measures put forward by Deputy Dr. Ryan, particularly because of the fact that under these measures provision is made for increased children's allowances where families are large.

The speech of Deputy Lemass here last evening gave ground for the hope that there would be a new approach to this Bill, so far as the Opposition is concerned. The main speech from the Front Opposition Bench, at least in my hearing, since Deputy Leamss spoke was delivered by Deputy Kissane. I must confess that I was disappointed by the speech of Deputy Kissane, coming as it did from a Deputy in a responsible position as a member of the Front Opposition Bench, because the appeal—I think it might be classed as such—of Deputy Lemass seemed to have fallen on completely deaf ears, so far as Deputy Kissane was concerned. The speech of Deputy Kissane on this subject might be described as a purely destructive political speech. I was disappointed in the sense that the Deputy paid very little attention to the Bill or to those aspects of the Bill referred to in such an admirable tone by Deputy Lemass last evening. I had hoped that if Deputy Lemass were to succeed in convincing his colleagues along the lines which he indicated last night, it might best be reflected in the vote of our friends on the Left, were they to allow the Second Reading of this measure to go through unanimously and then apply themselves to whatever improvements might be effected in the normal course of the Committee Stage.

I want to pay tribute also to the manner in which Deputy Dr. Ryan made his contribution to the debate on this Bill prior to the Recess. I should say that it was admirable in tone and, from his point of view, in content as well. Notwithstanding that he was obviously at a disadvantage in not having at his disposal official resources, he evidently gave considerable thought to the proposals he outlined. Deputy Dr. Ryan rendered one extremely valuable service to the promoters of the Bill. He removed once and for all the impression that was being sedulously fostered outside that this Government, and this Government only, were responsible for fastening on the shoulders of the community an unwanted Bill, not only an unwanted Bill but a Bill that might be harmful in many directions. We have heard since these proposals were first promulgated, criticisms and references to such well-known phrases as the "Welfare State", "Socialism", "Totalitarianism", and so on. To Deputy Dr. Ryan's credit and to Deputy Lemass's credit, may I say that they made no attempt whatever to cash-in on the particular atmosphere that was being created.

The service that Deputy Dr. Ryan rendered in my opinion was that he removed any lingering doubts there might be amongst the public outside that this was a one-sided measure; in fact he conveyed the impression that if Deputy Dr. Ryan and his Party had the opportunity all they would do would be to extend the terms of the Bill, even though the extension of its terms might mean, and in fact would mean considerable taxation. I think we are entitled to ask the critics outside, because so far we have not had many critics here, is there anything in this problem of social security which justifies the idea that we should have a different approach to it from any other country in the world?

Social security, as I understand it, is based very largely on four factors— the hazards of old age, illness, unemployment and widowhood. The incidence of these disabilities or these particular conditions is no less severe here than in any other country in the world. One would imagine from the criticisms we have heard that the proposals now before the House are of an extremely revolutionary character. Indeed may I say that it was suggested in certain quarters that they are contrary to Catholic teaching. That is completely fallacious. This Bill is largely a co-ordinating Bill, in respect to social services existing under certain categories at the present time. I am prepared to admit, and I am proud to admit, one revolutionary change, one that we as members of the Labour Party particularly hail with pleasure— the provision at long last of a retirement pension at the age of 65.

At the present time there is provision of a kind for old age. This Bill proposes to improve the provision in two ways, along the lines of a contributory retirement pension at 65 and, at the non-contributory end, to increase the old age pension up to £1 per week. There is also an improvement in the position of the man who is stricken down with illness. Be it said that up to the present the only provision, in this year of grace, 1951, for a man who falls ill is that made under the National Health Insurance of 22/6 per week, irrespective of the number of dependents he may have. The worst feature of that provision is the fact that after six months of illness the law at present provides that the man's benefit drops to 15/- a week. That position is being improved under this Bill.

Under the standardisation which is taking place in the Bill, a standardisation of a welcome character, the benefit is increased to 24/- a week for the man himself, 12/- for his wife and 7/- for two dependent children. May I say that I think Deputy Cogan completely missed the point of the photograph which appeared in the little brochure which depicts the children in the home? The people who prepared the brochure had obviously made up their minds that there was provision for children under the family allowances after the second child.

An improvement also takes place in the case of the unemployed man. It is precisely the same with the man who has the misfortune to be unemployed. Deputy Cogan made the point that there would be no need, or should be no need, for benefit of this particular character, and he is supported by some evidence outside the House, based on the argument that the State should make the necessary provision by way of work. That is a delightful conception but, as a colleague of mine remarked, we are not yet living in the perfect State, and what is the unfortunate individual to do if he does not get work and no provision is made for him? There is an improvement in the Bill in respect to unemployment benefit, which is raised from 35/- a week for a man with a wife and two children to 50/- per week under the Bill. There is a substantial improvement, too, in the case of widows.

It is pleasing to be able to say that there is agreement on the left of this House on the main lines which a social security measure should take. As outlined by Deputy Dr. Ryan the Party on my left did indicate disagreement under two main heads. One is that in Deputy Dr. Ryan's scheme there would be no retirement pension at the age of 65. The pension would operate only from the age of 70. His second main contention, speaking for his Party, was that the scheme should be financed out of taxation.

This Bill takes precisely a different line. As its title indicates, it is a Bill based on the insurance principle. It is one which, I think, will meet with the approval of this House as against the proposal in regard to taxation. It will mean this, that a man will have associated with his pension a sense of dignity on the one hand and of stability on the other. He will feel a measure of independence, derived from the fact that he has made a serious contribution towards the pension which he receives. It is really only on matters of detail that there is a difference between our friends and ourselves. There is, however, that very serious defect to which I have referred in the statement that was put forward by Deputy Ryan. His appeal for the adoption of his case was that he could bring into operation practically the same benefits as are outlined in the Bill without the addition of contributions. The Deputy, I am sure, is not so simple as to have completely ignored the fact that this Bill, and the terms incorporated in it, are based largely on actuarial calculations. These calculations were prepared, I understand, by a very able staff, and the Bill, under the Minister's guidance, is standing the test of what they produced.

Deputy Dr. Ryan, as I say, made the point that he could introduce his scheme, with some additions, but with no increased contributions. He based his argument on the fact that he would not have to give retirement pensions until the age of 70. On this question of retirement at 70 as against 65, Deputy Dr. Ryan made the point that the expectation of life to-day is much better than it has been over a period of years. That is true. It is gradually improving under better social conditions. The Deputy made the point, and there will be some who will agree with him, that people over the age of 65 are in a position to give a contribution towards the national pool and so would prefer to be in the position to earn their regular wages rather than be depending on a pension in the form of 24/- a week at that age. But it was not just enough for the Deputy to leave it at that, to base his calculations for financing his scheme in that way because to do so was to ignore the fundamental fact that the tendency with employers over a number of years past in this country has been to lay off their employees at the age of 65.

