Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 28 Jun 1951

Vol. 126 No. 5

Social Welfare Bill, 1951—Second Stage.

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The Social Welfare Bill, 1951, which I now commend to the approval of the House for a Second Reading, implements the undertaking which I gave when introducing the Estimate for my Department on the 20th of this month. It is evident that there is little, if any, difference of opinion in the House as to the desirability of the proposed improvements in our old age pension legislation, and they have been welcomed from all sides.

The introduction of these amendments in respect of old age pensions does not mean that we are abandoning or delaying the introduction of a comprehensive social welfare scheme. The preparation of the comprehensive scheme must take some time, however, and it is thought desirable to give immediate legislative effect to the present proposals and so expedite payment of the old age pension increases which are provided under this Bill.

Deputies will have observed from the Bill itself and from the explanatory memorandum which accompanied it that it is proposed to effect improvements in three major aspects of the current old age pension legislation. The rates of pension are being raised; the means test, to use the common description, is being modified and in the actual calculation of means certain things formerly assessable will no longer be included.

It is estimated that these changes will bring in about 7,000 additional persons and that the extra cost will be about £1,422,000 per annum.

The new standard rate of old age pension will be £1 per week as against 17/6 at present, and the full rate will be payable to persons whose means do not exceed £22 2s. 6d. per annum. Under the present Acts the full rate is payable only if the claimant's means do not exceed £15 12s. 6d. per annum. There will be three other weekly rates of pension, 15/-, 10/- and 5/-. The 5/-rate will be payable to persons whose means lie between £52 5s. 0d. and £65 5s. 0d. per annum. Hitherto such persons were not eligible for any pension.

In the actual calculation of means the first £80 received by way of disability or wound pension or allowance under the Army Pensions Acts will be disregarded. Assistance received from charitable organisations will also be ignored up to a limit of £52 5s. 0d. per annum.

It is further proposed that where a farmer whose poor law valuation does not exceed £30 transfers his holding to a son or daughter, no matter for what reason, the value of the holding will not be calculated against him if he applies for old age pension. Blind persons' pensions will be improved in exactly the same way as old age pensions.

It is confidently anticipated that the improvements which will be effected under this Bill in the position of claimants to old age and blind pensions should remove many of the complaints which Deputies and others have made from time to time. The Bill is, I think, a comparatively simple one and does not require further elucidation, but if there are any points on which Deputies may require information I shall be glad to cover them when replying to the debate.

First of all, I want to congratulate the Minister on following so faithfully the good example set by the previous Government in deciding to increase old age and blind pensions to a maximum of 20/- per week. As the House knows, and as the Official Records prove, we indicated on the Second Stage of the Social Welfare Bill that we proposed to submit an amendment to provide for increasing old age and blind pensions to £1 per week on the Committee Stage of the Bill. An amendment in precisely the same terms as is now embodied in this Bill was submitted by me for consideration by the House on the Committee Stage of that measure. In fact, that amendment was printed with the official list of amendments. The Minister, therefore, was in the position that he knew we intended to do this; our policy had been definitely revealed. He knew also that he could not run away from the legislation we proposed and he simply went into the Department, got a copy of what we proposed to do, got the parliamentary draftsman to put it into legal form and embodied it in this Bill in exactly the same terms as the amendment we proposed on the Committee Stage of the Social Welfare Bill, line by line, word by word, figure by figure, comma by comma.

I congratulate the Minister on having gone to such a well-proven fount for inspiration when he wanted to do something to improve the lot of the old age and blind pensioners. If the Minister pursues that course while he remains in the Department of Social Welfare, though I do not think he will be very long there, because he must recognise that he is really a minority Government held together by a few weak links which will not hold when the first political storm breaks, and if he follows in the footsteps he is following in to-day he may manage for a while to avert political storms in relation to social legislation.

The Minister is to be congratulated in doing exactly what we told the House we intended to do but I am somewhat surprised at the line he has taken in his speech to-day and at the character of the Bill he is introducing. One finds it difficult to believe that Deputy Dr. Ryan, the Minister for Social Welfare, is the same Deputy Dr. Ryan who spoke from the Opposition Benches on 2nd March last. On that date, Deputy Dr. Ryan, as he then was, told the House what his views were in relation to old age pensions and in relation to the means test. He said then that if Fianna Fáil were back in office, they would do the things which he then wrote into the public records of this House. Now, Deputy Dr. Ryan has been in office for a few weeks. He could quite easily have produced a Bill giving effect to what he promised here on 2nd March in respect of the means test. If he comes back here with a Bill, or amends this Bill, to conform with the promises he made here on 2nd March, I guarantee him the full support of the Labour Party.

Deputy Dr. Ryan, the present Minister for Social Welfare, could quite easily have embodied in this Bill the promise he made here on 2nd March but all he has chosen to do is to put forward his own proposals for a modification of the means test and to keep blindly the proposals which I submitted to the House. If there has been such a conversion of Deputy Dr. Ryan, Minister for Social Welfare, to the proposals which I submitted we ought to know the reasons. On 2nd March Deputy Dr. Ryan stood here as a defender of a liberal approach, even a radical approach, to a modification of the means test. What I want to find out from the Minister is what induced him to run away from the promises which he made here on 2nd March? Why has the Minister for Social Welfare not stuck to his guns? Why has he abandoned the stand he made here on 2nd March? Listen to Deputy Dr. Ryan on the 2nd March and compare his speech then with the Bill he has introduced now. On that occasion he said, as given in column 1112:—

"I said that I was going to make certain proposals and that if the Minister did not implement them a Fianna Fáil Government would implement them. Keeping that in mind, I have to be careful."

