Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 4 Jul 1951

Vol. 126 No. 6

Social Welfare Bill, 1951—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. O. Flanagan

I consider that the increase which the Minister now proposes to give to old age pensioners is not in accordance with the increase proposed by Deputy Norton when Minister for Social Welfare. Prior to the general election, it was agreed that old age pensions were to be increased from 17/6 to £1, which meant that under the inter-Party Administration old age pensions were to be increased from 17/6 to £1. If the present Minister for Social Welfare had not become Minister and the inter-Party Government were in office, this increase would be given to the old age pensioners. During the election campaign, the present Taoiseach and the present Tánaiste spoke at length, wept very bitterly and groaned and cried severely about the old age pensioners. They stated, "If we are returned to power we will take steps to increase the old age pensions." I want to know from the Minister when it is proposed to introduce the Fianna Fáil increase for the old age pensioners as the increase now proposed is not an increase given as a result of the return to power of Fianna Fáil. The increase which was about to be given by Deputy Norton when Minister for Social Welfare was a very small one and left much to be desired. But it was one of the steps which the inter-Party Government took to improve the conditions of the old age pensioners in general. It was never meant to be the closing of the book as far as old age pensioners were concerned. The proposed increase of 2/6 was one of a few steps taken and one of many steps to be taken.

I feel disappointed, disheartened and disillusioned because the Minister for Social Welfare has not better news for the old age pensioners. The 2/6 now proposed has not the same value as it had when the inter-Party Government spoke of it. The cost of living has gone up even since I spoke here last Thursday evening. The Minister for Social Welfare will recall that I prophesied that in the meantime the cost of living would go up further and I was right. Since then the price of peas and beans, if old age pensioners consider them appetising, has gone up. The price of butter has gone up for the old age pensioners as the result of Fianna Fáil policy as well as the price of beans and peas. These are only three commodities which have risen in price in ten days. What is going to rise in price in the coming ten days? In my opinion, the proposed 2/6 has been reduced in value to 2/-. I want to know from the Minister what steps he is taking to bring the increase proposed up to a rate at which old age pensioners will be compensated for the rise in the cost of living as a result of the change-over from the inter-Party Government to the Fianna Fáil Government. Will the Minister give the reasons why he turns the blind eye and the deaf ear to the granting of old age pensions at 65 and why, in accordance with the wishes of Cork Deputies, he is so anxious to encourage people between 65 and 70 to have recourse to the labour exchanges. The Minister says that these people will be paid sickness and unemployment benefits, but at what rates? Is he taking any steps to see that unemployment benefits will be increased to a level which will meet the present soaring and the ever-rising cost of living? What is he going to do about the sickness benefit which he is to provide for the people between 65 and 70?

From reading the speech of the Minister of the 27th October, 1947, when he was dealing with the means test in relation to this issue, I am sure he is quite well aware of the conditions under which old age pensioners are compelled to live. I am anxious to hear from the Minister when he proposes to be in a position to tell this House what will be done by the Fianna Fáil Government—by the set-up, the majority of which is made up of Fianna Fáil—for people between the ages of 65 and 70. I now tell the old age pensioners and the members of all Parties in this House that, as a result of the present set-up, people between the ages of 65 and 70 are being deprived of old age pensions. I hope that Fianna Fáil Deputies from my constituency will take the responsibility of standing over the fact that every person in Laois-Offaly who is between the ages of 65 and 70 is now deprived of the old age pension for which the inter-Party Government were making arrangments. I hope they will stand over that. I hope that every Deputy who has pledged his support to the present set-up for the next 12 months will be honest enough with his constituents and say that he has supported the present set-up, led by the Taoiseach, Mr. de Valera, and that as a result of supporting that set-up, which contains some very strange characters within it, he has now deliberately kept the unfortunate people from the State benefits which were being prepared for them had the inter-Party Government been returned to office.

I do not desire to elaborate further as we will have an opportunity on the Estimate of dealing with this matter but in all sincerity I am requesting the Minister for Social Welfare to change his attitude completely, to change the attitude of the Minister for Finance and the attitude of the whole set-up towards old age pensioners.

I wonder what criticism or appreciation comes from the people of the increase that is being passed. I cannot see who will appreciate 2/- coming in the form of 2/6. I cannot see how there can be any expression of appreciation of it on the part of the old age pensioner who was expecting greater and much better things from Dr. Ryan as Minister for Social Welfare in view of the fact that on more than one occasion during the election campaign the votes of the old age pensioners were captured by the tears that were shed about the conditions under which they exist. Will the Minister now be honest enough to tell us that as far as his Government is concerned they are finished and done with the old age pensioner and that the Bill which is now before the House would not even have crossed the mind of the present Minister if it were not for the fact that it was something that we had left him and that he had to complete?

I am sincerely sorry for the old age pensioners if they are now to be met with the same treatment as was meted out to them in 1947 and 1948. I hope that that will not be the case in future. I trust the Minister has completely changed his attitude as far as the whole system of payment of old age pensions is concerned.

Deputy Peadar Cowan on last Thursday stated in an indirect way that I cast a slight reflection on people who were unfortunate enough to be the recipients of home assistance by styling them paupers. I am sorry that Deputy Cowan is not in the House during this debate. Certainly it would be very interesting to hear how Deputy Cowan, Deputy ffrench-O'Carroll and Dr. Browne will explain to the large number of old age pensioners in their constituencies in the City of Dublin that as a result of their activities on the 13th June the old age pensioners and people between the ages of 65 and 70 have been deprived of the legislation that we were preparing for them and that they have stood by and watched without murmur or protest the cost of living increasing by leaps and bounds.

I sympathise with anyone who has to draw home assistance. I sympathise with the person who has to exist on the charity of the local conferences of St. Vincent de Paul, but even Fianna Fáil Deputies are aware that body and soul are kept together in certain areas as a result of charity extended to unfortunate people through home assistance and by the goodness of St. Vincent de Paul Societies. Have we not many cases of persons between the ages of 65 and 70 who do not qualify for old age pension and who are unable to work, despite any attempt that may be made by the Minister for Social Welfare to encourage them to work? Assuming that they have no contributions, their allowances for ill-health will be very small and will not be sufficient to keep body and soul together, more especially if the cost of living continues to rise, as it has done in the past fortnight. I should like to know what provision will be made for those people. Why is the Minister remaining silent concerning the achievement of his ambition to relieve the lot of those people?

I maintain that this 2/6 is an insult to the old age pensioners. It is very far from what they should get. I am disappointed with it. I am also disappointed with the Minister's attitude concerning the conditions attached to the old age pensions, the age at which it is granted and the allowance to be given. I propose at a very early date, when opportunity presents itself, to put down a motion asking the House to approve of the granting of old age pensions at 65, at a rate of not less than 25/- a week. Even at that rate it would be very little to meet the cost of living. I hope and trust that the Minister will see his way to lighten the burden on local authorities who are paying out large sums in home assistance and to make the job easy for the conferences of St. Vincent de Paul who are keeping body and soul together in the case of the majority of old people in rural areas and in urban areas. I hope and trust the Minister will see fit to have the whole system of old age pensions reconsidered and completely reconstructed and to see that allowances are made so that the ald age pensioner may live in accordance with Christian decency.

Mr. S. Flanagan

I did not exactly make a study of the last Deputy's speech made last week. He did, however, make the point that the 2/6 which is being given to old age pensioners under this Bill will not in fact be 2/6, but will turn out to be 2/-. I am wondering whether the rough estimate I have made will not possibly give a truer indication of what, in fact, they will receive. I have discovered that, so far as butter is concerned, the average person consumes 1/2 lb. per week.

That means that, if the old age pensioner consumes half a pound of butter per week, the average man will have paid 4/4 at the end of 12 months, and will have received under the Social Welfare Bill, when it becomes law, the sum of £6 10s. That means that the £6 10s. which he will receive will be 4/4 less than he thought it would be on 30th May, 1951, but, against that, one must put the 2/6 which Deputy Flanagan took off him by detaining the House by the speech he made last week and continued to-day. When the fact which I have indicated is taken into account, I do not see that the old age pensioners have anything to be sorry for as regards the recent increase in the price of butter put on by the present Government. The Deputy asked, who are going to appreciate that? The people who are going to appreciate it are those who, with shining eyes, were asking for it before the last election. That is what they said to me, whatever they may have said to other Deputies. They did not say "give us a pound or two pounds or 5/-." They said, "we want the extra half-crown; you might as well give us £1 when you are giving us 17/6." They are the people who will appreciate what the Government are doing in giving them £1 instead of 17/6 as the maximum old age pension.

Mr. Hickey

Do you think it is enough?

Mr. S. Flanagan

I will deal with that later.

Mr. O. Flanagan

Do you think that half lb. butter is enough for the old age pensioner?

Mr. S. Flanagan

That is what I consume myself. I asked my wife and she told me that we consume 1 lb. butter between the two of us.

Mr. O. Flanagan

She must be a very thrifty person.

Mr. S. Flanagan

If there were others like her, there would not be so many people complaining about the 2/6. I would like to press on the Minister that he should increase the allowance made in respect of the maximum old age pension by substituting £26 for £22 2s. 6d. Under the terms of this Bill, a pensioner will be entitled to 20/- when his yearly means do not exceed £22 2s. 6d. There are quite a number of people who, I know, happen to earn 10/- a week. Some are in receipt of pensions from Britain. Quite a number of them are in my constituency. They are getting 10/- a week which is £26 a year. Their complaint is that, as a result of that, they are forfeiting 5/- a week under the provisions of this Bill. If the basic amount were increased from £22 2s. 6d. to £26 they could then receive the maximum old age pension, and would have a total weekly income of 30/-. I am not in a position to know what effect that would have on the total expenditure by the Government. I do not imagine it would be anything very big. I should like the Minister to indicate if there is any particular reason why the figure £22 2s. 6d. should be in the Bill instead of £26.

I listened last week to the speech made by Deputy Dunne. He said that old age pensions should be awarded to people when they had reached the age of 65. He made a comparison with the professional classes, solicitors, doctors and teachers who retire on pension at 65. The Deputy made the point that they are entitled to retire at that age and, as he said, to enjoy comfort and security in their old age. I could not help thinking, when he was speaking, of an occasion that I remembered in 1942. The speaker on that occasion was the late Senator Professor Magennis who also graced this House for a number of years. Whatever his politics, he would grace any assembly. I knew nothing of him as a politician. I did know him because I was in his class in University College, Dublin. I was there on the day he retired in 1942. He must then have been over 70 years of age. He complained bitterly that, just because one day had passed, he should have to leave the work that his heart was in. "I have not deteriorated," he said, "between to-day and yesterday or between to-day and last week.""Why," he asked, "should I, because one more day has passed, have to finish my career and finish what my heart is in?"

Personally, I think that most people do not want to retire at 65. I think that Deputy Dunne was confusing retirement pensions with old age pensions. I think it is a fallacy to say that a person is old at any particular age. There are certain rules that ought to be preserved. One of them is that, possibly, for people's benefit they should be asked to retire at 65, whether they like it or not. But as regards the vast majority of people, who are in good health when they reach the age of 65, the last thing they want to do is to lay down the burden which is part and parcel of their being at that stage of their career. One might ask, is a person old at 65 or even at 70? Perhaps a person may be old at the age of 50, as Deputy Flanagan said last week. Perhaps he may not be old at 75. The Legislature, I suppose, must lay down some period.

It is, I think, a matter of common knowledge that a person is not reckoned old at 65. It may be said that he is approaching old age at 70. It is one thing to give a retirement benefit to a person when he comes to a particular age, irrespective of the state of his health, but the old age pension, I believe, is designed principally for people who are not able to work. I think that, at present, 70 years of age is just a reasonable time at which to give a pension to a person. There are other methods by which we can help people who become too old, if I may use the expression, or who become unable to work, whether they are 60, 63 or 67.

There are other methods by which this House, as well as outside concerns, can give benefit to people who are not in a position to work and keep going, as they would like, at any particular age from 60, or even 50, up to the age of 70. When it comes to laying down a particular age at which all persons of a certain standard of means shall receive, or be entitled to receive, an old age pension, I think that 70 years of age is a fair and proper time at which to award that pension. I feel that the Minister has done well by the pensioners in increasing the old age pension at the age of 70, and perhaps fresh circumstances may arise which would make him think it advisable to reduce the age from 70 to 65. I think that that time is not yet.