Deputy Cogan spoke as if men, in the ordinary course, went on earning after they had reached the age of 65. There are members of this House who can vouch for the fact that some employers, in any case, have been only too eager to seize the opportunity of dispensing with their workers about that age. I have had some experience of that, and I can speak on it with some little knowledge. Over many years it was my duty to pay men in a very large concern in this city. Speaking out of that experience, I can say that the most dreaded years in a railway man's life were the years between 65 and 70. Men were thrown out at 65, very often on a meagre 16/a week, reducible by 10/- when they reached the age of 70, because at that stage the State took over a certain amount of the pension liability. As I say our difference with Deputy Dr. Ryan, and it is fundamental to this Bill and to this whole question, is that in his proposals he makes no provision whatever for men when they reach the age of 65. I personally—I do not know what my colleagues may think about it—would be prepared to say that, provided a man wanted to stay on after 65 with the consent of his employer, I would see no objection to that course—that is provided he had the protection afforded by the terms of this Bill when he retired at the age of 65. I would see no objection to that so long as the man was protected against an employer who wanted to put him out or, on the other hand, if the man himself wanted to retire voluntarily at that age.

There might be an inducement to consider that if we were discussing this Bill in a different atmosphere—that is, that so long as a man was entitled to his pension at 65, he could remain in employment with the consent of his employer for one, two or three years, as the case may be, and so save the State fund the amount of pension that he otherwise would normally take in those years. As I say, if we were discussing the Bill in a different atmosphere, that is a suggestion which might be worth while examining, as well as the point as to whether or not he should get a bonus when he retired at, say, the age of 66 or 67 to compensate him for the years during which he had not been paid the retirement pension.

Suppose he got an extra 2/6 for each year over the 65—that might prove an attractive proposition, and might be worth while considering. All that would be subject to the basic proposition that there must be provision in the Bill for the man when he retires at the age of 65. Having said that, may I say that the Fianna Fáil plan, in my estimation, completely crumbles at that stage. It crumbles also on the question of finance. Deputy Dr. Ryan's case right through was based on the fact that he could cover all this by means of taxation. I think if he were to start with taxation to finance his proposals, he would find that the taxation would run into a figure which would probably frighten himself.

As I have said, there are points of agreement between us and those on the other side. That position was possibly best expressed by Deputy Lemass, whose social outlook, generally speaking, will not be questioned. His idea was that this matter might be examined in an atmosphere which is rarely to be found in this House, in an atmosphere in which all parties might agree on an objective that was worth while achieving. Unfortunately, we have not yet reached that stage. In my opinion, this is a good Bill. It has been carefully drawn and its financial provisions are such as to safeguard it throughout the existence of the scheme. There is to be a contribution from the employer, from the employee and from the State. Some Deputies made the point that the scheme was one-sided in so far as a number of people were excluded. May I say that it was very definitely the desire of the Minister, and I am sure all members of the House will agree on it, too, that all sections of the community who deserved to be included in it should be included, were that administratively practicable.

A reference to the speech made by Deputy Dr. Ryan will show that he said that if this scheme is to be based on a contributory system then the individuals who are left out must be left out: there is no alternative. If that be so, why, therefore, should there be any necessity for a violent opposition as between sections of this House, if that opposition will be reflected in a close division here for or against the Bill?

It has been stated in this House that the incorporation of the item of old age pensions was one which, to repeat what Deputy Kissane said, was tantamount to blackmail. As one member of this House—the various other members may speak for themselves— I can say that since the first increase was given by this Government in 1948 we have been agitating, and we make no secret of it, that the terms of a motion which was defeated in this House in March, 1946, and which was put down by members on these benches, should be implemented at the earliest possible date. The terms of that motion were that old age pensions should be stepped up to 22/6 a week— the figure that was operating in the Six Counties—and that income to the level of £1 per week should be excluded so far as the means test was concerned. We have not reached that objective yet but I suggest that we are on the way to meeting it. This increase brings us very near at least that particular target except that the question of the means test is not as seriously dealt with as we should like it to be. If there is anything that makes an appeal to the members of this House as a whole it is the question of the means test. I hope it will be possible, as a next move and stage by the Government here, to take steps to ensure that this last barrier to that £1 a week income will be removed at the earliest possible date.

I should like to congratulate the Minister on this measure and also those who were associated with him in drawing it up. I appeal to our friends across the way to join with us in improving the Bill in the appropriate place along the lines which they and possibly we also should like in certain respects.

I am glad that this measure has been introduced. When I first heard about the intention to introduce this Bill I was wholly in favour of a further improvement in our social scheme and I indicated that I would give my wholehearted support to the measure. Any improvement in our social welfare scheme deserves all the support and help it can get from the members of this House.

Social welfare, in general, has changed very much over a great number of years. If the people who first drew the 5/- old age pension from the British Government could be alive to-day and see the step-up in regard to social welfare generally, and hear that this Department is getting the attention which it deserves to get, I suppose they would be very surprised. Then again there is the fact that people see social welfare in a different light nowadays. We have heard it said that the first payments of old age pensions were looked on with suspicion and that for many years people who were genuinely entitled to receive the old age pension refused to make application for it because of the dreaded fear of the "Saxon's shilling" as it was called at the time. That deterred them from availing of something to which they were genuinely entitled. However, times have moved on and we now have a native Government. Social welfare is under the care of a Department of State, and it is a responsibility which the Government, whichever Government it may be, must shoulder. While the poor will always be with us we must make provision for them. It is only fair that those who have should share with those who have not. It is the duty of the Government to see that there is as equitable a distribution of the funds as possible, so as to ensure that necessitous people will get the benefits to which they are entitled. In the past 20 years there have been many social welfare advances.

In my remarks on this measure I should like to say that I am going to speak my own mind irrespective of whom my remarks may offend or otherwise. My honest opinion is that the introduction of the widows' and orphans' pensions was as big a step in the right direction as any step that ever was or ever can be introduced in the line of social welfare. That may be something in the nature of a clap on the back to the Fianna Fáil Government, which was in office at the time, but I think it should be said, in all fairness to them, that it was a good move to introduce legislation to provide assistance for a widow to enable her to get along and to provide for her children instead of her having a continuous hand-to-mouth struggle, with poverty staring in at her through the door.

As the value of money has slowly but surely decreased it is only right that the amount of money payable to widows and orphans and to old age pensioners generally should be increased. As the value of money goes down, more money is made available to them. In that way the pensions are brought to such a standard that the people receiving them will be able to purchase to the same extent as they were able to purchase previously with the lesser amount of money which was made available some time ago. I am glad that, under this Bill, the Minister, amongst other things, is providing for an improvement in the old age pension and that it will be increased to 20/- per week. One of the ten points of the programme which this Government decided to implement when they came into office was to improve the old age pension. Deputy O'Sullivan referred to his desire to get the old age pension raised to 22/6 per week. I suggest that the £1 a week is a step in the right direction and that before much longer our hopes that it will be increased to 22/6 may be realised.