In other words, it was no reckless or extemporaneous speech, bearing in mind that what he said represented a covenant with the people and with this House that he would do in the future when he came back to office what he was promising to do. Keeping that in mind, he said he would have to be careful. He went on:—

"I do not know whether everyone should get a pension or not. I do not say that they should not. At least it appears to me there is a great waste of human endeavour if you say to a young widow of 22: ‘We are going to pension you and you need not work for the rest of your life.' I think we should require that a widow would endeavour at least to get work if she is left at a certain age with no children. However, that is a case to be considered.

I would apply the same conditions to old age pensions—that they would be applied to all classes of the population except the very wealthy and that they would be paid for out of taxation. Again, the means test arises. But we can get over that by the same conditions as I propose for widows and orphans—that there would be no means test for an insured worker who retires and draws the old age pension, no means test for the small farmer, say, under £25 valuation, and that outside that the means test should be £100 per year in cash. When I say £25 valuation, there might be a good argument put up to make it £30 or £20, but I think in or about £25 is fair enough, and £100 cash is in or about the sum which also should be laid down. After all, £100 cash is less than £2 per week and, if the old age pensioner gets another £1, he has not too much. Putting the means test at £100 would not be too high in my opinion."

In other words, on the 2nd March last Deputy Dr. Ryan would allow the person who had £2 a week to get a full old age pension of 20/- and he said that if they got £3 it was not too much. But he comes here within three months and says that if one has more than 25/- he will get no pension at all. I would like to hear the Minister's explanation as to why he promised this House, in well chosen language, deliberately used, bearing in mind that the quotation could be used against him at a future date, that he would introduce legislation to enable a person who had £2 to get the full pension of 20/- and on the first Bill he introduces he provides that if they have 25/6 they will get no pension at all. Surely we are entitled to know why he changed his mind since the 2nd March. Why did he say then that he would implement such a promise and yet when he gets a chance of doing it he runs away from the promise? We are entitled to some explanation for that change of front. We are entitled to know, too. whether this is one of the first election promises that is being abandoned by the new Government.

In Deputy Dr. Ryan's discourse on the 2nd March we see his views generally on old age pensions. I do not want to go into that subject now in so far as it relates to the main scheme of social security, but as we are discussing old age pensions it might be no harm to remind the Minister that, when he was speaking about old age or retirement pensions at 65 in March last, he said he was opposed to paying old age pensions to persons at 65. Subsequently he developed some curious opinion that they might get sick pay or unemployment benefit after 65, even though they were not sick or unemployed.

I did not say that. Do not misquote me.

I beg the Minister to read his speech on the Second Stage.

Let the Deputy read it.

I have a headache reading it. I will get the words for the Minister.

Then get them. The Deputy will not get away with that.

I have not the time to get them. Let the Minister not get annoyed because he is reminded of the promises from which he is running away.

I did not promise that.

What did you not promise?

What you say.

What did you promise?

I will tell you when I am replying.

The Minister—Deputy as he then was—was in such a fog of bewilderment on that day that he did not know what he was promising. Did he not say on that occasion that old age pensioners were well off on 12/6 in 1947?

Better look that up, too.

I will find that reference more easily, now that the Minister is anxious about it.

Does the Minister not remember that I asked him if it was his policy to discontinue old age pensions, to make them available only as from 70 and not from 65 and his reply was that unemployment and sickness benefit would be adequate to meet the position?

Yes; but I did not say they would be paid whether the people were sick or unemployed or not.

The Minister did not make it clear whether he meant that or not.

I made it very clear. Do not let yourself be caught out again.

In column 1110 of the 2nd March Deputy Dr. Ryan said that the old age pensioners were well off, were comfortable on 12/6 a week in 1947.

I said that the nutritional survey reported that.

I have before me here the Fianna Fáil advertisement published in the Press on the 17th January, 1948. It is described as "A Plan for Security". I would ask the Minister to remember his speeches.

I have the Labour plan here, too.

If the Minister keeps at that, he will get to know something useful about social services.

This Labour one would cost £48,000,000.

That is the best textbook I can give you. This is the Fianna Fáil plan for social security of January, 1948, which says: "Financial security against want". Before I make the quotation, the Minister should remember that he was opposed to old age pensions and retirement pensions at 65 and that other members of his Party voted against it. The Minister may recall, too, the statement he published—admittedly in a panic—in the papers the next day to show what the Fianna Fáil alternative was to the Social Welfare Bill which I introduced. In March last, the Minister opposed old age and retirement pensions at 65, but this is what Fianna Fáil promised in 1948. They talked about a plan. The plan was to include in its features free sickness and disability benefit, increased unemployment benefit, increased windows' and orphans' benefit, a new form of maternity benefit and contributory old age pensions at 65 years of age.

In 1948 you went to the trouble of printing advertisements of this kind, "Plan for Social Security", and published the advertisements all over the country saying that you stood for a scheme of contributory old age pensions at 65. In March, 1951, when in opposition, you said that you were opposed to old age or retirement pensions at 65.

I do not know about that.

My trouble with the Minister is that he does not know what is happening at all. He does not know his Party's policy on these matters. Here is the Fianna Fáil advertisement for which, no doubt, he paid and I take it that he did not pay if somebody else inserted it. It is his plan for security; he published it in the Press and paid for it.

We always pay.

We will see how the Minister will pay on this Bill before he has finished. He went on record that Fianna Fáil favoured old age pensions at 65 and in the first speech which the Minister made on the Bill providing pensions at 65, he said that he was opposed to it although he had published broadcast to the nation an advertisement saying that he was in favour of old age pensions at 65. That is inconsistency number two. Perhaps the Minister would explain that somersault.