Mr. Norton

I understand, Deputy, that your Party promised they would do so in 1948. That was three years ago.

Dr. Ryan

Not old age pensions.

Mr. Norton

Yes, retiring pensions.

Mr. S. Flanagan

I will leave that matter in more competent hands than mine. The Minister has one view and I am afraid that the other side of the House has another view.

Dr. Ryan

They have had another view for the past fortnight.

Mr. Norton

You had ten different views in the last month.

Mr. O. Flanagan

All the views were after the elections.

Mr. S. Flanagan

I would like to refer to Section 2 of the Bill, in which a very welcome provision is made, by which people can transfer their farms with immunity to their children. I may be ignorant on this matter, but does the provision include stepchildren?

Mr. O'Higgins

Not as it stands.

Mr. S. Flanagan

I would like to know if the provision includes stepchildren, and also whether any abuse may be liable to develop as a result of the operation of this section from the transfer by people of the farm which they own to their child, or children, who do not actually intend to use it, who subsequently offer it for sale and, possibly, give the proceeds back into the hands of the father. I do not suppose that there is anything that the Legislature can do by way of inquiring into a situation like that. By and large, I think the provision ought to be welcomed, and will be welcomed, by the people who, prior to this, discovered to their horror that when they had parted with their farms they were not even entitled to an old age pension.

The final point that I would like to make is in connection with the maximum means, which will be raised under this Bill from £52 5s. 0d. to £65 5s. 0d. Without giving my reasons at the moment, I would like to know whether there was any particular reason why this figure of £65 5s. 0d. was arrived at, by what means it was arrived at and whether a figure of £72 might not have accommodated more pensioners than the present figure does. I do not suppose that there is any particular reason for that figure except that there are one or two classes who would come under the old age pensions scheme and who do not now come under it at all.

Mr. O'Higgins

It is refreshing to hear from Deputy Flanagan, whom I congratulate on what I think is his maiden speech in the House, remarks such as would have come extremely well from a Deputy on this side of the House. Deputy Flanagan holds the views with regard to social services that are held by all Parties in the Opposition Benches. These views are already incorporated in a Bill which would have become law if Deputy Cowan, Deputy Dr. Noel Browne, Deputy Dr. ffrench-O'Carroll, Deputy Cogan and Deputy Flynn had not joined in putting the present Minister for Social Welfare into the position he now occupies.

Captain Cowan

The people did that.

Mr. O'Higgins

It was not the people. Far be it from anyone to accept that. It was not the people, to whom Deputy Cowan was not prepared to state in the slightest degree what way he would vote when the vote for the Government took place. They will know very shortly. I understand that there will be a fissure in this temporary Government in the next few weeks. People will know very well what way to vote.

Captain Cowan

That was said about the last Government. That is the normal thing to say.

Mr. O. Flanagan

On a point of order, Sir, for the information of Deputy O'Higgins, might I advise that he has referred to Deputy Flanagan? Might I ask Deputy O'Higgins to amend that so that it will be Deputy Seán Flanagan, lest I might be quoted as having made or repeated the remark to which Deputy O'Higgins has referred? I know he means Deputy Seán Flanagan.

Mr. O'Higgins

I do certainly, and I congratulate the Fianna Fáil Party on having a Deputy Seán Flanagan. With reference to the Bill we are discussing here, it is rather regrettable, but perhaps understandable, that the country has not been informed by the present temporary Minister for Social Welfare of what plans the present temporary Government may have with regard to the social welfare policy generally. We who supported the last Government and who will shortly form the next Government had a very advanced view with regard to social services—I was entranced at inter-Party meetings to hear Deputy Cowan express the same view—that it was wrong to attack the problem of old age pensions in a confined department, leaving aside the broader question of other forms of social services.

We felt that it was wrong, that it was opposed to the best interests of the people and that broad national policy dictated the stepping up in this country of our social services to such a degree that the citizens of the Irish Republic would be assured, at least, of social services and of a measure of social services as good and as high as any other country offered to its citizens.

It was for that reason that the entire question of social services was tackled by the former Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy William Norton, in the Social Welfare Bill of 1951. When that Bill was before the last Dáil, it was announced that, in accordance with the policy of the former Government, old age pensions would be increased to 20/- a week and that in addition the means test would be modified to the sum of £65 5s. That announcement was made at the opening of the Second Reading of the Social Welfare Bill. It took Deputy Dr. Ryan, as he then was, by surprise. He was astonished that that announcement should have been made and obviously astonished that the money should have been available to increase old age pensions. Many of us sympathised with him at that time. It was a Friday morning, black Friday for Deputy Dr. Ryan, and many of us recollect that Deputy Dr. Ryan, as he then was, astonished the House by appearing to say that the old age pensioner was well off as he was. He could not understand why it was proposed to increase further the old age pension.

Mr. Davern

That is not true.

Dr. Ryan

Will you quote me on that?

Mr. O'Higgins

Certainly. Deputy Dr. Ryan, as I recollect, referred on that occasion to a nutritional survey which showed that the old age pensioner was comfortably off.

Captain Cowan

In what year?

Dr. Ryan

In 1947.

Mr. O'Higgins

In 1947. I advise Deputy Cowan to keep quiet. I shall deal with him very shortly and he should reserve all his energies. I have warned the Deputy.

Captain Cowan

I have been warned since last Thursday.

Mr. O'Higgins

On that occasion Deputy Dr. Ryan, as he then was, said in reply to the proposal of the Tánaiste that a nutritional survey had been carried out by his Government in 1947 and that that survey disclosed that the old age pensioner was well off. May I say that I am quite used to interpreting shades of meaning—just as used as is Deputy Cowan? I am also used to interpreting the thought behind the spoken word and I had no hesitation in interpreting Deputy Dr. Ryan then as declaring that he could not see the necessity for further increasing the old age pension to 20/-per week. I have been fortified in that view by consulting the records of this House and discovering that in October, 1947, the Government to which the Minister, Deputy Dr. Ryan, then belonged and which had an over-all majority refused to give to old age pensioners even a modification of the means test.

Dr. Ryan

What was proposed?

Mr. O'Higgins

It was proposed by the former Taoiseach, Deputy Costello, and the former Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Dr. O'Higgins, that the means test be modified so that some measure of social justice, long denied by Deputy Dr. Ryan, would be given to the old age pensioner.

Dr. Ryan

What was the modification proposed?

Mr. O'Higgins

The modification proposed was an extremely humble one. It was, and Deputy Norton will bear me out on this since he knows far more about it than the present Minister, that the means test which then stood at £32 per year should be modified to permit of making the old age pension payable to people who were then excluded.

Dr. Ryan

You are altogether wrong.

Mr. O'Higgins

If I am wrong, then the people and the country have been codded by the reporting staff of this Parliament year after year.

Dr. Ryan

Or by Deputy Norton?

Mr. O'Higgins

This modification would have cost only £500,000.

Dr. Ryan

I will deal with this later.

Mr. McGrath

Did you not refuse to give 2/6?

Mr. O'Higgins

The potential Lord Mayor of Cork should keep quiet.

Mr. McGrath

He shifted your father from the top of the poll.

Mr. O'Higgins

You will not do it again, though, because you have increased the price of butter. The people will recollect that when that motion was discussed here in 1947, at a time when the present Minister's Party had an over-all majority and was not dependent upon the "Five Feathers" for its maintenance in office, the Government was in a position to talk turkey to the old age pensioners; and the turkey they talked was that any proposal which would cost £500,000 would not be acceptable to them. The Minister said that himself in closing the debate.

Dr. Ryan

Will you quote me?

Mr. O'Higgins

I am not responsible for all the speeches the Minister has made. My recollection is based on my reading of the debate and I can verify that the Minister stated on that occasion that the proposal contained in the motion would cost £500,000 more and was, therefore, something that the Government and the country could not afford.

Dr. Ryan

That is a different matter. That particular proposal would not be accepted.

Mr. O'Higgins

I know it is difficult to be quite certain of what the Minister means when he speaks. We can, however, take it, I presume, that the Minister knows his right hand from his left and that when he walks into the "Níl" Lobby he wants to vote against a particular motion. The Minister headed his merry team of some 77 Fianna Fáil Deputies into the Division Lobby to vote against a motion asking for a modification of the means test applicable to old age pensioners.

Dr. Ryan

A modification.

Mr. O'Higgins

We will shortly be voting for a motion further increasing old age pensions. How will Deputy McGrath vote on that?

Mr. O. Flanagan

And Deputy Cowan?

Mr. O'Higgins

I think it is rather a pity that the Minister has not disclosed the Government's hand in relation to social welfare and social services. In the month of April of this year the present Minister opposed the Second Reading of the Social Welfare Bill, not appreciating at the time that he would shortly find himself occupying a ministerial position once more. He opposed that Bill for a variety of reasons, one reason being that he felt no increase in contributions should be sought, and his tied newspaper published that same night a table showing the proposed social security benefits Fianna Fáil would give. What will happen now to that Fianna Fáil scheme? We are entitled to have an answer to that. A scheme was approved of here by Deputy Cowan, Deputy Dr. Noel Browne and Deputy Jack Flynn which proposed not merely an increase to 20/- a week in the old age pension but guaranteed to every worker in the State freedom from want during unemployment, during sickness or during any of the vicissitudes which might be visited upon the workers. Deputy Cowan said on that occasion that he would fight for that scheme with the last breath in his body and that he was opposed to the dishonest tactics of Fianna Fáil in their opposition to the scheme.

A general election has been held, a general election won by the inter-Party Government which now finds itself through political trickery in temporary opposition. The people are entitled to know what proposals this Government has in relation to social welfare. We recollect the present Minister for Social Welfare and the present Tánaiste tabling questions here with regard to our social welfare policy. Queries as to what would happen the workers and as to the reason for the delay in producing even a white paper on social welfare were quite common. The workers realise now that the Bill giving them these benefits has been delayed because there is in power at the moment a Fianna Fáil Government supported by Deputy Cowan and the other feather Independent Deputies. But that is not good enough for the people. We, as an Opposition, are entitled to get from the Minister a clear declaration of policy on this very important matter.

Before the House goes into recess, will the Minister introduce a proposal for social welfare guaranteeing to the workers benefits at least as great as were proposed by the previous Government without any single penny of an increase in contributions either from employers or from employees? Is he going to do that? If he is not going to do it, can he explain to us his reason for the delay? He told us three and a half years ago that such a scheme was already prepared in the Department of Social Welfare.

Dr. Ryan

I never said that.

Mr. O'Higgins

The Minister declared that time and time again.

Dr. Ryan

I never said that and I defy the Deputy to prove it.

Mr. O'Higgins

It was so declared by Deputy Seán Lemass, as he then was, after the change of Government.

Dr. Ryan

That is like all the other "fibs".

Mr. S. Collins

Did you not tell Deputy Norton——

Dr. Ryan

I never said it.

Mr. S. Collins

All you left was a bit of paper that somebody was able to develop into a social welfare scheme.

Mr. O'Higgins

The Minister may not have been in this House so often while his Party was in opposition but those of us who did happen to be in the House fairly frequently, like Deputy McGrath, recollect that time and time again Deputy Lemass, as he then was, said here in his own vehement manner that the Minister for Social Welfare merely had to put his hand into a pigeon hole and there he would find, complete in every respect, a social welfare scheme. That was either an untrue statement or a statement merely made for political purposes.

Dr. Ryan

If he said it.

Mr. O'Higgins

If that were true——

Dr. Ryan

I caught you out four times already.

Mr. O'Higgins

While Deputy Cowan holds down one end of the scale, all Deputy Dr. Ryan, the present Minister, has to do—and I am sure he has strength enough left—is to lift his hand to the pigeon hole in his own Department to get that particular scheme of social welfare.

Mr. Davin

After 20 years.

Mr. O'Higgins

We may be merely facetious on the problems which face the present Government, but the ordinary workers will not regard this matter in any facetious light because they know that a comprehensive scheme of social insurance would now be law if the present Minister had not been elected to office.

Captain Cowan

You know that is not right.