We know that contributory and non-contributory pensions differ very widely. We know that it is impossible to ask any Government to provide out of taxation the same pension on a non-contributory basis as the pension which is paid on a contributory basis. Nevertheless when an effort is made to increase old age pensions I know that Deputies must find it very much against their conscience to disagree with it or oppose it in any manner whatsoever. We know that a certain amount of political propaganda can be made—there is no use in saying that it will not—and that a certain amount of votes can be collected because of an improvement in the condition of old age pensioners. To announce an increase in old age pensions is a great catchcry from every political platform, but no matter what political manoeuvring may be done not one should in justice oppose giving an increase in pensions or allowances to old age pensioners.

What is perhaps of greater value to old age pensioners than the increase is the modification of the means test and above all, the almost entire removal of that section of the 1908 Act which was a real barrier to many genuine applicants for the old age pension, that section which provided that when a person, on reaching the age of 70, transferred his property to his children, it was still assessed when he applied for a pension, although he did it in a genuine and honest attempt to settle his family affairs. In this country, where the family circle is held so closely together, it is a very difficult problem, even at the age of 70, for a man or woman to settle the affairs of the family overnight. Where a genuine honest applicant for the pension has settled his affairs by transferring to his children whatever he has saved by hard endeavour during his life he should not, at the age of 70, be deprived of a pension, but up to now that has been the case. Deputies who from time to time must approach the Department of Social Welfare or the Minister on behalf of those people find that the sympathy of the Minister, of many officials in the Department and even of the investigating officer who investigates their means is in all cases with the old age pensioner, but nevertheless the barrier existed in this section of the 1908 Act, and no matter what good intentions were in the minds of the people concerned, the old age pensioner was left and nothing could be done for him. Even when an appeal was made a year or two afterwards, it was found that the means he had transferred to his children were still assessed as his and neither the Department nor the Minister could do anything to help. The removal of that barrier is a greater revolution than the advancing of the pension from 17/6 to 20/-.

We know that all this advancement of pensions means extra taxation because money cannot fall like manna from the heavens and that, in itself, is a difficult problem for the Minister for Social Welfare, the Minister for Finance and the Government as a whole. They must try, on the one hand, to hold taxation level, because everybody admits that it is going slightly beyond the bounds at the present time and, on the other hand, to make life a bit easier for the poorer classes in their struggle to exist.

Increased allowances are made to persons who are contributing. The ex-Minister for Social Welfare and even the present Minister have admitted that a genuine comprehensive social insurance scheme whereby all people in the State would benefit is something very hard to bring before the House and enforce. When I speak on that matter I speak for quite a large percentage of the people who put me here, the self-employed industrious small farmers who never can benefit from a contributory scheme because it would be absolutely and entirely impossible to collect contributions from them. Very often their income is not weekly; such a person may go through three or four months without a £1 note coming in on a Saturday night and then for a month or two a fairly substantial amount may come in. Self-employed people have at least a certain amount of freedom and can say that they are under no obligation to anybody to pay any contribution to anything so as to get an allowance when they come to retiring age. The small landowner or shopkeeper is as well able at 65 to work or supervise his business as he was ten, 15 or 20 years earlier. Because he has that independence and freedom such a man feels that it would be unfair to ask him to pay any contribution whatsoever to any scheme. While in all fairness to them we must admit that they are as valuable to the State as those who are employed they could not possibly benefit to the same extent as people who over a large number of years had been contributing week in week out to an insurance scheme. I had hoped that a scheme might be considered where you would take a very low land valuation and say that irrespective of everything else the means test would be entirely abolished and that anybody with a holding of land under £10 valuation would become automatically entitled to an old age pension when he or she reached the age of 70. That would be as revolutionary for the countryside for the non-contributors and for the rural population as the contributors find the Bill before us to-night.

All these things have to move very slowly. Social welfare of all types has moved slowly enough in past years, yet still when we look back over a short space of time we find that it has moved rapidly, as rapidly as the country could afford. The people who have to pay must be considered as well as those who have not to pay. The beneficiary as well as the contributor in any social scheme must be taken into consideration, when the Government decide to introduce a measure to assist people in need. We have some sections in the Bill for which extra demands will be made on taxpayers, ratepayers and others. I speak for some of those who will have to pay. The ordinary local authority or county council in every county is a very large employer of men, and has on its books a larger pay roll than that of any firm or industry in the county concerned. The increased contribution of 3/6 per week, which the local authority will have to pay as its share towards the pension, must come entirely out of the rates. Ratepayers must realise now that, if they themselves or their sons or daughters who work for the county council on road schemes, drainage schemes or in offices are to benefit by increased pension, by sickness benefits and so on, the father, or perhaps the person in the employment of the local authority, will have to pay not only his own 3/6 per week but, through the rates, the little extra which helps to meet the local authority contribution of 3/6 which must be paid every week for every single individual employed by that authority. However, when one is balanced against the other, the ratepayers who have to meet this extra charge will not complain or grouse, because of the benefits which will accrue to those people who are employed. There are sickness and maternity benefits which come at a time when money is most needed to help the weak and needy.

At the present time we have a national health insurance scheme. Personally, I think it needs an overhaul of some kind. To my mind, it is at present something of a racket, as a person may be a genuine contributor for a good many years, then fall off because of unemployment and then start again as a casual worker making casual contributions and then fall off again; yet when that person is ill and applies for sickness benefit he will find that the many hundreds of contributions paid genuinely and honestly over a long number of years will be of no use to him. They will be ruled out because there has been a lapse of a few weeks or a few months when he was unemployed. It would be hard to expect that he could pay when he was not working. When he was employed, if he did not pay his contributions he was guilty of an offence, he was breaking the law and could be prosecuted. Yet when the scheme is boiled down and he comes to look for benefit, it takes a lot to drag even the slightest benefit out of the pockets of the National Health Insurance Society. That is to be overhauled to a certain extent in the Bill and I am glad of that, as the national health scheme was not working out as satisfactorily as we would have liked.

It is pointed out in the Bill that the liability for the contributions rests primarily on the employer. That may be right or it may be wrong. I am in full agreement that an employer must stamp the card for the employee, but I still think that a certain amount of the liability should also rest on the employee. We know of cases, particularly with farm workers, where the employer has to meet the entire cost at present of both contributions. It is an easy-going system between the agricultural labourer and his employer. The farmer provides the stamps at the end of the week and just does not bother to make deductions. He says: "You have given service to the value of the contribution and I will pay the whole lot." I know from my personal experience that that is carried out in many cases, though not in every case, and the entire contribution of employer and employee is paid by the employer. That was all right when the amount involved was small, but when you have a 7/- per week contribution, which is to be collected now— 3/6 from the employer and 3/6 from the employee—it would be very unfair not to put a certain liability on the employee just as well as on the employer for the stamping of the card.