Let us come back to the Minister. Let us recall the declaration I have quoted earlier (column 1112, March 2nd) of a scheme by which you would pay old age pensions automatically to farmers with a valuation of less than £25 no matter what income they had and if you had no more than £2 per week you would automatically get a full old age pension. Both promises have definitely been thrown overboard. Even between the 2nd March and the Committee Stage about a fortnight afterwards Deputy Dr. Ryan as he then was, had undergone another transformation. Bear in mind that he promised on 2nd March full old age pensions if you had no more than £2 per week and he submitted an amendment which was printed on the Order Paper for the Committee Stage of the Bill in which he said that if you had £2 a week you would get no pension. I wonder if the Minister has really caught up with himself on the whole tangled problem of social security. He stated in 1948 that there would be contributory pensions at 65 and abandoned that in March, 1951. He said in March, 1951, that he would give an old age pension at 70 to anybody who had not more than £2 per week and a fortnight after he produced an amendment saying that if you had £2 per week or a penny over it you would get no pension whatever. Surely somebody should provide a key that will unlock the secrets of the Minister's mind so that we may know where we stand on the whole question of the means test and old age pensions whether they be contributory or non-contributory. However, I will wait with interest to hear what the Minister's answers are. I am sure that will be interesting and I hope that we will be able to import some consistency into them. I cannot discover any consistency in them although I have taken the time to study them.

Our associations with the Department of Social Welfare for three years were creditable indeed. In December, 1947, there were 149,000 old age pensioners whose pensions varied from 1/- to 10/- per week. Eighty per cent. of them had these pensions increased by 2/6 per week and only 20 per cent. had their pensions increased by 5/-. Within 12 months of our taking office we gave an additional 5/- per week to over 116,000 old age pensioners and 2/6 to an additional 32,000 pensioners. We succeeded in bringing the number of old age pensioners to 161,000 by September, 1950, which is the latest figure I have in my possession. We brought old age pensions to an all-time high level inasmuch as during our administration old age pensions reached a level they had never previously touched since the first Old Age Pensions Bill was introduced in 1908. Not only did we succeed in raising the level of pensions, but the modification of the means test which we introduced and the liberalisation of the administration which was a feature of our association with the Department enabled people to qualify for old age pension who had previously been disqualified. The Minister is now merely engaged in implementing the proposals which we put before the House in April last, two months ago. He is completely running away from and abandoning all the promises to modify still further the means test which he made when he spoke in this House on the Second Reading of the Social Welfare Bill. Surely we are entitled to hear from the Minister why he did not put his own proposals into this Bill, what prevented him from doing so, why he ran away from his own proposals, and why he did not at least do them the honour of enshrining them in the Bill before the House.

I should like to compliment the Minister on doing so promptly what Deputy Norton when he was Minister refused to do when he was appealed to by the Fianna Fáil Party and by four Independent Deputies in this House. That was to grant this increase of 2/6 a week to the old age pensioners and blind pensioners. Deputy Norton had nothing whatever in his Social Security Bill until questions were put down to him by myself in this House to know what he was going to do for the non-insured people. The first answer I got was that the matter was under consideration and the second time I put down a question in the matter he told me he had nothing further to add to what he had already said. He tells us now that we are acting on what was put up to us by him. I asked him questions as to whether he was going to increase these pensions. He was asked by four Independent Deputies to bring forward that proposal. He was guaranteed that the proposal would pass through the House without delay and yet he refused to do so. Now he criticises the present Minister for Social Welfare, who, in his second week of office, has brought in this Bill to give immediate help to these people whom Deputy Norton was quite satisfied to leave waiting until after the general election. He waited for three and a half years before he introduced his social security scheme in this House. He waited until he knew that he was going to go before the people. He thought that it was the best plan of propaganda he could get for his Party. The people are not as stupid as Deputy Norton seems to think they are. They realise that that Bill was kept dangling before them for three and a quarter years and was only introduced into this House when he considered that an election was in the offing.

It is before the House now.

Almost three years ago Deputy Norton increased the national health and unemployment contributions without giving any increased benefits to the people who were compelled to pay these increased contributions. I am sorry to say that the workers of this country took it lying down at the time. Deputy Norton refers to the Minister's, Deputy Dr. Ryan's, talk about not giving pensions at 65. I remember that when the present Minister was in opposition he stated that we would give sickness benefit equal to the retirement pension if people over 65 were unable to work and that if people over 65 were unable to get work they would get an equal sum in benefit; in other words, that the unemployment and sickness benefits would be increased to the same amount. I am sure that Deputy Norton realises that workers in this country, tradesmen and others, who are able to earn £7, £8 and £9 a week—most of the labourers in the City of Cork earn over £6 a week—are not going to retire at 65 on the retirement pension which Deputy Norton suggested when they can continue working for these good wages. If those people will be able to continue working why should they have to pay contributions for a retirement pension at 65 when they have no intention of retiring at 65? In order to make sure that the man over 65 would not suffer in any way whatsoever, the sickness benefit was to be increased to the same amount of the retirement pension and the man unable to secure work would get the same for unemployment benefit. I think it would be a far better plan to encourage men who are fit and competent and willing to work to continue doing so after the age of 65 rather than to retire at 65.

I am glad that the Minister has decided that, up to £80, the Old I.R.A. pensions will not be abated. That is a very good gesture to the men who contributed so much to the welfare of this country. It will be appreciated that the Minister decided he would not wait and depend on the Social Security Bill and put these provisions in it in order to try to induce the people in the House to pass the Bill—a Bill which, in my opinion, Deputy Norton had no intention of putting through the House. Deputy Norton kept it waiting there, despite all the questions we asked, simply in order to have it and to be able to introduce it as a fine piece of propaganda for the Labour Party at an election time.

It is wrong to say that the present Minister, Deputy Dr. Ryan, is out to do injustice to the people over 65. Would it not be a finer thing that an able and willing man should be encouraged to continue working after the age of 65, and to make suitable provision for him if he is not able to do so?