Mr. O'Higgins

I warned Deputy Cowan. I shall come to Deputy Cowan but, meanwhile, I ask him, in his own interest, to keep quiet. I say that the next problem that faces the Government is a very clear one. They have stopped something that was beneficial to the workers of this country, something that, under other circumstances, commended itself to Deputy Cowan, something that had the approval of the last Dáil, something that is going to give to the employed persons of this country freedom from distress and unemployment. That has been stopped and we know why it has been stopped. We know that Deputy Cogan will not stand for it. We know that the strings were pulled and that a clear undertaking was given by the present Minister that that scheme would not proceed. Very well; that is fair enough from a national point of view provided the workers of this country are assured of something at least as good in its stead. We, in the Opposition, gave a clear warning to this Government when they were elected by this House, not by the people, three or four weeks ago, that we were going to see that that particular work was completed and we are going to carry that out. We are entitled to know from the Minister at least what is the proposal now in regard to social welfare. I used to hear sneers when the last Government were in power with regard to the attitude of the Fine Gael Party to this question of social services. It was often suggested by Deputies who are now in the Government that the Fine Gael Party were endeavouring to suppress the provision of adequate social services for the people of this country. Those suggestions were completely unfounded, as Deputy Cowan himself admitted. Quite the contrary, Fine Gael Deputies advocate, believe in and will see established here, social services adequate for our people. Now that we have an ultra-conservative Party in power we shall see that they will at least carry on where the last Government left off. They will have a difficult task in doing it, because when the last Government assumed office old age pensions stood at 10/- and the means test was something around £30.

Mr. Davern

That is not correct.

Mr. O'Higgins

The Deputy may know something——

Mr. Davern

Deputy O'Higgins knows that the old age pension was not then 10/-. Let us be honest.

Mr. O'Higgins

Deputy Davern and his Party apparently regarded 10/- given at the post office and 2/6 wrung, on the knees of the old age pensioners, from the home assistance officer as being a pension of 12/6. That was not the view of the previous Minister for Social Welfare and I trust that it is not going to be the view of the present Minister. That is not in accordance with a correct approach to the needs of old age pensioners, as we conceived it.

Mr. Davern

It was given for a very definite specific purpose.

Mr. O'Higgins

We conceive the position to be that the old age pensioner is entitled to being guaranteed under the legislation of this House his full rights to whatever allowance he is entitled to as a citizen. We do not think that it is in accordance with his status as a citizen that he should be given by legislation an old age pension of 10/- and then given a bonus from the home assistance officer or elsewhere, dependent on the will of any particular Minister. That is something we rejected when we went into office and we trust that never again will it be tried in this country. The old age pension, when we assumed office, stood at 10/- a week. Within a short period of the change of Government, the old age pension was increased to 17/6 per week and the means test was modified. A sum of £2,500,000 in addition was made available for social services and that sum was made available within a very short period after the present Minister for Social Welfare declared that the previous Government could not afford £500,000 to modify the means test. We are now further increasing old age pensions to 20/- a week. That is being done because the money has already been voted for it by this House——

Dr. Ryan

It has not.

Mr. O'Higgins

——in the Budget previously passed and opposed by the Minister, Deputy Davern and the other members supporting the present temporary Government.

Dr. Ryan

It has not been voted.

Mr. O'Higgins

I declare that this proposal to increase old age pensions to 20/- would never have been proposed by the Fianna Fáil Government were it not already in the legislation introduced in this House.

Dr. Ryan

Do not run away from it —the money has not been voted.

Mr. O'Higgins

I declare that the money to increase old age pensions to 20/- is already in the financial proposals passed by this House.

Dr. Ryan

It is not.

Mr. O'Higgins

The Minister has all the records available and can speak later.

Mr. S. Collins

Will the Minister not agree that the money to be raised by the Budget includes a sum allocated to the Department to give this increase?

Dr. Ryan

No, it is not in the Social Welfare Department Vote. There was merely a certain sum provided by the Minister for Finance to cover what will cost about ten times the amount provided.

Mr. O'Higgins

I never said and I do not believe the Minister could have understood me as saying that the money for this proposal was in the Estimate for the Department of Social Welfare.

Dr. Ryan

You said it was voted.

Mr. O'Higgins

I said it was in the financial proposals already passed by this House.

Dr. Ryan

You said it was voted.

Mr. O'Higgins

I said it was provided for in the financial proposals which the Minister and his Party opposed. I cannot recollect where Deputy Cowan stood at that particular time. He was somewhere in no man's country at that time. But the Minister and his Party opposed the financial proposals which are now being implemented by this Bill.

Dr. Ryan

I will give up. There is no use trying to keep you right. Say what you like. I will deal with it afterwards.

Mr. O'Higgins

The Minister is in the extraordinary position that he is now the Minister for Social Welfare armed with a Parliamentary Secretary, and, despite that, the mountain has been in labour and has produced a Bill dealing with one aspect of social welfare, but not dealing with the entire scheme introduced by his predecessor. The country will recognise that this Bill, even this humble effort, would not have been introduced to be passed by Dáil Éireann had it not been incorporated in the legislative proposals of the previous Government. The proposal to increase old age pensions to 20/- a week would never have been heard of here had it not been proposed by Deputy Norton when Minister for Social Welfare. We know that when that proposal was made the present Minister was shocked by its magnitude, but he did try to play the politician. I am sorry that the Minister has now left the House, because we all know that the Fianna Fáil Party when out of office are quite different from the Fianna Fáil Party when in office. When the Social Welfare Bill was introduced in April this year it caused dismay in the ranks of the Fianna Fáil Party. It was opposed by them for a variety of reasons, but generally the effect was such as to cause them considerable political uneasiness. I can recollect Deputy Cowan, leading what he would regard as the fight for the Bill, saying as reported in Volume 125 (No. 2), column 246, of the Official Report, making this statement:—

"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 Dr. 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."

Mr. Davin

Are you sure that is Deputy Cowan?

Mr. O'Higgins

That is Deputy Cowan describing himself as one of the few miserable votes that the Fianna Fáil Party were endeavouring to obtain. He went on to discuss other aspects of the Fianna Fáil Party at the time and to deal with his undying loyalty to Deputy Davin's Party and the principles that the Labour Party stand for with regard to social welfare and the proposals then being discussed. As reported in column 248, in answer to a rude interjection by Deputy Allen, who described him as being the leader of the vanguard, he stated:

"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."

It is rather important that we should have from the lips of a Deputy who now supports the present Government's social welfare policy a correct description of what they are and what they stand for. He went on to deal with the vexed question of the retirement allowance at 65, something that was proposed by the previous Government and that is denied by the present Government and about which Deputy Cowan does not know what to do. I do not know whether the Deputy can still be described as an Independent.

I believe he occupies a particular room in this House. In case he has any doubts as to what his mind was on the 5th April, only ten weeks ago, with regard to the question of retirement allowances, this is what he said, as reported in column 249:

"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."

These were noble words spoken by Deputy Cowan when advocating a policy that he sincerely believed in. We do not know what words of wisdom will now fall from Deputy Cowan, but we trust that his wandering footsteps will ensure that the philosophy he then believed in will still be respected by Deputies. Deputy Cowan went on to describe the attitude of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Welfare and that of his Party as follows:—

Deputy Cowan asked:

"Where is the honesty about that sort of thing?"

He meant where is the honesty in opposing a retirement allowance of 24/-a week for a worker who reaches 65 years of age. He went on :

"I want to know from Deputy Childers——

who was then, of course, a political opponent of Deputy Cowan's——

or from anybody else in Fianna Fáil where the honesty is in that."

Then he dealt with an interjection by a member of the House at that time, Deputy Kissane:

"‘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."

In those days I, Sir, used to find considerable admiration for Deputy Cowan's token of sincerity to the Deputies of this House and to the people generally.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Would the Deputy relate that to the Bill?

Mr. O'Higgins

We are discussing here—and I trust I am in order—the fact that this Bill does not provide for old age pensions at the age of 65 such as were incorporated in a Bill previously before this House.

Captain Cowan

That is absolutely incorrect. It was not in the Bill before the House. The old age pension was not in the Bill.

Mr. O'Higgins

Have I the Chair's attention?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Yes.

Mr. O'Higgins

It is a matter that has been referred to in the debate previous to this and I take it, Sir, that that is in order.

Captain Cowan

I have no objection to the Deputy quoting my speech.

Mr. O'Higgins

Deputy Cowan does not represent anyone in this House except the Minister for Social Welfare.

Mr. Davin

Are you sure it is not Deputy Cogan? It reads like Deputy Cogan.

Captain Cowan

Deputy Davin knows it does not read like Deputy Cogan.

Mr. S. Collins

Bad as you are, I would not make you that bad.

Captain Cowan

It reads like Deputy Cowan and only Deputy Cowan.

Mr. Davin

You sleep in the same bed now.

Captain Cowan

What bed are you in?

Mr. O'Higgins

I want to know from all the Deputies, particularly Deputies such as Deputy Cowan, who apparently are going to support not merely this measure—this measure will have the unqualified support of this House as a token—but who are going to support the Government policy generally, and we are entitled to know, where has Deputy Cowan put the grand philosophy that he prated about in this House only ten short weeks ago, where is the scheme to fight for the worker against all the hardships that his occupation might bring? Where is all that gone? Has it gone into cold storage as has his view of Fianna Fáil as being a dishonest Party? Will we not hear of that again? We know of course that Deputy Cowan changed his political views and his philosophy.

Captain Cowan

I changed the Government.

Mr. O'Higgins

I would suggest to Deputy Cowan through you, Sir, that changing the Government is not something that gives Deputy Cowan any reason for gratification.

Mr. Davin

Do not be laughing over there. He will change you again.

Mr. O'Higgins

I am afraid that I was wandering slightly—the Chair was endeavouring to assist me—from some of the matters contained in this Bill. I am entitled of course to discuss what is not in this Bill. I want to say in all seriousness to the Minister and to his Parliamentary Secretary that this Bill is not prompted by reasons of political honesty. It is a Bill which has been forced upon the present Government because it is something that would have been done by their predecessors had they been elected by Deputy Cowan. The entire legislative proposal does raise a matter of political importance. I observe in Section 4 of the present Bill a table for increased old age pensions and a table in relation to the means test which is the identical table contained in the Social Welfare Bill which was sponsored by Deputy Norton. I wish Deputy Seán Flanagan were here. That table provides that where the means of an applicant exceed £22 2s. 6d. but do not exceed £35 2s. 6d. the pension will be 15/- and so on, the qualifying limit being means not exceeding £65 5s. A person having those means, under the Minister's proposals, as under the same proposals contained in Deputy Norton's Bill, is entitled to no old age pension. The limit for old age pensions was increased under Deputy Norton's Bill to £65 5s. Beyond that it did not go. The present Minister for Social Welfare, when those proposals were published as coming from the last Government, went to consult his Party leaders. I want Deputy Patrick McGrath of Cork City to listen carefully to me because I have no doubt that Deputy McGrath, Deputy Davern and the rest of them when they fought the last general election made many speeches about what Fianna Fáil would do if they were elected as a Government. Here is what they would do: Deputy Dr. Ryan put down an amendment to the previous Minister's proposals with regard to the means test and old age pensions. Here is what Deputy Dr. Ryan proposed in the name of the Fianna Fáil Party, in the name of the legitimate Opposition at the time—that "where the yearly means of a claimant or pensioner is calculated under the Acts as amended by this Act does not exceed £55, 20/- a week."

Mr. Davern

The Deputy is on dangerous ground now.

Mr. O'Higgins

I am never on dangerous ground when I am with Deputy Davern.

Mr. Davern

When you are dealing with the means test, you are.

Mr. O'Higgins

"Where the yearly means of an applicant does not exceed £55, 20/- a week," said Seamus Ó Riain. That, I understand, is the present Minister for Social Welfare. An amendment was put down in the name of the Opposition that anything up to £55 a year would not disqualify even to the amount of a halfpenny an old age pensioner from getting full pension of 20/- a week. Was that put down sincerely? Was it put down with the idea of seeing it enacted into law or was it put down merely to enable Deputy Davern, Deputy McGrath and the rest of them to talk about it for the purpose of getting votes? Those are questions we are entitled to ask. When we see Fianna Fáil Deputies, Deputy McGrath and Deputy Gilbride, laughing, we may assume that this amendment was put down by Deputy Dr. Ryan merely for the purpose of codding the public.

Mr. Gilbride

And of putting you over there.

Mr. O'Higgins

Merely for the purpose of putting us over here. We are over here now, and Deputy Dr. Ryan is over there. He is now in a position, and has the power, to introduce legislative proposals to give to every old age pensioner whose means do not exceed £55 a year the full pension of 20/- a week.

Mr. Davern

When did the Minister make that statement?