If an employer pays his 3/6 per week, week after week, and the employee does not, I do not think there is anything in the Bill which will give credit for the contributions when the employee has not paid up. Therefore, I would suggest, in all fairness, to the Minister for Social Welfare that it should be as much of a liability on the employee, who is the beneficiary, to stamp his card each week as it is on the employer. To make the job simple, perhaps there could be some double stamp or a card with a double section, leaving room for the employer's stamp and the employee's stamp. That would make it plain to the officials of the Department who was the defaulter in the case. If the employer had put on the stamp for 20, 50 or 100 contributions and the employee was down by 20 or 30 sections, it would be easy to see who was failing to keep up to scratch. Something will have to be done with regard to that. If this entire burden is thrown, in the present free and easy manner, on the employer to pay the entire contribution, the burden of 7/- per week will be definitely too heavy. I expect that all that will be handled by the Tánaiste when he comes to make whatever ministerial amendments may be necessary. I am putting the suggestion genuinely, that it would be better for both employer and employee to have some such scheme, that it would make for easier administration and for more friendship and better companionship between employer and employee.

The Bill as a whole is a welcome one. The introduction of social welfare is a move which I will support and back up and will definitely recommend to the people of the country. Anywhere I have gone, I have pointed out the many benefits that will be derived from this Bill. There are many other things yet for the Government to tackle so as to provide a really comprehensive scheme. I am not finding fault with the many advances made in social welfare in the past, in fairness to the Opposition. As I said at the outset, I regard the widows' and orphans' pensions as one of the best social welfare schemes introduced in this country. It was even a more valuable and a more necessary piece of legislation than the Children's Allowances Bill which was introduced at a later stage.

This is a good Bill and, while it may not be up to the standard we would like to provide for the poorer paid classes and the less well-to-do classes, it is an advance in its own way. Just as other schemes have advanced in the past, social welfare is advancing now, and I hope it will be found possible at some future time to make further advances. One which I would suggest is that people who are self-employed and whose incomes are small because they have not a way of making a bigger income should be considered even though they are not contributors. Later on it might also be possible to modify the means test still further or to abolish it altogether. When the children's allowances scheme was introduced the question was considered whether it was wise to leave it without a means test. That was done and it has been proved beyond a shadow of doubt that its administration has been made much easier and that the little extra cost has been more than made up for by the absence of the host of officials which it would take to administer it if there was a means test. When the means test can be abolished for old age pensioners everybody will welcome its abolition no matter what Government may introduce it.

I hope the Tánaiste will bear these things in mind. I know it is his intention to try and go even further than he has gone in this Bill. I know he admitted when introducing the Bill that he would like to see even greater benefits bestowed. There are however, certain difficulties with regard to collecting contributions from self-employed people which makes it difficult for him or any Minister to do for these people what he would like to do. However, this Bill is a welcome one. I hope it will be passed and implemented as quickly as possible, particularly with regard to old age pensions. We have been told: "Introduce a separate Bill for old age pensions and it will go through the House in 24 hours." I know it would go through the House in 24 hours. But there are benefits in this Bill, such as maternity benefit, unemployment benefit and many other benefits for the workers, which deserve to be considered as much as anything else in the Bill. The Bill also provides for the abolition of a section of the 1908 Act. It was high time to get rid of that section by which people were debarred from what they were genuinely entitled to. I think this Bill should satisfy everybody. I am well satisfied with it, but I hope the step that is now being taken will not be the final step with regard to social welfare, because there are other things to be done before everybody in need is looked after. I hope that before long a further effort will be made to try and look after everybody who is in need.

I beg to second the motion moved by Deputy P. D. Lehane. I propose to discuss the Bill from the viewpoint of the small farmers of my constituency and, I am sure, of the country. One point stands out at the very outset. The introduction of this Bill does nothing to increase the national income. The benefits that are to accrue to the people who will benefit from it must come through lessening the share of the national income of those who will not benefit but will have to meet the cost. That being so, as a small farmer and a representative of a constituency of small farmers, I propose to point out how it will adversely affect agriculture. To my mind, social justice must precede social welfare. If it is a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, then it certainly offends against social justice. I could not do better at the outset than read a comment by Very Rev. Felim Ó Briain, of Galway University, when the White Paper outlining the proposals in the scheme was first published, I think at the end of 1949. He said:—

"Three tests which could be applied to any scheme were: would it really ward off distress where it was most felt in a comprehensive way; would it help the common good and the total economy of the country; and would it favour or impede the development of human personality? It is regrettable that on these three counts the White Paper fails. The scheme is not at all comprehensive. It is difficult to see how the terms ‘security' and ‘welfare' can be applied to a scheme which explicitly omits all who are too poor to contribute to it and makes no alternative provision for these unfortunate people. A craftsman with £10 a week or a business manager with £10,000 a year, if they had a wife and two children, would get 50/- a week unemployment benefit if deprived of their jobs, but a poor casual labourer with a wife and six children must prove that he had no more than 15/- a week before he got a dole of 29/- a week. The £12 a week tradesman would get 24/- a week at 65, but a worn-out agricultural worker at 70 would not get 17/6 if his income was more than 6/- a week. A million and a quarter persons were excluded from the scheme and these would include almost the whole agricultural community."

Speaking on the 23rd January last, he said:

"Adjustment of the mal-distribution of national income was one of the first duties of our statesmen. The Minister for Social Welfare proposed to accentuate unfairness by the Insurance Bill now before the Dáil. Those who had long been the victims of economic discrimination would be forced to contribute to the social security of those who enjoy permanent jobs. The Bill took a few timid steps in the right direction but the steps were so feeble as to be of little benefit."

That is the opinion of a person who could have no personal interest in any particular section of the community. I think those words should bear weight with our legislators before they enact further laws which will, as he says, increase the unfairness that already exists.

The only thing that can be said in favour of the present measure of social justice is that this State has gone so far in the direction of providing social security for a particular section of our people that it might now come as a bit of a jolt if it tried to go into reverse. If we were starting from scratch, I would question the wisdom of the State assuming responsibility for providing for all its citizens. In my opinion, the command of God to Adam after the Fall—"In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread"— holds as much force to-day as it did then. So far as the records of time are available to us, 4,000 years later God's Divine Son came on earth to redeem us from that Fall; He came and dwelt in the simple home at Nazareth where His foster-father worked as a carpenter, assisted by the Son of God, and His Mother did the household chores. There was no State security there. There was no social welfare. From that we have tangible evidence that the Divine Plan was that man should provide for himself by the sweat of his brow.