I compliment the Minister on the promptness with which he has brought this measure before the House.

I wonder if the Minister would be able to give the House an indication of the date upon which it is proposed to make the increased old age pensions payable. I should like to take this opportunity of appealing to the Minister to reconsider this Bill in the light of the speech which he made on the 2nd March, 1951. I think that the proposal to modify the means test to enable every person in receipt of £2 a week or less to receive an old age pension at the age of 70 is a modest one. Likewise, the proposal to make the old age pension payable at the age of 70 to every farmer whose valuation is below £25 a year is a modest proposal.

Quite apart from these considerations, I appeal to the Minister to reconsider this Bill in the light of the speech he made on the 2nd March and for another reason. I think the political Parties at elections do a bad service to public life and to the country by making promises and shamelessly breaking them within a few months. That seems to give cause for a certain amount of cynical laughter to a number of Deputies in this House. I wish the public could hear that cynical laughter.

It is the source of it.

We kept our promises to the people.

The people did not say so at the last election.

Mr. O'Higgins

They did.

The people know the results, and they will know the results of the change for which you have been responsible. Already you have decided that they must pay an extra 2d. a lb. on butter. Three months ago the present Minister undoubtedly made a categorical promise. That promise is recorded in the records of this House and it was quoted in full by Deputy Norton. Surely the Minister is not going to renege on that policy now. Surely it would be bad from the point of view of public life in the country if a Minister were to renege on such a categorical point. Surely the Minister's own good name is also involved. He should not renege on a promise he has made so categorically. Besides which, who could say that an old man or an old woman who has given 50 years of hard work and toil to building up this nation is not entitled to an old age pension at 70 if his or her means are less than £2? Surely, having regard to the value of money, the purchasing power of money, that would not be excessive. I would, therefore, appeal to the Minister to reconsider the proposals in the light of the promises he made on 2nd March last.

Sometimes, the more inexperienced of us in this House wonder whether or not there is any limit to political hypocrisy or deceit. It is obvious to everybody and the people of the country know that the only reason the old age pensioners will get the halfcrown is because the previous Government had guaranteed it to them and that the present Administration has been put in a position from which they cannot get out. They must give this 2/6 to the old age pensioner. The Minister for Social Welfare apparently, judging by his reaction to Deputy Norton's recalling of what he had to say on 2nd March, dislikes to be reminded of the statements he made. I think it is a good thing that we should know just what policy the Minister is pursuing. It was stated in this House by the Minister that he was in favour of not retiring aged people at 65. At column 1115, Volume 124, Official Dáil Debates of the 2nd March, 1951, the Minister, who was then Deputy Dr. Ryan, stated:—

"Now, instead of retiring men at 65 I think we should make it easier for them to draw sickness and unemployment benefit."

He goes on to say that if you retire people at 65:—

"they will cast an intolerable burden on those who are working because every year the number over 65 will be increasing."

It is no use for the Minister to try to avoid the facts or evade the statements which he has made in the past. All of us who sat here on that sorry day, 2nd March, and heard the rambling discourse of the present Minister for Social Welfare, the puerile attempt of the Fianna Fáil Party to present us with some alternative to the Social Welfare Bill, which was acknowledged to be the most constructive effort towards a comprehensive social security scheme ever introduced in the history of this country, have a very distinct recollection of the statement made by the present Minister, who was then Deputy Dr. Ryan, and of his pitiable onslaught on the Bill as it then existed and upon the proposals that were made for the social improvement of the more helpless sections of our community. It was announced on that occasion in no uncertain terms, in the same terms as those we have heard to-day from the present Minister, by the then Minister for Social Welfare, now Deputy Norton, that it was proposed to increase old age pensions by 2/6 and modify the means test.

We have that proposal here to-day and we are asked to accept, with a brazenness that beats all description, by Deputy McGrath and by Deputy Dr. Ryan, the Minister for Social Welfare, that this is a Fianna Fáil proposal. The people of Ireland are intelligent people and they are able to judge for themselves no matter what is said in the Dáil or outside of it. The people of this country are very well aware who originated this proposal. They are very well aware from whence it emanated and they are also able to draw their own conclusions as to why it is being presented here. They remember what happened in other years when Fianna Fáil had absolute power, not the kind of power it has now, a tenuous thread of power, with a few wavering souls keeping them together. They remember the time when Fianna Fáil had absolute power and they remember what happened the old age pensioners over a very long period. It was a very sorry story. The old age pensioners in this country, as a body, are people who acknowledge what was done for them by the previous Minister for Social Welfare and by the previous Administration. They will be able to judge, regardless, as I say, of what attempt may be made here to mislead them, where the responsibility lies for this very modest proposal. It was never suggested by the ex-Minister for Social Welfare or by the Labour Party that this was to be the be all and end all of justice for the old age pensioner. Very far from it. This was just one more step that the inter-Party Administration was taking to improve, by degrees, the position of the old age pensioner. I wonder will we ever see again in the lifetime of this Government, whether it be long or short, and my own belief and hope is that it will be very short——

It will be too bad for some of you if it is short. The only hope for some of you will be to cling on. I wonder will we ever see any further improvement for old age pensioners? I think it is a fair bet that this is the first and last improvement for a long time until, perhaps, the next election comes along when it may be considered politic to throw out some other sprats. I think the Minister should, in fairness, at least, have acknowledged the debt which he owed to his predecessor and the debt which the present temporary Government owes the previous Administration for having at least provided a readymade Bill to effect an immediate improvement for the aged people. I think it is a very ominous thing that we should have in charge of this Department a Minister who made it clear in this House that he was opposed to the idea of retiring people at 65. Then you have people attempting to justify that kind of mentality or outlook. Deputy MacGrath talked about builders' labourers working on building jobs in Cork at 70 years of age. I wonder does anybody for one moment accept that the building trade in Cork has one man in 1,000, of the labour people anyway. who is over 70 years of age?