Mr. O'Higgins

I am quoting from the amendments to the Social Welfare Insurance (No. 2) Bill, 1950, on the Committee Stage. I am quoting from amendment No. 35 in the name of Seamus Ó Riain. That Fianna Fáil amendment, as Deputy Gilbride says, was proposed for the purpose of winning votes and of putting the Government of the day into opposition. It was a dishonest amendment. Deputy Gilbride may still keep laughing. The proposal in that amendment was that where the yearly means exceeded £70 but did not exceel £85, or where the means exceeded £55 but did not exceed £70, or where the means exceeded £85 but did not exceed £100, the applicant would be entitled to a pension.

That is an amendment that was solemnly put down on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Opposition only ten weeks ago. The proposer of it is now the Minister for Social Welfare. He can now crack the whip and make Deputy Cowan jump. He is the man who can get each Independent Deputy, who put this Government into office, to vote with it. I want to know, and the country wants to know, if Deputy Dr. Ryan, the Minister for Social Welfare, has forgotten Deputy Dr. Ryan, the Opposition Deputy? I want to know where is the political honesty in that amendment?

Mr. McGrath

Does the Deputy know what Deputy Costello said before the last election about the means test?

Mr. O'Higgins

I think I am entitled to get an answer to my question from the Minister for Social Welfare. I may say to Deputy McGrath, that Deputy Costello did his duty before, and that he will continue to do it. The Deputy need not think that by shouting he is going to prevent me from dealing with a matter which is a public scandal. That is the dishonest approach of Deputy McGrath and the rest of the Fianna Fáil Party to the solemn proposals which they made here, and which Deputy Gilbride has declared were made merely for the purpose of getting votes.

Deputy Gilbride can smile now—he used not to smile in the old days— because he temporarily occupies a back seat on the Government Benches. But there is a sharp knock coming to him and to those who support him. Deputy McGrath was put up to speak in the Grand Parade in Cork and advocate old age pensions for everyone whose means did not exceed £100. Deputy Davern, down in Tipperary, was put up to say the same. Who put them up to say that, and were they as dishonest as the present Minister for Social Welfare was in proposing that amendment?

Mr. Gilbride

We only spoke about the 1s. which the Fine Gael Party took off the old age pensioners.

Mr. O'Higgins

That is something which you cannot afford to talk about. Deputy Cowan would not talk on it.

Captain Cowan

The Deputy had better keep quiet on that.

Mr. O'Higgins

Deputy Cowan was a grand soldier in those days.

Captain Cowan

The Deputy is on dangerous ground now.

Mr. O'Higgins

No. I was always consistent. Deputy Cowan was not. Deputy McGrath is now leaving.

Mr. McGrath

Are you happy? Good luck to you, anyway.

Mr. O'Higgins

These are matters of concern to the country because we have had the previous experience of the gentlemen who comprise the present set-up, if I may borrow a colleague's phrase, and of their conduct in Government: of making clear promises to the electorate to secure the votes of the electorate, and on assuming the responsibility of Government, then acting in quite a contrary way. We had hoped that they might have learned the lesson that that type of political dishonesty does not pay dividends in this country.

We find, in this, the first Bill which Fianna Fáil has proposed here, that they are discarding completely the scale of means which they proposed only ten weeks ago and which would entitle people to old age pensions. We find now that they are going back to what they opposed when it was proposed by Deputy Norton in the previous Bill. They are now saying to every old age pensioner that, if he has a halfpenny more than £65 5s. a year, not a half penny will he draw in the way of an old age pension. That is a serious reversion of policy. I regard it as a political scandal that Deputies should advocate a matter of that kind before the electorate for the purpose, as Deputy Gilbride has cynically described it, of getting into office and of forgetting so early the promises which they made to the people.

There are one or two other matters that I want to refer to. There are certain new proposals with regard to old age pensions in Section 2. A person, the valuation of whose holding does not exceed £30, can, by assigning his holding to his son or other relative, qualify for the full pension. Deputy Seán Flanagan referred to that. I know he did so in his innocence. In case there should be any doubt about it, I want to point out that that is no new proposal in a Social Welfare Bill coming before this House. It was already proposed by the previous Minister in his Social Welfare Insurance (No. 2) Bill of 1950. It is a proposal taken by the present Minister from the legislative proposals of his predecessor. It is a welcome proposal, something which the Minister had forced on him by the policy of his predecessor.

In Section 3 there is a provision that, in calculating means, no account should be taken, up to a limit of £80 a year, of special allowances which are being paid to the War of Independence veterans, or of certain payments made by charitable organisations. These are welcome proposals. Again, let no new Deputy, or any member of the public, regard these as being something new which were being proposed by the present Minister for Social Welfare. These proposals were put into the Bill because they had been previously proposed by Deputy Norton, the former Minister for Social Welfare. They would never have been incorporated in any Fianna Fáil Bill were not due publicity given of the previous Government's proposals with regard to them. We accept this Bill. We accept what is in it. We accept it merely because it replaces our Bill and our proposals. We regard with nothing but contempt the attitude of the present Minister to put down amendments promising greater benefits, and now when he has power he is not prepared to carry out his promise.

I do not want to say anything more with regard to the Bill. I just want to know if I am in order in mentioning one matter with regard to old age pensions which is not contained in the Bill.

An Ceann Comhairle

If it could be included, yes.

Mr. O'Higgins

Without discussing the Bill again, might I mention that I have received some complaints from one or two of my constituents with regard to the position in relation to old age pensions of returned emigrants from America? I understand the present position to be that a person who goes to America, irrespective of whether he took out citizenship there or not, must, on his return, establish five years' residence here in order to qualify for an old age pension. I do very earnestly urge upon the Minister to look into this point. It is a very small matter and one which would not cost a great deal.

I would suggest that any Irish citizen who goes abroad but later comes back to reside permanently in this country should be entitled to equal rights with every other citizen.

I do not see why this distinction should be made if a person is impoverished as are the two people whom I know. I do not understand why returned emigrants should have to be dependent on home assistance while other people of equal age and, perhaps, better circumstances draw the old age pension. I would urge upon the Minister to avail of this measure to bring about a modification and to remove any restriction on Irish citizens resident here qualifying for the full pension. If I were entitled to do so, I would move an amendment on the Committee Stage of this Bill. If I am not entitled to do so, I would ask the Minister to take up the matter.

Captain Cowan

I had no intention of speaking on this Bill. I thought, in fact, that the Bill would have been unanimously accepted by the House and that all steps would have been given to the Minister last week. I feel that, at least, it should be the desire of every Deputy to see that the increase in the old age pensions are granted as quickly as possible. No Deputy should, by tactics in this House, delay the passing of that Bill. Unfortunately, we had an exhibition of obstruction from Deputy Flanagan of Offaly last week and he has been followed to-day by his Offaly colleague, Deputy O'Higgins, in a further speech which helps to delay the time when the Bill will become law and be put into operation. I hope that the other Offaly Deputy whom I see here will not follow on the same lines.

Mr. Davin

You are doing so now yourself, so I will leave you to it.

Mr. S. Collins

Is the Deputy trying to be deliberately provocative?

Captain Cowan

As I understand the criticism of this Bill, the amendments now being introduced are exactly those that were to be included in the Social Welfare Bill by Deputy Norton, the then Tánaiste and Minister for Social Welfare. Deputy Dr. Ryan, as Minister for Social Welfare, accepted the general view of the House in regard to old age pensions. While he was taking time to consider the new form of Social Welfare Bill or scheme that he would introduce, he availed of the opportunity of dealing with the old age pensions matter separately and quickly. I think the House should have accepted that position and should have given him all stages of the Bill almost immediately. No good purpose is served by talking in regard to this particular Bill on the general matter of the Social Welfare Bill. When in opposition the Minister indicated certain views in regard to that Bill. What Bill he will introduce as the Social Welfare Bill is a matter in regard to which we must wait and see. Where he has followed the line that this House has approved in regard to old age pensions, we should not have been troubled with the very bitter speeches we have heard from Deputy Oliver Flanagan and Deputy O'Higgins.

I want to be clear on this Social Welfare Bill before the House. What is before the House is an Old Age Pensions Bill. In regard to old age pensions, there is no difference in the Bill as now introduced and in the proposals that Deputy Norton said he would introduce as amendments to the Social Welfare Bill.

Mr. S. Collins

On a point of order, the Bill before the House is the Social Welfare Bill, 1951.

Captain Cowan

The Bill before the House deals only with old age pensions and blind pensions.

Mr. S. Collins

The title is the Social Welfare Bill.

Captain Cowan

It is obvious it must be described as a Social Welfare Bill, but the Social Welfare Bill is comprehensive. The Social Welfare Bill we are talking about is a completely different matter. Under that comprehensive Social Welfare Bill provision was made for retirement pensions at 65 years of age. Deputy Norton did not propose to give old age pensions at 65 years of age. That is what I am trying to say and that is what I am being interrupted for when I say it. There is no difference. Deputy Norton proposed to give the same modifications of the means test as are being provided in this Bill. He proposed to increase to £1 the old age pension at 70 years of age, but he did not propose to give an old age pension one day before 70 years of age.

Mr. Desmond

You know that is dishonest.

Captain Cowan

It is not dishonest. I know it is a fact.

Mr. S. Collins

You are hardly helping the passage of this Bill.

Captain Cowan

I shall speak for a couple of minutes only.

Mr. Davin

You are swallowing what you said before.

Captain Cowan

I have done nothing about what I said before. I will deal with the comprehensive Social Welfare Bill when it comes before the House. I must say I take great pride in being quoted so extensively in this House. It is not so long ago since I used to be quoted from the other side of the House. Now I am being quoted from this particular side.

Mr. Cafferky

You are a very popular Deputy.

Captain Cowan

It is an honour that speeches made in this House, generally impromptu, can read so well afterwards.

Mr. Davin

You are in the rearguard now. You were in the vanguard then.

Captain Cowan

I consider it a great honour. I marvel at my own ability when I hear myself quoted. I heard Deputy O'Higgins talking and I do not intend to follow him in his bitter strain.

He indicated last week that he was to give me a sound drubbing this evening and he indicated that several times this evening. I think his performance was rather pathetic. I am not going to follow him in that line of bitterness and I think Deputy O'Higgins himself might well be advised to give up that line of bitterness in the House.

A situation has arisen in which the Government has been changed. He is now in opposition. A similar course of events placed him behind the Government for a period of three and three-quarter years and the turn of the wheel has now placed him on the other side. A young Deputy particularly ought to take that as it comes and ought not to be actuated by bitterness against every person who does something different from what he believes ought to be done. I used to think that a change of Government meant that there were different people in the ministerial seats and that we might have a different approach to certain problems, but unfortunately in our small country a change of Government has much more serious repercussions for a certain element or section of the community. Deputy Seán Collins knows that, for the section or element down in the Law Library, a change of Government is a very serious matter.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should come away from the Law Library and tell us something about the Bill.

Mr. S. Collins

I am not worrying, because I got nothing from either Government.

Captain Cowan

If that particular aspect were forgotten, we would not have the bitterness which is being introduced into the debates here.

An Ceann Comhairle

Let us come to the Bill now.

Mr. S. Collins

I got nothing from either Government, so I am not worrying.

Captain Cowan

I am told that in supporting the Government on this Bill I am supporting some form of reaction. It is not so many months since I saw a parade into the Division Lobbies here on the matter of a half-day a week for agricultural labourers.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy must come to the Bill.

Captain Cowan

I am dealing with the Bill.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy is not dealing with the Bill.

Captain Cowan

Unfortunately, you, Sir, were not in the Chair when a very serious and bitter onslaught was made on me by Deputy O'Higgins.

An Ceann Comhairle

I have no doubt that the Chair looked after the proceedings very well.

Mr. Cafferky

And the Deputy will agree that the onslaught was quoted from the Official Debates.

Mr. S. Collins

And described by him as pathetic.

Captain Cowan

I do not propose to follow on these lines very far but when I am told that I am in the company of reactionaries by being on the side I am on and when I look back a couple of months to see where the reactionaries were and see some of these people collaborating now in their multiple bed, I think that some of them, and Deputy Davin particularly, ought to examine their consciences.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy ought to react to the Bill.