I may be branded as a reactionary for making that statement. It will not be the first time. Nevertheless, I suggest that the world, and our own country with it, has strayed far from the point where the breadwinner is expected to provide for himself and his dependents unaided by the State. With all our State interference, with all our State assistance, with all our State insurance and all the rest of it is humanity to-day more content than it was? Have we ever had at any period of our history such unrest rampant throughout the world? Have we ever had at any period in our own lifetime such unrest in our own country despite the measure of social security that operates in the country at the present time?

We have not social security. That is the trouble.

Is there more contentment to-day than there was at the beginning of this century when there was no State insurance for anyone? To that question I do not propose to give an authoritative reply, but I think Deputies should consider deeply whether it is not a fact that no matter what measure of State security we provide it will not give our people peace and contentment.

We will come to a point when our people, trained to look to the State to provide for all their needs, will feel that they can never get enough out of the State. I do not pretend to be well versed in international affairs, but I can see that over vast areas of the world to-day where the State assumes complete responsibility for all the needs of its people the point has been reached where there is nothing left except an inordinate desire to eliminate God completely out of the lives of the people. Let us consider then whether in pursuit of this ideal of discouraging the individual to provide for himself and his dependents—a natural obligation laid first upon the shoulders of our first parents—we shall not reach the point eventually where we too may imitate the Russian methods of eliminating God.

In relation to the burdens that will be placed upon the State to provide this measure of security for a section of our people I want to point out that in discussing this Bill we are discussing a Bill in which no mention is made of increased pensions for the old and the blind. Not a word appears in the Bill on that subject. As recently as last February the Minister, in reply to parliamentary questions, could not then say that there would even be an increase of 2/6 per week. It was only when the present Bill was actually introduced that the Minister promised some amendments would be made on the Committee Stage to make an increase available for old age pensioners. It is obvious that that promise was made because of the uncertainty that existed that the Bill, as drafted, would go through the House. That proves conclusively that it was the firm stand taken by the Independent Deputies that compelled the Minister to make that promise. The fear of those Independent Deputies voting against the Bill and defeating it induced the Minister to promise an extra 2/6 per week for old age pensioners. The provisions in the Bill are merely to provide for wage earners.

There was a suggestion that farmers who are members of co-operative societies may be taken in, but there is so little about it, even in the explanatory memorandum or in the Bill itself, that we have nothing definite to go on. The implication appears to be that those members of co-operative societies will pay a weekly contribution and that the co-operative society will pay the employer's contribution. It has not been mentioned what that contribution will be, nor is it indicated what benefit those farmers who are taken in will qualify for. Since the contribution of employees and employers as mentioned in the Bill is 3/6 a week, until some other figure is specified in respect of farmers who may be taken in, we can only assume that they will pay the same amount. If that is the case, the farmer will contribute 3/6 a week and his co-operative society will pay out of his money another 3/6 a week, making a total of 7/-.

I have made some calculations as to the effect of that on small farmers in my own constituency, or at least a section of them, because I have not the foundation on which to make a calculation over the whole constituency. An area of the county, considerably less than half of it, probably not more than a quarter of it, is covered by the co-operative society of which I am a member. The contributions which would be collected from the members would amount to £20,000 a year. The society would have to contribute another £20,000, making a total of £40,000, which would be taken off the small farmers in a small section of the County Cavan.

How did the Deputy arrive at that calculation in regard to the contributions—how did he get it?

I stated that as there is no mention in the Bill of any particular contribution for the farmers who may come into the scheme, I could only rely on the contribution that all those who are included in the scheme are expected to pay—3/6.

It is incorrect to do that.

But as I had nothing else to go on——

Then you took the figures that would suit you best.

Not necessarily.

But it happened to be so.

There is nothing before us in this measure to indicate what the contributions or the benefits will be for those people to whom I refer.

For the very good reason that we have to work out a scheme with the co-operatives.

Until we get a figure indicating the contributions and the benefits, we have nothing to go on. If one or two members of a farmer's family are taken in—and it is only natural to expect they should be, since they are working on the farm—we can double or treble that figure of £40,000, so that I do not think the co-operative societies will be enamoured of the scheme. As a matter of fact, I had a resolution sent to me, dated 5th March last, from a conference of co-operative societies of the Counties Monaghan and Cavan, and the terms of that resolution are:—

"That farmers oppose the proposed scheme of social welfare in so far as the Bill is unjust in imposing the total burden on the agricultural classes who cannot pass on the expense, as can the other sections of the community, its principal beneficiaries."

It is clear that in so far as there is a suggestion to take in farmers who are members of co-operative societies—and bear in mind all suppliers to a creamery are not shareholders, probably onethird of them are not—the position is that for this small section that will be taken in, the figure I have given of the contribution they would make, and that the society would make out of their money for them, would amount to this very big sum.

The burden, in the main, must come on taxation. To begin with, the statement has been made by Deputy Dunne that as regards any contributions organised labour will be called upon to make, their organisations will insist that they get increased wages to cover them. Then again, the employers, in so far as they are in the industrial line, will have their manufactured goods sold, in the main, in this State in circumstances where they will be enabled to add on the employers' portion of the cost. So, if Deputy Dunne says the workers will get increased wages to cover their contributions, the industrial employers will add the two contributions together, put it on to the cost of the manufactured article and send that out to the people of the State who must buy it unless they can import articles from other countries free of quotas and free of duty—and that is not likely to take place.

Let me now quote another statement made by the Very Rev. Dr. Phelim Ó Briain:

"While the fleeced farmer and the underpaid worker must continue to emigrate; while profits soared and well-organised groups of workers could secure terms that tended to impoverish further the vast majority of the underpaid, they could not claim that social or distributive justice existed in this country. About one-fifth of the nation's breadwinners were in registered trade unions. By using their organised force in strike action they could force the community to concede a disproportionate share of the national income that was meagre enough even if fairly divided."

The point I was making was that, owing to the sheltered position of our industrial producers, they are in a position to add to the cost of the manufactured article, which must be purchased by the people of the State, the amount of both the workers' and the employers' contributions. I quote from another quarter. The present Minister for Finance speaking in this House on the 23rd May said:—

"In the British case the industrialists were faced with the difficulty of export in the face of great competition, whereas here they were only manufacturing for the home market in conditions when the home market was never more fortified for them as regards quotas and tariffs."