Or anywhere else.

Or anywhere else. It would not be suggested of Dublin, surely. A builder's labourer is a man whose very occupation is a daily tax upon his strength and energy. The average age of a builder's labourer in the City of Dublin would range between 30 and 50 years at the maximum. We are asked to believe that in Cork, of all places, where we are used to expecting the impossible to happen as a daily occurrence, it is common to work in the building trade at 70 years of age, which is ridiculous.

Yet we are told there is no building going on in Cork.

The suggestion we made and the proposal we had was to enable manual workers, the lowly paid people who are least cared for in this country, to retire at 65 years, just as those who are placed in relatively easier positions are entitled to do, just as doctors can do with the greatest of ease at the end of a number of years of practice, just as civil servants can do, and rightly so. Our idea was that the man in the street who holds them all up, the man who works with his hands, should have the right to retire at 65. That idea was opposed by the present Minister for Social Welfare and that fact cannot be ignored; it is written down in the records of this House. This measure will receive our co-operation because we supported it. It is a Labour Party measure which had to be accepted by the Fianna Fáil Party. Let us get it through as quickly as we can.

This Bill is, of its very nature, a short, non-contentious Bill. Some Deputies have tried, with great exertion, to introduce a rather contentious note into the discussion. The Bill itself sets out to achieve a very simple, a very laudable purpose. It seeks to provide an increase in the pensions payable to the aged and the blind.

Deputy Dunne said this Bill was forced upon the present Government by the action of their predecessors. He is entirely mistaken. If the present Government had followed the example set by their predecessors they would have waited until they had formulated the Social Welfare Bill; they would have introduced the provision of an increase at the Committee Stage of that Social Welfare Bill and they would have used that promised increase as a sort of bribe or threat to force Deputies to accept their Bill. That was the line of action taken by what was the inter-Party Government but what is now the outer-Party Opposition.

Does the Deputy know what a bribe is?

I think I could learn a little from Deputy Oliver Flanagan, but I am sure he does not want me to discuss private conversations.

I am quite used to that in this House recently.

I think the less Deputy Flanagan, for one, says about that matter the better.

Perhaps Deputy Cogan would like to hear some of Deputy Lemass's conversations with him, which were overheard.

I am in the extraordinary position that Deputy Lemass, of all members of the present Government, has never spoken one word to me privately within the last six months.

Who did he send to see you?

I know who sent the Deputy to see me, but I do not think all this has anything to do with old age pensions. This Bill is a direct result of the stand taken by the Independent Deputies in this House and the Fianna Fáil Party. I am putting the Independent Deputies first, and the Fianna Fáil Party may take that matter as they like.

The Fianna Fáil Party and the indecent Independents.

When the then Minister for Social Welfare announced at the eleventh hour, on the 2nd March last, that he intended, at a later stage, to introduce into the Social Welfare Bill a provision for an increase in old age pensions which was not in the original draft, four of us Independent Deputies immediately decided that we should press the inter-Party Government to introduce that increase as a short non-contentious measure to be passed through this House with the minimum amount of discussion, in order to ensure that that promise would be implemented. I think it was a cruel thing, a callous thing, to hold old age pensioners up to ransom. It was a cruel thing to tell the old agricultural labourer who had worked all his life that he would get an increase of 2/6 per week in his old age pension if he were able, by his pressure and by the pressure of his friends and neighbours, to force the majority of the Deputies of this House to accept a Social Welfare Bill which imposed a levy of 3/6 per week on that old age pensioner's son who is working for him. That was the proposition that the Labour Party put up to this House. The old age pensioners and the blind pensioners were to be used as a kind of smoke screen, as a kind of bodyguard to shelter the Minister as he piloted his Social Welfare Bill through the House.

Your remarks are beyond contempt, Deputy.

I suppose there are some people who do not like or who do not want to hear what is absolutely true and what is borne out by the records of this House.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Now, all that could be said, was said or was thought about the inter-Party Government and its method of conducting and introducing legislation is past and gone. We are dealing with realities now. We are dealing with a straightforward proposition. The old age pensioners were promised an increase of 2/6, and they should not be kept in suspense or kept waiting for months to have the Social Welfare Bill put through this House. It will go through forthwith. No matter how much some discontented politicians may try to introduce an acrimonius note, it will go through in a short space of time. I think the Minister for Social Welfare ought to be complimented and congratulated for honouring the promise he gave to the electorate and for following out the stand which he took, and which I and some other Independent Deputies took, on this matter before the election.

I desire to congratulate the ex-Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy Norton——

Let us not boast too much of what we did for the old age pensioners.

—— who took many steps to advance the interests of the old age pensioners. He was inspired to take these steps by the bitter opposition, the unreasonable and determined opposition, that came from Deputy Dr. Ryan when he was Minister for Social Welfare during the Fianna Fáil Administration. Every time that Deputies spoke in favour of the old age pensioners or demanded any concessions for them or asked that the means test should be modified, their representations were not even favourably considered by the Fianna Fáil Party when they were the Government.

Arrangements were made by Deputy Norton, when Minister, to have the old age pension increased by 2/6 a week. If Deputy Norton desired to be dishonest when he was Minister for Social Welfare he would have seen to it that the 2/6 would be paid to old age pensioners before the general election in order to capture any miserable vote that might be on strings as the result of the old age pensioners getting that increase of 2/6. We did not do that, or had not to do it. I am very glad to say that the old age pensioners at the last general election showed their appreciation of what had been done for them by the return of the inter-Party Government and the rejection of a one-Party Government.