Captain Cowan

The Bill is a Bill in respect of which there could possibly be no grounds for opposition. It is a Bill which this House advocated before the dissolution should be passed, a Bill to make provision for increases for old age and blind pensioners and to modify the means test. There can be no opposition to that Bill, and, although there have been many hours of debate, the debate has not been on the Bill but on certain other matters, such as the comprehensive Social Welfare Bill——

Mr. Davin

And yourself.

Captain Cowan

And myself, which I do not think was relevant to the discussion. It is significant—Deputy Cogan and Deputy Davin know this— that before Deputy Norton, as Minister for Social Welfare, was able to indicate that an extra halfcrown would be given to old age pensioners, very serious pressure had to be brought to bear on him. That pressure was brought to bear by, I admit, Deputy Davin and other Deputies of the Labour Party.

Mr. Desmond

That is an untruth and no one knows it better than the Deputy.

Captain Cowan

It was brought to bear by Independent Deputies——

Mr. Hickey

That is not so.

Mr. Desmond

Do not be acting the hypocrite.

Captain Cowan

——by Deputy Alfred Byrne, by myself and by Deputy Cogan. We went time after time to Deputy Norton and we saw the then Taoiseach, Deputy Costello. Deputy Byrne, I know, personally got in touch with the Minister for Finance, and it was in an effort to get the Social Welfare Bill through the House that it was announced on the day on which the Second Reading was taken that these alterations in the old age pensions code would be made.

Mr. Davin

Surely Deputy Cogan did not do that? He voted against the Bill.

Captain Cowan

I am not talking about what Deputy Cogan did. I am talking of the efforts Deputy Cogan made to get that extra halfcrown for the old age pensioners.

Mr. Davin

And he voted against the Bill.

Captain Cowan

I am talking of the efforts which Deputy Byrne made to get it and the efforts which you yourself made. If you wish to deny that you made them, I have no objection; but I knew that I personally made these efforts and did everything I possibly could to bring about the increase from 17/6 to £1.

Mr. Desmond

Thank God, your help was never needed by the Labour Party.

Captain Cowan

It is very strange that it was not in the first draft of the Bill which came before the House. It was not in the second Bill when the first was withdrawn, and did not come into that second Bill until the Minister was moving the Second Reading, when the announcement, which it has been stated to-day was an announcement which shocked and upset Deputy Ryan, was made. The point about it is that tremendous pressure had to be brought by a few of us who had a certain amount of control in the last Government to get that extra halfcrown.

Mr. Davin

Keep Deputy Cogan's name out of it.

Captain Cowan

We are glad to see that it has been given now. Why did we have to bring that pressure? We knew it was not necessary to bring that pressure on Deputy Norton, because we knew he was anxious for it himself, but there were certain elements in the Government who were not in favour of that extra 2/6 a week and it required all the pressure we could put upon them to ensure that it was granted. I am glad that we were able, as Independent Deputies, to exercise that pressure, and in respect of matters which will come before the House in the future, I hope that, as Independent Deputies, we will be able to exercise our pressure and our influence in the interests of every section of the community who will need our help. I want the House to be perfectly clear. It required a very hard fight behind the scenes to ensure that increase of 2/6 a week for the old age pensioners and that is why I object to the long, obstructive speeches made here by Deputy O. Flanagan and Deputy O'Higgins in regard to this Bill, speeches which hold up the putting into application and operation of this increase of 2/6 a week for which we fought so hard behind the scenes in the days of the previous Administration.

Mr. Hickey

It is true to say that there is nothing permanent in this world, except change, and I will leave it at that. All the speeches to which I have listened about the increase in these old age pensions were made on the assumption that the amount which the old age pensioners receive is sufficient. I want to point out that when old age pensioners had a maximum of 5/- per week they could purchase one lb. of butter, 7 lb. of bread, 6 pints of milk, 1 lb. of sugar, 2 oz. of tea, 3 lb. of meat, 1 dozen eggs and 2 pints of stout. It would cost well over 20/- to buy these to-day. How are they to provide themselves with clothing, boots, etc., unless they deprive themselves of the bare necessities of life?

I agree with what the Minister did when, as a Deputy, he introduced that amendment to Deputy Norton's scheme and said that £100 in cash was not too much, that it meant only £2 a week, and that if they had an old age pension of another £1 it was not too much. I say to the Minister and the members of the Fianna Fáil Party that we will walk in 100 per cent. with them and will back them in that demand if they bring in that amendment now. They need not have any doubts as to where the Labour Party stands. It is dishonest that the Minister should make that statement in this House as a Deputy on the 2nd March and now come along with the scheme that was embodied in the Social Security Bill.

In this Bill, if an old age pensioner has £22 2s. 6d. a year, which means 8/6 a week, from some other source, he gets 20/- pension, making a total of 28/6. If he gets £35 2s. 6d., or 13/6 a week, he gets 15/-, and the total also is 28/6. But if he gets £52 2s. 6d., or 20/- a week, he gets 10/-, which gives him 30/-; and the man with an income of £65 5s. Od., or 25/- a week, gets only 5/-, which brings him to 30/-. Is it not time that we stopped all this talk and came down to realities? What is to be the standard of living of this decent element of the community—the old age pensioners, the men and women who have given 50 years of honest, faithful service to the nation? We have been arguing the toss as to whether they may have £2 or £3 a week. The Minister said he intended bringing in an old age pensions scheme whereby they could have £2 and get £1 pension and it would not be too much. We would guarantee the full support of the Labour Party if he brings that before the House.

That is one of the reasons why I cannot listen to Deputy Cowan telling us of the terrible pressure brought to bear on Deputy Norton. We would not be satisfied with even 24/- or 25/- a week, as we were never satisfied that they were properly treated. Having regard to the value of 28/6 to-day, we should be ashamed to be wasting the time of the House boasting about giving the old age pensioners a maximum of 20/-.

There is another matter—to which Deputy O'Higgins made reference—in connection with old age pensioners who come across from England. I know cases of women in receipt of pensions in England, whose husbands passed out nine and ten years ago in England, and because they have decided to come home to daughters here they have been refused the pension from England and they are getting home assistance here. If there is anything the Minister can do about that, he should do it. Pensioners transferring residence from England to Ireland should be the subject matter of an arrangement between both Governments and the pension should follow them here.

I do not want to hold up the passing of the Bill, but it is about time there was an end to the unnecessary talk here about the old age pensioners, as it is a shame on us as a Government of Ireland that we can afford only a maximum of 20/- to men and women after they have given 40 or 50 years' faithful service to the nation.

I think it is also in order to refer to the fact that the Minister changed his mind about making the pension at 65 instead of 70. It is very cold compensation to tell men and women who have reached 65 that they cannot get the pension but can go to the Labour Exchange and get so much, or if they are sick they can get sickness benefit. I appreciate the point Deputy Flanagan from Mayo made about this, but he is too far away from reality when he talks about the man who had a certain position in life at the age of 70 and could carry on. He has very little knowledge of the number of men engaged in transport or at the docks or in the building industry or who have gone through the mines and are very often unable to work at 65 or even 60. There are unemployables and it should be possible for us as a nation to give them pensions at 60 in the case of women and 65 in the case of men. The days are gone when an employer could afford to keep these people in employment if it is unprofitable to do so.

Mr. MacCarthy

What did the Deputy say about the women teachers who were employed at 60?

Mr. Hickey

Deputy MacCarthy should know that the teachers are in a different position entirely.

Mr. O'Higgins

And they do not think so much of Deputy MacCarthy.

Mr. Hickey

If they are under 60, there is nothing to prevent them doing so, but I do say it is wrong that a man who is unable to work, laid up with rheumatics or illness of some kind, should have to march to the labour exchange every morning to sign on to get a retiring pension. The Minister says that if he does not get that he can get unemployment or sickness benefit. Surely we can do something beyond that kind of treatment for aged people? I would like to see young men like Deputy Seán Flanagan from Mayo visit the libraries and rest houses and see there all the unemployables of 63, 65, 67 and 69. Whose children are they? Nobody's children, apparently. If they go to the labour exchange they have no stamps, and if they go to the Court of Referees they are asked why they have not got a job during the last two years. It is about time we looked at these things in a more realistic and humane way, instead of scoring points across the House as to what happened this year or last year. We have been too complacent entirely and have been treating this matter in the same way as many other matters. I hope that the Minister, now that he is in a position to do so, will bring in an Old Age Pension Bill as he indicated in his amendment to the Social Security Bill and we, as a Labour Party, will give him 100 per cent. support.

Mr. Davern

I naturally welcome this Bill and congratulate the Minister on not holding a carrot before the eyes of the people, as happened in the case of the previous Government. Instead, he has had the honesty to introduce it as we had asked the previous Government to do some months ago. Deputy Cowan rightly stated that this Bill was not a separate Bill when introduced in March, 1951. It was then an amendment of the comprehensive social welfare scheme. At that time, the offer was made to the Government that they would have the support of the Fianna Fáil Party in expediting its passage through the House as a Bill so that the old age pensioners would immediately benefit thereby.

It is good that one of the first acts of this Government was further to amend the social welfare services so that our needy people would get the benefit. At a later stage I hope that the Minister will have a full investigation into the old age pensions code and, when he does, he will find there are things he can remedy without putting too great a burden on the State.

I listened to Deputy O'Higgins and I would not expect anything else perhaps except the brazen type of speech which he alone can give the House. He talks about the means test in this 1951 Bill. I wonder has he ever heard what the means test was before the hand of the Party to which he now belongs touched it. The means test with regard to old age pensions was first amended by the Cumann na nGaedheal Government in the 1924 Act. I mention that now because I had hoped that the Minister would be able to restore that means test in so far as it applies to the people with lower incomes in this country. For the sake of the younger Deputies may I say that previous to the 1924 Act a person who had 10/- a week income was still entitled to the maximum old age pension? No wonder that Deputy Davin and people like him got old fighting in those days to stop the kind of thing that went on. I would like if the Minister would see his way to raise the means test to £26 from £22. He would then I believe have extinguished——

Mr. S. Collins

It was £22 2s. 6d.

Mr. Davern

He could restore it to £26 5s. as far as it applies to the lower income people.

Mr. Hickey

We wanted 6d. more.

Mr. Davern

If the British Government in their day thought it right to help people with 10/- a week I think an effort should be made to do the same and put an end to the unfair and unjust amendments put into the old age pensions code by the old Cumann na nGaedheal Government. At that time people thought that the reduction of 1/- per week was the serious thing but that was not true. Then we come to the 1928 Act and we find inserted in it Section 7 which debarred any person who had ever at any time before or at any time afterwards transferred property or income from receiving a pension. That transfer would not be accepted according to the penal code of Cumann na nGaedheal in 1928.

The 1932 Amendment Act took that away from us and that was one of the greatest things ever done for the old age pensioners of the country. We might talk of an increase of 2/6 or 5/- but nobody dare deny that the amendment of Section 7 of the Old Age Pensions Act of 1928 of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government was the greatest achievement of Fianna Fáil in this country. Deputy O'Higgins, with the brazenness with which he alone can confront us, talked about the means test. I told him that he was treading on dangerous ground when he spoke of the means test and, of course, he was. He apparently thinks that the people of this country have short memories, but there are Deputies here to-day who had to bow to the inevitable and agree, against their will, of course, to the insertion of those abominable amendments to the old age pensions code. If it were for one reason alone, to erase from our minds the damnable thing that the Cumann na nGaedheal Government did to old age pensioners and old age pension claimants, I would ask the Minister to consider my suggestion if the finances of the State allow. Even if they are brought to straining point I still believe that the Minister should make every effort to fix the means test at £26 as against £22 if he can possibly see his way to doing so.

Instead of criticising and quoting what someone else has said—I agree with Deputy Hickey on this point—we are sent here to do something good for the people by constructive criticism or by sound, sane suggestions. That is our job and not to quote what Deputy Cowan said, to misquote somebody else or to recall what happened six or eight months ago.

According to this Old Age Pensions Act, certain pensioners now in receipt of less than the maximum pension will benefit. Practically every pensioner will benefit, but there will be reinvestigation by the social welfare officer and there is one section about which I want to appeal to the Minister. It is a section that the pensions officer might gloss over. The officer in his wisdom might decide that So-and-so was not entitled to a pension or to an increase in pension. As he has the right, he will raise the question with the committee and the Social Welfare Department will decide the matter. Where that person gets the maximum or an increased pension on appeal I would like the Minister to see that that pension will be retrospective from the appointed date. There will first be a period of uncertainty for the person, a period in which he will perhaps think that he will qualify for the pension. After many weeks he discovers he is not entitled to it and then he must raise the question and submit to further investigation by the officer, the committee and the Social Welfare Department. That could take, in many cases, six or eight weeks. If the appeal is allowed I should like to make sure that the increased pension should be retrospective.