That statement by the Minister for Finance has not been challenged, so far as I know. Therefore, I think it gives proof positive of my contention that the industrial manufacturers, since they have not to export their products and face international competition, are in the position that they will not be one penny the poorer by reason of any contribution they may have to make either by increased wages to workers on account of their contributions or on account of their own contributions. It would simply be added on to the price of the article. When that article is sent down the country it will go to different sections of distributors, business people and so on. It will even go to different sections of the community. Industrial workers down the country, when they buy that article, can make a point that it will increase the cost of living since clothing, footwear and so on form a big item in the cost-of-living index. They will seek for a further increase in wages against this additional burden. Ultimately, the burden will fall on the farming community and on whom will they shift that burden? Could they stand up and say to the British Minister of Food: "Twopence an egg is not enough for us with the social welfare cost added on to us." The British Minister of Food will snap his fingers and say: "I do not care. If you are not prepared to supply us with eggs at a less price than any other country I do not want your eggs. We can get on without them." That is only a small item. The price of the bulk of our produce is regulated by its export value, but there are many instances where the export value of our produce is much higher than could be realised for it on the home market. The export is limited and the price is kept down so that the farmer is crushed between the upper and nether millstones.

The Deputy seems to be widening the scope of the discussion very considerably. One could discuss all industries on the same basis.

I am endeavouring to point out where the burden will fall and where it will be unjust.

On the basis of that reasoning, everyone could discuss every industry in the State.

I am endeavouring to point out that the industrial sections of the community are cushioned against any of the charges that will be imposed as a result of the Bill before the House. The agricultural community will not be in a position to recoup themselves and in the ultimate the agricultural community will probably bear anything up to 90 per cent. of the entire cost of the scheme. Such a state of affairs, to my mind, is not a step forward.

A nation of small self-employed people is fundamentally much sounder than a nation of employers and employees. If employers and employees are divided there will be a continual tendency towards class warfare. While there is class warfare, we certainly cannot have contentment. The more we can do to encourage self-employed sections of the community to provide for themselves, the better.

Even before the introduction of this Bill, I could see quite a number of small farmers whose families were reared in the early years of this century and who grew up at the same time as I was growing up myself, and I can see a tendency on the part of the present owners of those small farms to neglect the farm and go out and become wage-earners. The reason for this is, first of all, the unequal distribution of the national wealth, whereby the agricultural producer is so penalised and, secondly, on account of the security provided through insurance against ill-health, unemployment both for themselves and their dependents. If that tendency continues long enough, it will cut across the whole national policy of developing rural Ireland and having contented smallholders.

I have seen farms on which families of seven, eight and nine have been raised in the early years of this century being left more or less in grass under the present owners. A few cattle have been put on them to eat up the grass but no attempt has been made to work them as an economic unit. That is the result of the unequal distribution of wealth, the burden of all State schemes and the inducements held out to self-employed people to desert the farms and go in and become insured and take up employment preferably Government employment or county council employment. If we proceed along those lines, we will reach a point where we will have anything but contented people.

The only point that could be made in favour of the extension of State schemes is that we have gone so far in a certain direction that it might cause a serious jolt to go into reverse. We can proceed along the lines we are going and ultimately, probably not in my lifetime or in the lifetime of any member of this House, we may end up in the conditions that have led to the setting up of the totalitarian States behind the Iron Curtain.

I would prefer to see encouragement to the individual to observe his natural obligation to provide out of his own effort and trust in God for himself and his dependents. No one will object to providing for the aged, who, having given a lifetime of service to the State, are entitled to retirement benefits such as old pensions, but even with that system up to the present, there is a means test. We have a penalty on thrift, but in so far as the State guarantees to provide for all the needs of the family, it relieves the breadwinner of his natural responsibilities and furthermore it trains the children to lose respect for the parents.

The children can well say, when they grow up, to the father and mother: "You have no authority over me. You did very little to provide for me. You got half-a-crown a week when I was a baby until I reached the age of 16. You got free boots, free milk, free school meals and many other things of that kind and it is the State rather than you who brought me up, so that I owe allegiance to the State rather than to you." We strike directly at the authority of the parents and we attack the family at its vital source which everyone agrees is the one point in respect of which the totalitarian States made most headway. Let us beware lest we increase still further the tendency in that direction. Its consequences may not overtake us in a year, a decade or two decades, but, as the years go on, we may reach that point.

If the Bill is all that it claims to be by its protagonists, without the sugar coating which has been put on it by the mention of the half-crown a week increase to the old age pensioner— which is not yet in the Bill—why should there be any hesitation about submitting it to a referendum, so that the people will have a chance of expressing their views on it? I am quite sure that there would be a very considerable volume of opinion, even of those who are to benefit, against it. One thing is sure—any person of an industrious turn of mind, who is inclined to work, does not like the idea of making contributions and bearing the burden of providing funds for people less willing to work than himself. I am not saying that there will not be hardship at all times which could, and should, be provided for from State funds, but to make the principle as general as the Bill envisages appears to me to be a step in the wrong direction.

I appeal to the Tánaiste to accept the amendment tabled by Deputy P.D. Lehane and to agree to the suggestion made by the four Independent Deputies in their memorandum to the Taoiseach and the Government to implement the increased old age pension and blind pension by a short Bill and then to put this Bill before the electorate for their views. Nothing will be lost by the delay in submitting it and it will be a useful pointer as to whether the country believes that it is wise or not. If a majority of the electors decide in favour of it, I will support it. If they do not, why should it be imposed on the country? I earnestly appeal to the Tánaiste to accept the amendment and put the question to a referendum.

Mr. Connolly rose.

Is it proposed or desired to finish the debate to-night?

I could not say. It depends on what time is available.

Deputy Kissane is not attempting to interfere with my freedom of speech?

Oh, yes.

Deputy O'Reilly treated us to a rather doleful review of the situation in the country in a sincere and honest fashion, as is his custom. If one really believed the country to be in such a state as he indicated, I have no doubt that one could find very strong and urgent reasons for resisting the Bill, or, on the other hand, for being overpowering in one's support of it. The contributions of the Opposition to this Bill have been most disappointing. There have been so far but two contributions of any serious content, that of Deputy Ryan moving his amendment and that of the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition, Deputy Lemass, who approached this question in a very realistic manner.

This question is of such tremendous dimensions, is so huge in its application and covers such a wide field that one can be forgiven, as Opposition Deputies must be forgiven, for not attempting to break a lance with the Minister on it; but, the Minister is to be very highly commended for having introduced the Bill and more important, for having stood up to every challenge against it and having seen to it that it did come before the House for discussion, and, we hope, for enactment. The fact that the Minister in charge is a Labour Minister would undoubtedly induce me, as a Labour Deputy, to speak in his commendation. Yet, as I stated on another occasion, I cannot say that this is the most important achievement of the inter-Party Government. It will rank, possibly, as the second most important achievement. Probably, the other measure to obtain family security and family welfare, the mother and child scheme, which should be taken in conjunction with this scheme, will also rank high amongst the achievements of this Government.