That cannot be denied. It was said by the present Minister shortly after the 1948 election, and repeated frequently by the Taoiseach, that the then Government was not elected to office but found itself in office. How true that is to-day of the present Minister for Social Welfare! How true it is of the Government that is now in office! As I say, if we were anxious to bribe the old age pensioners, we would have given them the 2/6 before the elections. The Fianna Fáil Party, and the five Independents who support them, as a Government can, I think, be properly described as a set-up of strange people comprising a number of miscellaneous characters. This set-up is now boasting of giving to old age pensioners the increase of 2/6 which was only one of many concessions which were about to be granted by the inter-Party Government to improve the conditions of old age pensioners.

I am completely dissatisfied with an old age pension of £1 per week. I made that known when the Government which I supported was in office, and I repeat it now that I am in opposition. I hope, and I am sure there are Deputies on all sides of the House who would express the same hope, that the day is not too far distant when old age pensioners will be paid not less than 25/- per week at the age of 65. I believe sincerely that if the inter-Party Government had been returned to power, or if they had not been sold out, steps would have been taken to ensure that old age pensioners would receive their pension at 65. If there was one person in this House who was not surprised at the announcement of the Minister not to make old age pensions payable at 65, it was I, but I thought nevertheless he would have had a little more tact, seeing the very slender strings upon which his position swung, and that in order to encourage Deputy Cowan who represents a big element of old age pensioners, and to encourage Deputy Dr. ffrench O'Carroll and Deputy Dr. Browne who also represent a constituency in which there is a large body of old age pensioners, he would have indicated that he might give some consideration to the question of granting pensions at the age of 65. However, it is hard to beat the old dog off his track. The leopard can never change his spots. The Minister could not change his ways because the old age pensioners never got any consideration from Fianna Fáil and they cannot expect it from a set-up such as we have to-day.

That is not true.

I believe that before many months pass some steps will be taken to give a further increase to old age pensioners, but we have no guarantee or no promise has been made to that effect. The Minister has definitely stated that he is not in favour of the payment of old age pensions at 65. He has not given any reason as to why old age pensions cannot be paid at 65. Take the case of a person who, say, at the age of 68, finds that, owing to the weight of years and through no fault of his own, he is unable to provide for himself. What provision is made for him apart from home assistance? Everybody knows that home assistance is meant only for the most destitute sections of our people. In addition to those who are unfortunate enough to have to fall back on home assistance, there is a certain type of people who, I am sure, are to be found in the Minister's own constituency as well as in the constituency of Longford-Westmeath. I refer to the decent type of person who would be prepared to face a miserable death rather than enter the office of the home assistance officer to ask for home assistance. In certain parts of the country, and I am sure it is true of County Wicklow as well, a person who receives home assistance is looked upon as belonging to an element known as the pauper or the union element. There is still left amongst our people a certain sense of pride and, if it is at all possible, they do not desire to join the union element or the pauper element.

Is that fair to people who have to seek home assistance?

The Minister by his refusal to grant pensions at 65 is driving decent people who have a certain sense of pride and who do not want to be the recipients of home assistance or do not want to be thrown on the sympathetic consideration of some home assistance officer into a state of chronic penury. These people shudder at the prospect of reports as to their domestic circumstances being in county council offices. They do not circulated from one official to another want to have the conditions under which they live placed before the county manager to be open to the inspection of the whole staff of the county manager. We were anxious, therefore, that the payment of old age pensions should commence at least at 65, so that an unfortunate person approaching that age might look forward with some air of independence to the future and would not be compelled to apply for home assistance.

Deputies associated with the St. Vincent de Paul Society know the amount of assistance that is given by that society to certain people who are in need. Fianna Fáil and their "set-up" are now placing a further burden on that society and on local authorities, who will have to pay home assistance because they have refused to give the old age pension at 65. People who reach the age of 70 nowadays are very few, as must be admitted by any fair-minded Fianna Fáil Deputy. A large number of the population will die before they are 60, or even 50. Any old warrior who lives to the old age of 70 should be proud of it. In school we were taught to respect and honour old people. If the State does not respect and honour the old and the aged, from whom are they to expect respect and honour? Are we now going to have a repetition of the conditions of 1938, when the most active people in the City of Dublin were those connected with the St. Vincent de Paul Society? Are we again to have a return of the conditions prior to 1948 in which an old person in County Westmeath died under very strange circumstances when a Fianna Fáil Government was in power? I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister, Deputy Kennedy, recalls the circumstances of a man in County Westmeath dying from poverty and hunger. Are we going to see a return of the shocking state of affairs which we had under the previous administration of Fianna Fáil?

The Minister must know that even since his appointment as Minister the cost of living has gone up. An extra 2d. a lb. is being placed on butter by the Government. Is the old age pensioner not to have butter on his bread? Is he expected to return to the dry crust which he had when Fianna Fáil had an over-all majority? Is it not true that this additional half-crown which will be given to old age pensioners in Deputy Cowan's constituency and Deputy Cogan's constituency will not now have the same value which Deputy Norton intended it to have, that for every 1 lb. of butter which the old age pensioner purchases he will have to pay 2d. extra as a result of the catastrophe of Deputy Walsh being Minister for Agriculture? Is it not true that old age pensioners joined the queues to gain admission to the polling stations in order to return the inter-Party Government and voted for men like Deputy Cowan and Deputy Cogan under the guise of inter-Party candidates in order to secure the half-crown increase promised by the inter-Party Government? They now find that that half-crown, small and all as it is, has considerably reduced in value in the past 24 hours. No guarantee has been given by the Tánaiste or the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Social Welfare that the cost of living will not soar even higher. Is it not the poorer sections of the people who will be affected as a result of that? The poorest section of the people are those who are helpless to provide for themselves through weight of years.