Mr. Hickey

That is always in operation.

Mr. Davern

It is not in the Bill, anyway.

Mr. S. Collins

That is the way it operates.

Breanndán Mac Fheorais

It is in other legislation.

Mr. Davern

Deputy O'Higgins raised the question of the statutory condition of residents, but he is wrong when he says that no person who has been in America for four or five years can qualify for a pension. That is not correct. Any person in America or Timbuctoo who can prove to the Minister's satisfaction that he was at any time supporting a relative in this country or any person other than a relative can qualify for the old age pension in this country.

We meet every day cases where, perhaps, there is no issue of a marriage or where the owner of a farm or of a business is a spinster. We then find that some near relation is brought in, maybe at a young age, and remains working very hard in that place for very many years. It comes to the time when they must make up their minds whether they are going to continue working or whether they are going to get the farm or the business as the case may be. If, according to the present code, there is a transfer, then that transfer will not be accepted by the Minister. Where there is a bona fide relative working in a bona fide way on a farm transferred in a bona fide manner because of natural love and affection, owing to the fact that they have worked on the place all their lives, I think cases of that kind should be considered and catered for under the old age pensions code. Certainly, it would have one good effect, apart from any other, and that is that just as the spirit of the 1932 Amendment Act allowed pensions to those who transferred their property on the occasion of marriage, so the same spirit will obtain now in the case of the relation. Old people will hand over the farm or the business to a nephew or a niece or some other relation and the young person will settle down in this country and serve the purpose that the Great Master sent him or her here to do.

We have been told by the members of the Opposition that this Bill is identical with a Bill which was before this House some months ago. At that time Deputy Lemass, the present Tánaiste, made an offer which was not accepted —that social welfare services should be taken out of the realm of politics and that, instead of trying to gain political kudos and make political capital in connection with this matter, the members of both sides of this House should use the brains that God gave them and endeavour to make constructive suggestions to the Minister which might prove useful later on. That offer was turned down. Our offer to take that Old Age Pensions Bill and pass it that day and to ask the Seanad to do the same thing the following day was turned down.

It is a wonder that Deputy O'Higgins in his tirade of abuse of Fianna Fáil did not cast his mind back to that offer and to what took place only a few weeks ago. When he does so, I feel sure he will be ashamed of many of his utterances this evening. Instead of being constructive and endeavouring to help the people of Laois-Offaly, who sent him here to represent them, he has been doing mischief and trying to create bitterness and ill-will in this House. That is something that no decent Deputy would try to do, especially in connection with social welfare. He told us that we would not give half a million pounds to the old age pensioners, but I would remind him that when we took over a bankrupt State in 1932 we increased the money for social services from £4,000,000 to £14,000,000—and that is more than our successors dared to do during their period of office, regardless of the fact that we handed over to them a prosperous State capable of taking a burden of more than £14,000,000.

Mr. S. Collins

I do not propose to follow the ramblings of Deputy Davern, Deputy Cowan or, indeed, of some of the other speakers. My approach to this Bill will be in the interests of the people whom the Bill is designed to serve. I do not care who wishes to claim credit for the fact that an increase of half-a-crown is about to be given to the old age pensioners. On their behalf I, as a representative of my constituency, wholeheartedly and honestly welcome it as an instalment of justice outstanding to their class.

I do not rise to enter into the conflict of what might have happened in 1924 or in 1932. I enter into the conflict on the basis of trying to fight, in a very difficult situation, for people who are hard-pressed, and of trying to persuade the Minister to give them a little more. I have never thought, and I do not think now, that a £1 is anything like an admirable standard to set for an old age pensioner. It may be that Deputy Davern gets some satisfaction out of the gibe of a reduction of one shilling that may have been made by a Cumann na nGaedheal Government. It does not matter what reduction may have been made or when it was made. The time is now long overdue when we should face the issue of what standard of life we want to set for these people, and what is a pension commensurate with giving them that standard of life. That is the best attitude to the problem for a person who is sitting either on the Government Benches or on this side of the House. I am glad the old age pensioners are getting a £1.

I rise to suggest to the Minister that no matter what motive he may have had in putting amendments down to the last Social Welfare Bill, he should approach the problem now with a full knowledge of his responsibility of office during which, be the term long or short, at least he will have my good wishes for success in every effort he makes for the class of people he will be dealing with. Facing, as we are facing, a difficult period, I urge upon him now to consider earnestly whether it is not possible for us to step up, and step up very quickly, the old age pensions. I believe that no matter what the motive was for the suggested amendments by the Fianna Fáil Party when they were in opposition, there was a lot of sound hard-boiled sense in them, whether it got there by accident or design. Taking the illuminating facts as quoted by Deputy Hickey, we have got to face the issue in what I consider a reasonable and sincere and honest contribution to this debate.

Taking what could have been purchased for 5/- at a period when the maximum pension was 5/- and comparing it with what the pension could purchase to-day, we can readily see that there was a complete lack of balance in the advance of the old age pensions in face of the rising costs. We have heard in this House pleas, sighs and cries about rising costs. Surely, there is no section of the community more helpless or more exposed to the impetus of that type of increase in the cost of living than the section with which this Bill deals. My whole appeal to the Minister is not on the basis of what he might have said or what he might not have said. It is on this basis, that the old age pensioners are overdue this increase. Not only are they overdue this increase, but they are overdue an infinitely larger increase.

I am not going to discuss a comprehensive social insurance scheme or what was in the last Bill. I am taking this Bill for what it is worth. I do think that the Minister should have and could have, in dealing with this particular section of the community, expanded the Bill to cover the amendment he suggested previously in his amendments with regard to children's allowances. It was an isolated type of problem which could have been readily incorporated as a speedy remedial measure in this Bill. I wonder whether the Minister will recollect—I am not saying this in any spirit of criticism or in any spirit of bitterness—amendments moved by him to the last Bill, when he suggested the introduction of a new section with regard to children's allowances. I was wondering whether the Minister could not, in this Social Welfare Bill, bring in remedial measures to improve the standard of and step up the allowances for children. If that could not be done by way of an increase in the allowance he should certainly vary the Act to permit of the qualifications being infinitely less onerous than at present. The general belief of people in the working out of the children's allowances is——

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not relevant.

Mr. S. Collins

It is, definitely. Surely, in view of the fact that this Bill is part of a Bill previously introduced, I am entitled to discuss what is in it.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is if it can be included relevantly in the scope of the Bill. Children's allowances do not come within the scope of the Bill.

Mr. S. Collins

I submit that it is relevant, but if you rule otherwise I will accept it. The particular document from which I am quoting contains an amendment, under the name of Seamus Ó Riain, which was designed as an amendment to a Bill which included every provision that is in this Bill. I shall conclude on that particular aspect of the matter. I shall accept the ruling of the Ceann Comhairle that it was out of order. In regard to this Bill, I feel quite sincerely that the Minister could have gone further. Had he done so he would have had my wholehearted support.

I was interested to hear Deputy Seán Flanagan talking about the long overdue amelioration which is incorporated in this Bill and under which, on the transfer of holdings, people will be able to qualify for old age pensions irrespective of whether or not there is somebody married in the holding. There is another aspect of that problem which I would ask the Minister to consider, particularly, when he will subsequently be dealing with a comprehensive social insurance scheme. It is a matter with which Deputy Seán Flanagan is as familiar as I am. Despite the extraordinary amelioration granted in the section to which I refer, we are up against the constant problem, in congested districts, where valuations seem to be fixed completely out of proportion to the intrinsic quality or value of land. While the amelioration, on the face of it, seems to be perfectly reasonable, you will find cases, particularly in isolated congested areas, where the benefit that is obviously the intention of the House to give to people, will not ensue.

There is a bigger and wider problem. There has been a lot of talk in this House about the means test throughout the years that I have been here. A means test is something that I abhor and it often puzzles me why somebody has not got the courage to do away with the thing holus-bolus, because any inequity that may arise is nearly always recaptured by taxation in some other direction. Mind you, it would stop an awful lot of talk in this House. It would stop an awful lot of cribbing about what this Deputy said yesterday and what the other Deputy said the day before. The Minister should tackle the problem of the means test on the broadest possible issue of endeavouring, at the earliest possible moment, to get rid of it altogether. I firmly believe that anybody who has served this State over a long period of years and arrives at the old age pension age should, irrespective of what his means may be, get that pension. I am quite certain that where the situation arises that he has more than adequate means, the Minister's colleague in the Department of Finance will have taken back more with one hand than he has given with the other.

This is a vexed problem. It is one that leads to what I consider to be the most obnoxious section of the whole code of old age pensions, the queer type of investigation that, by virtue of the existence of a means test, must be carried out. It is an unpleasant type of inquisition. The means test brings with it many facets and features into the ordinary rural areas, facets and features that we associate with very dark and evil days in this country. The Minister should go ahead with the idea of abolishing altogether a means test and remove this type of inquisition, this type of investigation, this type of hokery-pokery operating in areas in which one is trying to help a man to get a full pension.

I do not propose, as I said initially, to allow acrimony or bitterness into my discussion on this Bill. I feel that the Bill is something that this House in general gave a solemn undertaking to the country that it would implement. It is true that it may have been at a later stage of the election campaign that the present Government decided that they would undertake to implement it also. I think this Bill can properly be described as an instalment of justice to the old age pensioners, an instalment which has the unanimity of the House behind it. I appeal to the House and my appeal is, recognising that this is merely an instalment long overdue, we should endeavour to get the Bill on the statute book as quickly as possible so that the old age pensioners may reap the benefits. If Deputy Davern is desirous of expediting this Bill I think he would have been well advised to leave out certain portions of his speech so that this Bill may be able to serve the purpose for which it is designed of giving immediate remedial measures to people who are waiting anxiously for them and who are asking Deputies, irrespective of their Party allegiance, when will they get the extra 2/6.

Mr. Desmond

This measure is, first of all, a very important one and, secondly, it has received complete agreement in the House on both sides. The provisions in it are a step forward. It is a good thing to know that roughly 7,000 more people will qualify for pensions under this Bill. It is a good thing to know that people with an income of less than £22 2s. 6d. per annum will in future enjoy the full pension. It gives us some sense of satisfaction to know that provided certain people's incomes are not greater than £65 5s. per year they will enjoy a pension of not less than 5/- per week.

I do not wish to dwell upon the failures of the past and I think it well to remind Deputy Davern that it is not our function here to analyse past history and take out of that history certain little episodes that may suit our particular purpose at the moment. Possibly Deputy Davern may have been justified in objecting to certain statements made on this side of the House but I would remind him that during this debate statements were made on the Government Benches which cannot be justified. While we in the Labour Party are prepared to give the Government and the Minister our wholehearted support in a measure of this kind it is not fair that the proposals embodied in this measure should go forth to the public as being the proposals of the new Government and the new Minister for Social Welfare.

I do not suppose I need draw the Minister's attention to the statements he made here last March. He made it very clear then that in his view a person should be eligible to enjoy an income of about £2 per week and yet get the full pension. Politics aside, the present Minister should state clearly that this Bill has not deviated one iota from the relevant part of the Bill introduced by Deputy Norton when he was Minister in the last Government. The only difference is that this measure has been taken out of its context in the present Bill and divided into two short parts. There is the difference in this proposed Bill that while a person can enjoy a pension of not less than 5/- per week, even though his or her means are almost up to £65 5s. per year, prior to 1948 there were cases when the present Minister was in office where women whose husbands were working casually on the roads or as agricultural labourers or gardeners were given the miserable pittance of 1/- per week old age pension. I trust a benevolent Providence will see that that day is gone for ever.

Mr. Davern

That happened during the past three years.

Mr. Desmond

Deputy Davern should know, as a result of his experience in this House, that since January, 1949, a person could not enjoy a pension of less than 5/- per week.

Mr. Davern

I said it happened during the past three years.

Mr. Desmond

Deputy Davern apparently wants to forget just as some other members of the Fianna Fáil Party want to forget. Deputy McGrath last Thursday congratulated the present Minister in doing what he alleged Deputy Norton refused to do— granting an extra 2/6. Unless we are prepared to be completely dishonest we must admit that Deputy Norton, when Minister for Social Welfare, brought in a measure within nine or ten months after coming into office increasing old age pensions to a maximum of 17/6 and modifying the means test from £39 5s. Od. to £52 5s. Od. per year.