To my mind, the background of the Social Welfare Bill and the thing that makes it possible is the most magnificent achievement of this inter-Party Government and that, as I said on the Vote on Account, is the achievement of political peace for the last three years. That is an attainment of which every member of the inter-Party Government, and every individual Deputy who has had any hand, act or part in bringing about the formation of this Government should be proud. Without that political peace, this social peace, the foundations of which the Minister intends to lay in this Bill, would be impossible, would be a fantasy and a farce. It is on that background that we must consider the whole question in its general aspects.

Several of the speakers, starting with Deputy Dr. Ryan, have gone into great detail in asking what certain sections of the community will get from this Bill. They have treated us, as Deputy Ryan did, followed by Deputy O'Reilly, to an elaborate dissertation on the difference between the manufacturer and the farmer, as to how one is enabled to pass on the costs of this scheme to the consumer, and how the other is not. They find a criticism, which they would believe to be valid, in calling that discrimination against the poor farmer. Reality is achieved only by considering the title in its true context. I do not believe that has been done by any contributor to this debate, not even by the Minister.

These are Government proposals for social security. This is a Bill for social welfare. Most of those who discussed the Bill seemed to regard it as a measure providing some social security for the individual, to insure him against certain risks and contingencies but, in fact, that is merely incidental to the Bill. The real purpose of a Bill of this type, of any Social Welfare Bill, is to provide security to society, to provide security to the State, to the community. It is to provide social welfare, not so much to the hapless individual, the under-privileged, the brother by the wayside, who has to be helped by his better-off brethren, as it is to secure that the fabric of society should continue to exist, should continue to be secure against attacks which threaten to undermine it. I submit that that is the correct perspective in which to examine this Bill. We should consider whether or not it will promote that social peace and security for the community, in the sphere of economics and industrial relations, which this Government has been able to secure in the political sphere; whether security of that type is settled in this Bill; whether attempts are made to lay the foundation for a better state of affairs than has hitherto existed. We should consider it, not with so much emphasis upon whether it has improved the position economically of the old age pensioner, the widow and orphans, the unemployed, the invalided, but as to whether the community as a whole will benefit from the contributions that the Minister has made in this Bill to social security.

Certain Deputies characterised parts of this Bill as being revolutionary in intent. One might dwell, perhaps, upon that matter, particularly in view of the very widespread, vicious, ignorant and uninformed criticism there is of the Bill. It was thought at one time that a proposal such as this, holding out palliatives to the under-privileged or the workers, was of the nature of throwing a crust of bread to the starving man to keep him from revolt, trying to keep the proletariat from some revolutionary advance, and, in so far as that theory was considered correct, all these amelioratory measures were regarded as being counter-revolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Times have changed, however, and now, when we have a better grasp of the essentials of things, we can understand the real impact of proposals of this nature and their effect upon society as a whole. The number of times that we have heard it stated that proposals of this nature would rob workers of all initiative, would deprive them of a desire to earn their daily bread, would corrupt them and make them dependent on the charity of the State, would seem to indicate that those who say these things believe that, by continual repetition, they may convince the uneducated or the unthinking that these criticisms are valid.

But they give no indication of the basis of their belief. They have no evidence from a sociological point of view to prove that any measures of this sort, brought forward with a view to ameliorating the conditions of the under-privileged, have ever actually had the effect which they so glibly talk about. The experience of the last war, as Deputy Desmond has pointed out, shows that Irish workers, and I am sure workers in any other countries, are not to any extent of the type that can be criticised as shirkers. They are not likely to shirk work just because they are asked to accept, as part of the social structure of this State, the possibility of receiving certain contributions during periods of unemployment. That basis of criticism has been exploded quite thoroughly in this country and in every other country but still it seems to persist when no other real sound criticism can be thought out by those who are opposed to this scheme.

The social security that I mention as being the real target of this Bill, the promotion of a social consciousness, would to my mind act as a very energetic stimulus to the worker to increase his productivity rather than to lessen it. When he feels a sense of security for himself during sickness, a sense of greater security for himself when he reaches retirement, a greater sense of security for his wife and children under the provisions of this Bill, he is bound, I submit, to become a better citizen. He is bound to act in a greater degree for the best interests of the country as a whole and that argument, I feel sure, will appeal to thinking people to smash the type of propaganda which has been rampant against this Bill since it was introduced.

The attitude of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Deputy Lemass, would require some consideration, particularly as the statement he made was welcomed by Deputy Davin as the leader of the Labour Party, who went so far as to salute him for his declaration of a point of view which evidently ran counter to that of the other members of his Party or, at least as far as we have heard those who followed him, received no endorsement whatsoever from these other members.

We got no encouragement from your side.

We had not an opportunity of providing encouragement when it became evident that Deputy Lemass was speaking with a lone voice.

No, not with a lone voice. He spoke for the Party.

He gave no indication of it. It appeared to me as one who listened to him that it was under stress of the discussion that this idea of appealing to the Minister sprung fully-fledged from his mind. There was no indication that I have read of —and I have taken care to read over Deputy Dr. Ryan's opening statement in proposing his amendment—or no scintilla of evidence that he was thinking along the lines indicated by Deputy Lemass. Deputy Lemass gave as his view that the whole question of social welfare arrangements should be taken out of the field of party politics, and this he proposed should be done by meeting the proposals of Deputy Dr. Ryan, but he could hardly expect, as an experienced Deputy Leader of the Opposition, that the Government of the day, no matter how much it might or might not be enamoured of the alternative propositions of the Opposition, would withdraw its own considered line of policy as incorporated in the Bill and take into consideration the rather tenuous proposals of Deputy Dr. Ryan, not fully thought out or elaborated, and present them as an agreed measure to the House.

We would all, I am sure, particularly the Deputies in the Labour Party, wish that some of the other suggestions of Deputy Dr. Ryan could be implemented. We would all wish that, in contradiction to the terms of his own amendment after he criticised the Bill for not providing a comprehensive section for the needs of all sections of the community, any suggestion of his which broadened the basis of the Bill and extended social security to other sections not covered by the Bill could be implemented by the Government; but it would hardly be the correct procedure for the Government to accept a suggestion of that type, not backed by the other members of the Opposition as far as we can ascertain, because it was carefully noted that Deputy Derrig spoke in a very dissimilar, if not in an antagonistic voice, to that used by Deputy Lemass. Others who followed him adopted the same attitude. If the Opposition were anxious to facilitate the Government they could avail of other means to secure the rapid passage and implementation of the Bill as a whole. They could, for instance, as has been the custom in this House on quite a number of occasions, take off the Whips from the Party and have a free vote.