The Deputy must not discuss everything on this Bill. He must confine himself to what is in the Bill or what may be put into the Bill.

An increase of 2/6 in old age pensions is provided for in the Bill and I maintain that that is not enough. I want to express dissatisfaction with that increase of 2/6 as it has reduced in value even since last night. Butter has gone up in price and it follows that the milk which the old age pensioners want to colour their tea will also go up in price.

Deputy Cowan put up the price of butter because it was he put the Government in.

As Deputy Cowan and Deputy Cogan have been responsible for putting up the price of butter by 2d. and for reducing the value of this half-crown increase, I hope that they will accept the responsibility.

How much did Deputy Dillon want to increase butter by?

It is a responsibility which I am not prepared to accept. As the cost of living has gone up in the last 24 hours, what guarantee have we that before we assemble here next week the half-crown will not be reduced in value to 1/- as a result of the increased price of essential commodities which old age pensioners require?

The Deputy said all that several times.

I should like to remind the Minister——

Repetition is not allowed.

I bow to your ruling. The Minister gave the deaf ear to the claims of old age pensioners for 16 years. The leopard does not change his spots and I am afraid the Minister is still inclined to give them the deaf ear.

He has a good Parliamentary Secretary now to keep him right.

The Minister is reported as having said that under this scheme people between 65 and 70 would get unemployment and sickness benefit on the same level as the proposed retirement allowance. Does that mean that he is going to encourage people again to queue up at the labour exchanges?

They will have to if they want to get it.

During the last three years the queues outside the labour exchanges have been very small and we were hoping for the day when there would not be any queues outside them. Now we find that people between 65 and 70 are to be encouraged by the Minister to have recourse to the labour exchanges. Every member of the Government "set-up" should be ashamed of himself for encouraging people between 65 and 70 to continue at work. When a man reaches the age of 60 he should be permitted to enjoy all the happiness and comfort that can be provided for him. Is it not sad that the workers in Deputy Cowan's area who are now 59 and 60 and who were expecting to labour for only five more years when they expected to get a guaranteed State pension, are now disappointed and will have to work until they are 70 or join the queues at the labour exchanges for unemployment benefit? That is bad. It will have serious consequences. It is unwholesome. It is something that the inter-Party Government could not stand for when they were in office, would not stand for, and will not stand for in opposition.

They did stand for it.

What did they do?

We prepared that Bill for you that you are trying to shove across the country as something that you are doing. That is our Bill, and we are proud of that Bill, but we are sorry to say that the Bill that the Minister is now putting to the House is of less value to-day than it was when we introduced it. I have given the reasons and I cannot repeat them. It would not be in accordance with procedure to repeat myself a third time, much as I would like to for the information and convenience of Deputy Cowan, Deputy ffrench O'Carroll and Deputy Cogan.

May I express the hope that we will not have many months to wait before the Minister for Social Welfare will realise that he has an obligation to the old age pensioners and will introduce some legislation on his own initiative, not ours, that will bring about a measure of relief for those people? Let us hope, since there have been changes in the Fianna Fáil policy with every wind that has blown for the past fortnight, that a wind will change the attitude of the Minister for Social Welfare of encouraging people to work between the ages of 65 and 70. Would it not be a cheerful thing if the Minister were to tell those people that they have worked well and have earned by 60 years of hard work, toil and labour the recognition of any good Government; that they can now take things easy; that they have served their country well and that they will be provided for fully now? That is what we would expect from a soft-hearted, good, noble Minister for Social Welfare. No matter how good his intentions may be —and from past experience we know they were never excellent as far as old age pensioners, widows and orphans, the blind, the sick, the lame and infirm were concerned—we know that, even if he did attempt to discourage people working between the ages of 65 and 70, his first opponent would be Deputy Cogan. I am convinced that the Minister for Social Welfare would love to be able to come to this House and say that he would like to give old age pensions at 65 but that Deputy Cogan will not allow it and hence we cannot have it. Deputy Cogan opposed any social welfare scheme.

The Deputy is talking utter nonsense and he is delaying this Bill for a week at least, so that old age pensioners will be a week longer in getting the benefit of it.

They will be five years according to you—they will get it at 70 instead of 65. We give you no thanks for it. Face up to the facts.

The Minister for Social Welfare is now very anxious and very eager that this 2/6 should drop into the trousers pocket of the old age pensioner before it is reduced in value to 6d.

I am anxious for the Deputy to let the Bill go through and not to be talking nonsense.

You do not like to hear the truth.

Is that what you think is the truth? God help you.

I can well understand how difficult it is for the Minister to understand truth in the strange Government with which he is connected.

It is very hard to understand what you call the truth.

I sympathise with the Minister for Social Welfare in the set-up with which he is associated. I would feel sorry for any man who has to sit on two fences as the Minister for Social Welfare must do now. It is obvious that on an occasion such as this he wants to do the popular thing.

Look at the clock again. You have only ten minutes to go.

The Minister is very anxious to direct my attention to the clock.

The Deputy is talking it out.

I would like to direct the Deputy's attention to the Bill, which he seems to be forgetting.

The Minister for Social Welfare wants to go and settle up the Irish Assurance Company strike.

That is a cheap remark, typical of you.

Face up to the facts.

Deputy Flanagan on the Bill.

I am not concerned with time. I am concerned with what I can do for the old age pensioners of my constituency. That is my interest, that has been my interest since I was first elected to this House, and the old age pensioner will by my main concern so long as my constituents honour me by electing me to this House.

Why are you talking it out?

And the Minister knows that.

I do not.

The Minister can recall that when he was Minister for Social Welfare on a previous occasion I put forward views similar to the views I am putting forward to-day.