We are willing to support this measure purely as an interim measure because we believe the people who will benefit are entitled to this immediate assistance. I have no hesitation in saying that I am disappointed with the Bill inasmuch as the Minister has stated that he does not consider giving these increases together with the old age pension itself at 65 years of age. We know that when the comprehensive measure is introduced we will have more scope to deal with that particular matter. There is one Deputy here who is in the habit of making statements and then leaving the House before the statements can be either verified or contradicted. I refer to Deputy Captain Cowan. Unfortunately he is not present at the moment. Deputy Captain Cowan stated that Deputy Norton had almost to be badgered into giving the increase of 2/6. Deputy Captain Cowan knew full well when he was making that statement that it was a falsehood. He knew it was not true. Deputy Captain Cowan knows that the members of the Labour Party did not have to consult with him or any other Deputy when the pensions were increased in 1949 to 17/6 per week.

Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party know quite well that they were not speaking the truth when they stated that these increases would never have been given until after the election. Before the election came off the former Minister's Bill was under discussion on the Second Stage, and the present Minister introduced many amendments to it. In that Bill not alone were old age pensions increased but provision was made under which people would become eligible for pension at the age of 65.

I shall conclude by saying that I congratulate and compliment the Minister on following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Deputy Norton, in so far as he is giving the right to Old I.R.A. pensioners to secure an old age pension if the income from the I.R.A. pension does not exceed £80 at the present time. All these points had been embodied in the Bill already introduced in this House. They are now segregated from it and put into this small Bill. I say good luck to the Minister, as we do not desire any delay in passing this Bill through the House, but we of the Labour Party are determined to see that this is but one step forward. While it is but one step forward, it at least shows different treatment from the time when the old age pensioners had but 10/- a week, plus 2/6 that they might get from the home assistance officer. Thanks be to God, that day has gone, but we shall be anxiously awaiting the introduction of the measure which the present Minister was supposed to have ready on his files in 1948 or, at least, which some of his colleagues said was ready. The present Tánaiste stated that everything was ready. Everything is ready now, and everything has been ready for quite a while in so far as this Bill is concerned, because it marks no changes on the proposals concerning old age pensions brought forward by the previous Government. Because of that and because of the fact that old age pensioners will enjoy a little more than they had when the last Government came into office, we wish God speed to the Bill.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,

Mr. Cafferky

I should first of all like to congratulate my friend, Deputy Seán Flanagan, from my own constituency, on his maiden speech this afternoon. With many of the things he said in the course of that speech I do not agree but, apart from that, it is encouraging to see young men entering this Parliament and facing in an unbiased manner the various problems with which this Assembly is confronted. Many things have been said in the course of the debate since 4 o'clock which I think had better been left unsaid. We have had a considerable amount of repetition. I have listened for three or four hours to Deputy after Deputy getting up, repeating his own statement, and also what some other Deputies had already said on a measure which I think it is the unanimous desire to pass through the House as speedily as possible. Every Deputy has made it clear that he is in favour of the Bill. Why, then, the controversy and why labour the points made in favour of the Bill? Why play politics with the weaker sections of the community? Why make old age pensioners the plaything of politics on platforms, in the county councils and in Dáil Éireann? I think it is a disgrace to try to catch votes or to try to popularise ourselves in the eyes of the public by playing politics with the old age pensioners. I think the sooner we realise that the better it will be for this Assembly.

I have not a great deal to say on the Bill but I shall endeavour to strike a new note on it. Whether this Bill was introduced by the inter-Party Government or by the present Government, I am surprised that it contains a means test. During my time here, from 1943 to 1948, I listened to many Deputies and I can assure you they were very vocal in denouncing the means test. I listened to some of those Deputies this afternoon but I heard nothing about the abolition of the means test. No matter how just or how considerate we may be in compiling figures in formulating a means test, with a view to giving the greatest comfort to the greatest number of old age pensioners, we still shall have men and women who will be unjustly treated and victimised arising out of the means test.

You will have pension officers compiling figures and taking into consideration certain means and ways of livelihood, especially amongst the rural community, who by such a method, perhaps not intentionally, will deprive certain old people of the maximum old age pension. When I entered this House in 1943 I was opposed to the means test. I stood for its abolition on public platforms and in the Dáil and I stand for that to-day. I think that in this year of grace, 1951, it is wrong that we should have a means test in connection with the granting of an old age pension. I would be prepared to associate with any Party or group in this Assembly in the removal of that means test irrespective of what it will cost in the form of taxation to the general public.

It may be argued that without a means test there are people in this country who when they reach the qualifying age would accept an old age pension although not strictly entitled to it because of their financial position. There may be and there may not be, but if there are that would not justify us in embodying a means test in this Bill when we know that no matter how careful we are, we may injure certain people whom it is not our intention to injure because it is impossible for the pension officer in compiling his figures under such a means test to do justice to every claimant for the old age pension. It is for that reason I am opposed to it. I confess that I am surprised at the Labour Party more than any other Party standing for a means test in reference to old age pensioners, widows and orphans and the blind. I know well that the Leader of that Party was very vocal in his denunciation of the means test in the course of my term in this Dáil from 1943 to 1948. In every part of the House—from both the present Labour Party, my own Party, and the Fine Gael Party—we found Deputies willing to co-operate to bring pressure to bear on the Minister then in charge of that Department to try to convince him of the necessity for removing the means test.

We find now years afterwards a means test embodied in a new Bill which we were led to believe was a step forward. It is a very small step forward when related to the present cost of living. It is really no step forward; it is only barely acknowledging our responsibility to the aged and infirm and those who are incapable of earning a living owing to old age.

I am surprised at the maximum income allowed of £65 5s. It is very easy for a pensions officer to calculate such an income out of any small holding in the West by taking every hen, pig and cow, whether of value or not, and relating them to a certain income in the year. When he has summed these up, in many cases we find that old age pensioners do not qualify for the full amount. That is unfair. I am also surprised that the old age pension is not being given at the age of 65. I am not going to argue as to what was the policy of the inter-Party Government on that matter because I was not a member during their administration. We should not go into these things. I appeal to the younger Deputies, irrespective of Party, to try and cut adrift from the bigotry and the feeling of hatred that exists in this House arising out of the civil war. We should try to forget it as far as the business of this House is concerned. It is no credit to Deputies who delay the business of the House by referring to debates that have taken place in the past. We should look to the future and work for the future and in the interest of the people who have sent us here instead of delaying the business of the House by dealing with something which is no concern of ours or of the people who sent us here. As I say, I am surprised that the Government did not consider giving the old age pension at 65. Deputy S. Flanagan pointed out that it is unfair to ask people to retire at 65. We are not asking people to retire at 65 if they get the pension. If they wish to continue working on the land, they are entitled to continue working, but we should remember that from their twentieth year they have given 45 years service on the land in producing food and fuel and helping to feed the people in the cities and towns. If they are to enjoy a little comfort as a result of getting the pension they should get it at the age of 65.

In many instances the old age pensioner who qualifies for the pension at 70 is never able to draw it himself because he is too feeble. Old age pensioners often tell you: "We get it a little bit too late; we do not get much comfort out of it." They are not able to enjoy it. They do not spend it themselves; it is spent for them. For that reason I do not accept Deputy S. Flanagan's view that by giving the old age pension at 65 we are retiring people against their will. I can understand a doctor or a civil servant at 65 wishing to continue for another five or six years and being quite capable of carrying out his duties. He is doing a type of work which helps him to pass the day. If he has to retire, he finds it very difficult to fit himself into his new environment or to fit himself into new employment if he is able to secure it. But the old person, particularly in rural Ireland, who can continue to work on the land helping his son or daughter should get the pension at 65. I ask the Minister to consider that. If he cannot see his way to do it in this Bill, he should do it in some future Bill or when he is drafting the comprehensive Social Welfare Bill. He should put a section in that Bill granting the old age pension at 65 and abolishing the means test. The Government that does that will receive the blessing of the old age pensioners.

When I was a member of the Dáil formerly we talked frequently about the money sent by emigrants in Great Britain to their parents at home, so that the parents could keep it for them. In computing the means for the old age pension for the parents that money is always taken into account. I hope that every pensions officer will be instructed by the Department not to take that money into account in future. In the West it is customary for emigrants in America or Great Britain to send home large sums of money to their parents, who put the money into the post office or into a bank. That money is given back to their children when they are going to get married. These emigrants trust their parents to keep the money for them. They do not bind their parents to any legal agreement because they have sufficient confidence that when the time comes to settle down the parents will hand back the money to them. But, as I say, that money is taken into account when assessing the means of parents who apply for an old age pension. That is unfair, and I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to advise the Minister to instruct pensions officers in the rural areas, particularly in the West of Ireland, not to take that money into consideration in applying the means test. Any pensions officer who is conversant with the system obtaining in the West of Ireland knows well that what I say is true. He knows well that these small farmers could never put by £500 or £1,000 out of their savings. He knows that such parents have two or three sons or daughters working in Great Britain or in America and that the money in the bank has been sent home by them. These people would rather go hungry than spend a shilling of that money without their children's permission. Is it not unfair, when it comes to applying the means test for the old age pension for the parents, that, in many instances, this money should prevent them from getting the full amount of the pension, and in some instances from getting any pension?

As I said, I cannot compliment the Minister on the introduction of this Bill. Neither is it my intention to compliment his predecessor of the inter-Party Government, because what is being given in this Bill is long overdue. Old age pensioners have been crying out for an increase in their pension since I entered into politics in 1941, and I do not know how long before that. When the comprehensive Social Welfare Bill is introduced, I hope the old age pension will be granted at 65 and the means test abolished, no matter what the cost will be.

I would like to remind the Minister that the old age pensions committees in various towns and villages throughout rural Ireland, who hear the cases of the old age pensioners who have been refused a pension by the old age pensions officer, have no function. They are only deceiving the people. They have no function because when they have heard the case, which sometimes involves the old age pensioner travelling ten miles, no matter how sympathetically disposed they may be towards the applicant, the pensions officer has the last word and his word is final in the Department. Where do the functions of these committees come in? In nine out of ten cases, the pensions officer's word is accepted against that of the committee. Why cod the people and waste their time and have all this paraphernalia and expense of committees when they can do nothing and have no power, when it is the pensions officer's point of view that is accepted and not the point of view of the committee? I am anxious that the Minister should look into that matter. When a pensions committee recommends that the full amount should be paid in a certain case, that should be accepted no matter what may be said by the pensions officer because I am sure that the committees, consisting of the local dispensary doctor, the curate, the parish priest, farmers and a few business people, are much more conversant with the situation of the applicant than an officer who lives in a town and who, to a degree, is out of touch with the circumstances and the way of life of the particular applicant.

I know of many instances where the pensions officers have gone into the barns and counted the chains or ropes there for tying cattle and it was sufficient for them to see those and it did not matter whether the cattle were there or not. The same applies in respect of all other things that they take into account in operating the means test. It is because of that that I am opposed to it and that I was more than surprised that the inter-Party Government would have stood for a means test and that the Labour Party, in particular, would ever permit it to be embodied in any Bill under the heading of social welfare.

I would have made the same speech as I am making to-night if the inter-Party Government were in power and if I were a member of that Government on the other side of the House. I would ask Deputies, particularly young Deputies, who have no grudge to bear, who are not suffering from any bitterness arising out of political or parliamentary advantages or out of the civil war, to address themselves to the problems of to-day, to try to do something for the people who sent them here rather than waste the time of the House on something that does not count. I hope this Bill will get a speedy passage—it is long overdue— notwithstanding the fact that it has many defects, including the two to which I have referred.

Mr. Byrne

I will not detain the House very long because most of the things I wish to say have been said already by other speakers. I wish to draw the attention of the Minister to the fact that it is exactly two months since the old age pensioners were told they would get an increase of 2/6. Because of delays and discussions in this House, two months have passed and the old age pensioners have not got their increase yet. I would ask the Minister to consider the desirability of giving old age pensioners arrears of pension from whatever date he is now prepared to fix so that if the discussion lasts much longer either here or in the Seanad the old age pensioners will not be the sufferers. They ought to be put in a position that they can anticipate a month's arrears of pension when the Bill is passed.