If that had appealed to Deputy Lemass, perhaps he might have considered it. If, as Deputy Little suggests, they did seriously consider this in Party caucus after their opposition to the Bill had weakened and after they had seen the strength of the arguments in support of it on behalf of the Government, they could, I am sure, have found accommodation with the Government. I am sure they realise that in the Tánaiste they have a Minister who has the greatest sense of accommodation and that he would be willing to facilitate them without in any way violating the principles which he hopes to enshrine in this Bill. If they were serious in that idea of helping the Government to bring forward this measure of social security, then I suggest they leave themselves open to the charge of having this attitude, or this appeal, of the Deputy Leader of their Party being considered as a political trick, a trick to get themselves out of the difficult situation in which they found themselves when they began to understand how the tide was flowing in the country—when the great realisation came to them as to the full meaning of the proposals in this Bill.

Now, before examining in detail some of the criticisms made by Deputy Dr. Ryan, and before taking into consideration the scheme that was summarised so hastily by the Fianna Fáil headquarters and office, I would like to go over some thoughts which I have in respect of this Bill. In considering it, it is, as I said at the beginning, important to bear in mind the background against which it is introduced, a background of political security which I hope will be strengthened by the scheme of security which the Minister proposes in the Bill. As well as that background, the Bill can be examined from the narrower background of the three main insurance schemes which we have at present in operation. Each of these finds a place in one form or another in the Bill. The two oldest are those governing national health and unemployment. The third, and the most recent, which was so highly commended by every Deputy who has spoken so far, is the widows' and orphans' contributory pension scheme. As Deputies know, these three schemes cover widely different groups of people.

The widows' and orphans' scheme is the widest in scope. The legislation governing that scheme shows that it covers all persons, with some exceptions, who were employed under a contract of service, the main exceptions being persons in receipt of salaries of more than £500 a year and certain State employees.

The next one that is widest in scope is the national health insurance scheme, and the third, the unemployment insurance scheme, which is the most limited of the three. As regards scope, the last one covers some 200,000 people fewer than are covered by the widows' and orphans' pension scheme. This lack of uniformity in scope has given rise to many anomalies, some of which were referred to by Deputy Dr. Ryan and other Deputies. It is one of the important functions of this new Bill to wipe out these anomalies by providing a uniform scope for all the benefits. That aspect of the Bill has rightly been commented upon by Deputy Dr. Ryan, while the advantages of it have been made plain by several Deputies. It is only when the Bill is actually in full operation that the advantages and effects of that pattern of uniformity will become clear.

An example of the advantages of this endeavour of the Bill may make this point clear. Under the present arrangement or system, if a man becomes unemployed for a long period, he loses his insurance under the national health scheme, and if, subsequently, he falls sick or if death occurs, no benefit is payable on account of the lapsed insurance. It will be seen from this that the occurrence of one contingency, which is supposed to be insured against, can have the effect of destroying the insurance for another contingency which, when it arises, is uncovered. Now, under the new Bill, as Deputies know who have examined it and its contents, and who have studied the White Paper and run through the explanatory memorandum, that state of affairs, which is so disadvantageous to the beneficiary and so unjust without being purposely so—unjust due to the lack of uniformity in the three main systems of insurance—will be impossible. When a man is sick, for example, his insurance is carried forward by way of credits. These credits are valuable in the event of some later mishap, such as the mishap of unemployment or death. Of all the provisions in this Bill, it would be difficult to overestimate the value of this particular provision. In fact, were the Minister to introduce a Bill containing that provision alone it would be a very noteworthy step along the path to better social security in this country.

The next obvious advantage arising from the new measure is the simplification and the rationalisation which it brings about. Instead of the three different insurance schemes with three different scopes, with different rates of benefit and different qualifying conditions and so on, we now have, under the Bill, a uniform scheme covering all those who can be covered under the terms of the Bill and dealing administratively with them by means of one stamp and one central record department. One Deputy who spoke went as far as to envisage the type of card that might most profitably be used for assessing the legal liability of the different parties, the employer and the employee, to carry through their obligations in regard to payment of the contributions. Whether it is necessary on the Second Reading to go into such details is a moot point but the fact that Deputies are thinking along those lines is significant of the interest in this whole question of social security, as put forward by this Bill. That interest is evident not alone in the destructive aspects of the criticism but also in the constructive approach which members of this House are applying to the consideration of the Bill. The advantages of this one-stamp-one-record idea hardly require to be stressed. The administrative expenses which will be saved by this rational method of unification and simplification will be of real value to those who are most concerned under this Bill, namely, the beneficiaries. That method of rationalisation will leave just so much extra money which will go in benefits instead of in administrative expenses. In other words, the Minister proposes to make social insurance in this country, under the terms of this Bill, an efficient instrument—an instrument which has been so simplified that it can be understood by the man in the street, so that it does not require any great legal mind to interpret his duties and obligations under it.

The next improvement which the Bill brings about is the making uniform of the existing benefit rates in which, needless to say, we are interested. There is to be a substantial improvement. For example, at the moment, under the national health insurance scheme, allowances are payable for dependents. But, under the unemployment insurance scheme, no such allowances are paid. Again, the rates payable under both schemes bear no relation to the rates payable under the other scheme I mentioned, the widows' and orphans' pension scheme, which latter are determined both by the place of residence of the widow and by the type of employment in which her husband had been engaged.

It is hardly necessary to say that these different and differing rates did discriminate sharply against the rural worker and his widow. However, under the new scheme, all this will be wiped out. There will be a basic benefit rate, that anyone can understand, of 24/- for the main beneficiary plus 12/- for the adult dependent, plus 7/- for each of the two dependent children. This means, to make comparisons with the present set-up, that a man when sick or when unemployed will receive for himself and his wife and two dependent children 50/- a week. That is a round figure which is easily remembered and easily understood—and I am sure that it can easily be grasped by the people who are to benefit and who are only too impatient to have the scheme implemented. Compare that position with the present rate of 22/6 which a man would receive under the national insurance scheme or 35/- which he would receive under the present unemployment insurance scheme. No comparisons can be made as regards the retiring pension. The retiring pension and the death grant provisions of this new scheme cannot be compared with any existing scheme because, as Deputies know, at the moment no similar benefits are provided by any form of State insurance.

The next point which requires consideration—it is a point to which Deputy Dr. Ryan devoted some time and in regard to which he seemed to disagree very completely with the attitude of the Minister—is the division of the insured population into two groups (1) those who are in what may be termed the normal wage group, and (2) those who are earning less than a round figure of £3 10s. a week—in the White Paper this latter group is referred to as the low-wage group. I should think that it would be of benefit to the House if the Minister, in his concluding remarks, would give some reasons why he hit on this level at which the division is made. With the fall in value of money, which has been stressed, and with the rise in wages— particularly in the rural community— the figure of £3 10s. appears to me to require consideration and it could be considered with advantage to apply at a higher scale. I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.
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