And which you never put forward for the last three years.

And when Deputy Norton was Minister for Social Welfare I expressed in the very same terms as I am expressing now my complete disapproval of the amount paid in old age pensions and the means test which governs the payment of old age pensions and the qualifying age for old age pensions. Surely, when I criticised that in the days when Deputy Dr. Ryan was Minister for Social Welfare in a completely Fianna Fáil Government and used the same terms when I was supporting the inter-Party Government, I can hold my head high and say that I always walked the same path, at the end of which I believe there will be some concessions or benefits for the section of the people which need them most.

And you are driving them in front of you all the time.

Perhaps he would consider giving them a pound of butter.

May I ask if it is the intention to give this stage of the Bill to the Minister this evening?

He cannot do it now.

I think it is unfair to the old age pensioners that there should be this obstruction.

Mr. O'Higgins

Deputy Cowan will hear quoted some of the speech that he made when this matter was last debated. He will hear his reference to the miserable votes.

Read the Minister's speech of the 27th October, 1947. I will get it for you.

If I may continue. The House knows well and truly that on every possible occasion the present Minister for Social Welfare tried to sidestep any serious attempt that was being made by the inter-Party Government or even now, when the Fianna Fáil Party are in office, to do something that would benefit this section of the community. I would be long sorry for wasting the time of the House on important legislation such as this, but I cannot understand the anxiety of Deputy Cowan for the immediate payment of this 2/6 which has now been reduced to 2/- as a result of the increase in the price of milk and butter.

Does the old age pensioner consume 3 lb. of butter a week?

What about milk? The old age pensioners require milk.

And 3 lb. of butter in the week?

That is what Deputy Dr. Browne said he would like to see them getting. Deputy Cowan is anxious that this Bill should not be obstructed. Where is the obstruction coming from? Is it obstruction to advocate old age pensions at 65? If it is, I am proud of the obstruction, because that is what the people of Laois and Offaly sent me here to do, to endeavour to fight for old age pensions at the rate of 25/- per week. That is a type of obstruction that we want and that we would like to see the Minister engage in. Deputy Cowan may call this obstruction, but would it not be a grand thing for the House and the country if the Minister would obstruct and give old age pensions at 65 and 25/- a week?

Deputy Norton did not say that.

Yes, he did.

Deputy Cowan has not read the Bill.

Of course I did.

The Deputy would not find that in the Irish Times.

An intelligent Cork interruption.

You said that you would come to Cork but you made sure to keep out of it.

I cannot understand, and it has not been made clear to me by any Minister in the present set up, why a doctor can retire at 65 with a pension far more generous than that which an old age pensioner gets, or why a civil servant——

Or a Minister?

Or a Minister after five years' service——

Or a Parliamentary Secretary as you were to be at one time.

And probably will be. Let the Deputy not shout too loudly. I guarantee to Deputy Burke that I will be a Parliamentary Secretary before he is a Minister.

That is a safe bet.

When promotions were going so easily in the ranks in the last fortnight, is it not a wonder that the Deputy was missing from the list with Deputy Allen and Deputy Corry?

Will the Deputy keep to the Bill?

I am trying to reply to ignorant interruptions by Deputy Burke. I want to explain that I got no orders to speak on this issue.

Did not Deputy MacBride tell you to talk it out?

That is untrue.

He came over to Deputy Norton.

Deputy Flanagan on the Bill without interruptions from anybody.

If doctors and other professional men who are in a more fortunate position than old age pensioners can retire on pensions at 65, I fail to see why we should have this disastrous class distinction, and why the agricultural worker or the builder's labourer should not be entitled to a pension at 65. We have heard it said here that there is a builder's labourer still working in Cork at the age of 70. Would it not be nice and in accordance with Christian decency to have him sitting at home and amply provided for, instead of having to carry bricks, swing a shovel or carry heavy stones on a building scheme in Cork at that age? More is the disgrace and the dishonour that Deputy McGrath should have to mention such a case. More is the disgrace that Deputy MacCarthy should have to agree that one of his constituents is a builder's labourer at the age of 70, and that he has not been provided for otherwise. I am ashamed to be a member of this House when I hear Deputies, in the year 1951, say that there are people at the age of 69 and 70 working as builders' labourers, and that no provision has been made for them. We all know that a man at the age of 68 or 69 cannot be expected to give a full return to any employer. He certainly cannot give the same return as a man of 30, 40 or 50 years of age because between the ages of 65 and 70 a man's energy is lost completely.

You want the American system introduced here to retire a man when he is still able to work at 30 or 40 years of age.

I do not want an English system, an American, an Indian or a Japanese system, but what I do want is a new Irish system. I am not concerned with the system which prevails outside this country.

That is what you are talking about.

I am endeavouring to show light to the Minister as to the grave necessity and urgency there is for a scheme whereby the state of affairs which now exists in Cork City, on the words of Deputy McGrath and Deputy MacCarthy, will no longer prevail.

I wonder is there anything to prevent a member from behaving like a howling fury in the House as the Deputy is doing?

He is doing his work well. It is almost 5 o'clock now.

I always did my work. I could never be accused of shirking my work, inside or outside this House.

What about Deputy Corry's two and a half hours?

Why not let the old age pensioners get the 2/6 without all this nonsense?

It is not 2/6 now. It was 2/6 last week. I sincerely hope and trust that, in the light of the information given to the Minister by his henchman, Deputy McGrath, he will realise that even Deputy McGrath sees there is one constituent of his in the unhappy, discontented and unfavourable position that, at the age of 70, he has to be the companion of young men between the ages of 25 and 40, and has to work with a pick and shovel.

You did your work well.

I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.
The Dáil adjourned at 5 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 4th July, 1951.
Top
Share