Other speakers have drawn attention to the fact that children's allowances have not been increased. They thought the Bill would be a comprehensive one and would give increases in children's allowances or at any rate that the first two children would be included in the present inadequate allowances. Bad as they are, that would have been something to go on. I earnestly hope that this Bill is only a beginning of reforms in that direction and that there will be fulfilment of promises that have been made on all sides of the House.

I was talking to-day to a very ordinary workman who has to pay a certain amount of income-tax. He put a case to me which I did not quite follow as I had not studied the matter. He suggested that because the pension is over £50 a year the person who is supporting the old age pensioner will be deprived of income-tax allowance in respect of the old age pensioner. I would ask the Minister to deal with that matter for me and to see that an arrangement will be made whereby the person supporting the pensioner will not be deprived of the allowance that was granted heretofore.

I understand that there is some difficulty in the old age pensions regulations in the case of a man who reaches the age of 70 years and is entitled to pension but who has certain stamps to his credit. The figure is based upon his earnings in the previous year and sometimes he does not get the full benefits to which he would be entitled in respect of stamps and is told to go back for three or six months on the old age pension.

Mr. Kennedy

He draws his full benefits for his stamps.

Mr. Byrne

I understand that he suffers some loss because he does not get the full benefit in the way of unemployment assistance or unemployment benefit.

Mr. Kennedy

In the case of unemployment insurance he gets the full benefit.

Mr. Byrne

I am glad I have aroused the Parliamentary Secretary to consider the point because I know that the person who made the case to me has some knowledge of the matter and knows what he is talking about. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to bring to the notice of the Minister the fact that it is two months since the old age pensioners were promised an increase of 2/6. That is only a step in the right direction. At the time the words used were "a temporary increase of 2/6." Old age pensioners understood at that time both from the Government and from the Opposition— who also favoured the idea then and I think they do so to-day—that it would be only temporary. I earnestly appeal to the Government to follow up the matter and to put their intentions into effect. I hope that the half-crown will be considered as a step in the right direction and that the promise to increase children's allowances will not be overlooked.

Mr. Keane

I should like to bring before the Minister a few points which are of vital importance in the administration of this new Bill. In the constituency that I represent, there are three towns where a number of young men, through no fault of their own, at one particular period in the life of this country, since 1914, had to offer their services as soldiers to an alien Power. They came back, as they were entitled to do. The soldier, irrespective of whom he fights for, should be appreciated for having guts and for coming back to live in this country. Just because these people are in receipt of pensions from the British Government they are deprived of certain facilities which at the moment we are inclined to remove from our own soldiers.

I think it is about time that the soldiers who fought in the 1914-18 war should get the same recognition as the men who fought in the 1921 war for freedom. It was not through any fault of their own or through any loyalty to John Bull—it was simply through force of circumstances in this country or maybe because of a certain fighting propensity that was in them—that made these men go out and fight in the British Army. We should be big enough to realise that at the moment they are suffering under a certain disadvantage. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to convey my request to the Minister to have all these cases reviewed so that every Irishman, irrespective of the army he belonged to, will be put on the same basis.

There is another system in operation at the moment to which I should like to refer. It is incumbent on the investigation officers in rural Ireland at any rate to review 10 per cent. of the cases of old age pensioners in their bailiwicks every year. I think that should be done away with. The condition with regard to the means test is that in one year certain people would be entitled to receive the full pension. If, however, in the following year they should become better off, due to the fact that their children may have become more fully alive to their obligations to their parents, their cases come within the classification whereby the investigation officer is bound to make a review of what they are receiving, the result being that their pension is probably reduced.

When Deputy Byrne was speaking, I was wondering if he was just hitting at a system which did operate at one time. It is a system which, I understand, has been done away with to a great extent. To put this matter in its proper perspective, I will take a road worker as an example. The road worker's earnings for 12 months were taken into consideration under the means test when the investigation officer was investigating his case. The road worker, however, did not get the full pension for three or six months after the date that he was entitled to get it. I believe that that system has been set aside to a great extent.

I should like to conclude by congratulating Deputies on all sides of the House in giving of their best in the discussion on this Bill. None of us can help the little bit of human nature that is in us. If I say something to some other member, he is inclined to dig back at me. That is human nature. At the same time, I would like to say that every member of the House, in his contribution on this Bill, was actuated by the one motive, namely, to try and benefit the old age pensioners to the greatest extent possible.

I would like to reply to what Deputy Cafferky said with regard to the onus which, he said, was on the Labour Party for the introduction of the means test. May I point out that the members of the Labour Party were just a unit in the inter-Party Government? We still hold our own views. Deputy Cafferky spoke of exploitation. Before he again indulges in a personal castigation of the Labour Party I would ask him to practise what he preaches. If we went out on a public platform and announced that we were in favour of the abolition of the means test when we were not in the position to abolish it, I believe that would be exploitation of the very worst form. It would be unjust to the people we were exploiting, namely, the widows, the orphans, the old age pensioners and the blind pensioners. Thank God, some of us, anyway, have not descended to that form of exploitation. I would like to say a few more things on that so that they may be on the official records for future reference at general elections. I must say that I was not a bit convinced of the sincerity of a certain amount that was said by Deputy Cafferky. I was listening, I thought, to what was more or less a dissertation of his. I can assure the Deputy from Mayo that we will look after the interests of the people we represent. I thank God that a lot of us will never stoop to any form of exploitation to be used afterwards on public platforms. We will carry on our fight in as clean a way as we possibly can, and if we are beaten we will take our beating.

I think that the Department itself was also put on the spot by Deputy Cafferky. I have the greatest pleasure in testifying to what my experience has been of the Department of Social Welfare since I became a Deputy three and a half years ago. I have found the greatest pleasure in working with the officials of that Department. If I failed in any case that I brought to their notice, I knew for certain that the case was one in which a pension could not be allowed by the Department due to the statutory regulations which must be observed rather than any departmental regulations. During my time I came in contact with three or four officials in that Department, and I must say that I received nothing from them but the greatest courtesy, respect and consideration. What more could a Deputy expect from any Department in the Republic of Ireland? My last words are to congratulate the Leas-Cheann Comhairle on the way in which he has conducted the business of the House during the short time he has been in the Chair since his election. I want to say that, even though I went into the lobby against his election.

Mr. Cunningham

Along the Border there is this peculiar thing to be considered, that the people there at different times are inclined to change their residence from one side to the other, from the Twenty-Six Counties to the Six, and back again. Under the present regulations, I think the position is that, in order to qualify for an old age pension, one must be resident in the Twenty-Six Counties for a period of two years. I have in mind cases where the persons concerned are natives of the Twenty-Six Counties. They take up work in the Six Counties. When old age comes on them they move back to their original homes. In my opinion, when those people do that they should not be faced with any difficulty when making application for an old age pension. That is a point which I think the Parliamentary Secretary should keep in mind. It applies not only to the County Donegal, but I am sure to every other county along the Border.

Mr. W. Murphy

As a new Deputy, I listened last week and this afternoon to the debate on this Bill. I would like to say, even though the speakers on it have been at times carried back into the past by the prejudices of that past, that I still think it was a consolation to find that what each and all of us desire to do is to give to the old and the aged the extra few shillings which they require to provide themselves with the few necessary extra comforts they need at all times.

Seeing that that has been dealt with from all and every angle of the House, there is another matter which I would like to bring before the Minister this evening, which comes under the same category, namely the widows' and orphans' pensions. I mean to deal only with a certain type of case, and that is the widow in poor circumstances. Every member of this House knows just as well as I do that, between the time of her application and the time that her claim is settled, she has to go to the local authority, and through the home assistance officers of that authority get home assistance to enable her to carry her on in that intervening period. I want to point out to the Minister where the injustice comes in. It takes eight and sometimes ten weeks to settle her claim. During that time she is drawing not more than 10/- a week. Her widow's pension is granted retrospectively from the date of her application, but she does not get all the money due to her. What she has drawn in home assistance is deducted, and she gets the paltry sum which is left, and is expected to carry on with that. I consider that an injustice, and I would ask the Minister to have it removed. It is my first suggestion to him. I do not intend to lengthen the debate or to stand between the old age pensioners and the passing as quickly as possible of their Bill. We have been asked here on more than one occasion for constructive ideas. I am putting the above to the Minister as one constructive idea. I would like to see an immediate remedy, and I ask the Minister to give it his kind and courteous consideration.

Captain Giles

I welcome this Bill. It is not a contentious Bill. I may say it is agreed measure, because the outgoing Government promised the half-crown before the last election, the incoming Government promised to fulfil it and they have fulfilled it. It is a very welcome Bill and a measure of justice to our own people. We all know that £1 to-day is worth only 10/-. Even at any time, 10/- would not have gone very far. I am glad that each election brings an advance in social legislation in this House. At election time the bidding is very high, and the victorious party must put some of its promises into effect, so that old age pensioners and those others benefiting from social services should welcome early and many elections. Every election over the past ten or 15 years has brought some assistance to the aged, the sick and the infirm. Certainly, the last election has brought the half-crown to the fore. I think we are all agreed on this point: that there has been too much political play-acting in connection with old age pensions. There has hardly been a platform, even from my side, on which somebody has not mentioned them, and, with all that was mentioned, very little was ever done. I would like this House as a whole to be able to have something of an agreed measure. We should agree to give the old age pensioners something over and above the bare 20/-, say 25/-, and have done with it, because if our cost of living goes up, so does theirs. Let us give them something decent for the few short years they have to live. This would be a wholesome act for the country.

Whether there should be a means test or not is a very contentious problem. I consider the means test as really being a measure of social justice and I am all for it. I come from a county where there is a vast amount of wealth and a vast amount of poverty. I certainly would not stand for a man who owns 300 or 400 acres of land getting an old age pension, when it is the bounden duty of his sons or daughters to provide for him in his old age if he is in need. If we have a little money to spare we ought to spend it generously on those who are unable to fend for themselves. It is the bounden duty of sons and daughters to come to their parents' aid in their old age.

One hears people talking about removing the means test. Do they realise what this means in taxation? It might mean as much as £6, £8 or £10,000,000. These people would give a pension to a man with 350 acres of land, several thousand pounds in the bank and living in luxury over the last 20 or 30 years. In my view, the means test is nothing more than social justice. We should give up this talk about removing the means test. Where will it land us but in the position that we will not be able to meet the bill?

Many charges are laid on the backs of the taxpayer which they should not be asked to bear. There are many people very well off who could easily look after themselves in their old age. They should not come under the heading of getting an old age pension or any other type of pension. They should be well able to fend for themselves.

Children owe a duty to their parents to see that they do not want in their old age. I do not believe in having a socialist State such as they have in Britain and other countries. I do not believe in bringing in this pagan idea. There is no reason why this Christian and Catholic State should go in for that form of State. We should try to uplift the people as a whole by leaving them in the position in which they will be able to fend for themselves. Let us do all we can for the aged, the sick and the blind and those who cannot fend for themselves. Let us come to their aid 100 per cent. If we are doing that we are building up a country of which the world can be proud.

I do not believe in all this whining and crying about social services because half of them are not social services at all when you boil them down— nothing more than a blister on the people who have to carry the baby. Many people in this country are very badly off but the person who can get £1 a week from the State to help him on is fairly well off. I certainly agree that where an old age pensioner is living on his own and has no one to look after him, it is very little. On the other hand, there are very few pensioners in this country who have nobody to fend for them. If they have sons and daughters, whether they be in Great Britain or America, or anywhere else, there is no reason why they should not be comfortable in their advancing years.

I welcome this Bill. It is a non-contentious measure and one which has not come before its time. That 2/6 increase is overdue. The cost of living has gone up over the past few years. If it has gone up for ourselves, surely it has gone up for the old age pensioners in the same manner. This Bill is barely a measure of justice which should have come 12 months ago. Better late than never. We should be grateful to the incoming and outgoing Governments for fulfilling their promises.

We have heard about the pension officers being very strict, hard and rigorous men throughout the country. I believe that, but there is one thing certain, they find out things we would not be able to find out. I am a member of an old age pensions board for a good number of years. We make every effort to obtain pensions for the old people who come before us. But the old age pension investigation officer has a means of finding out things that we know nothing about.

I believe that if the investigation officer finds out the exact position, he acts in honour and justice and does his best as an employee of the State to hold the balance evenly. In my county, we have some very hardworking officers who fine-comb down to the last, but who, when it comes to a question of going half-way, are not bitter or hard on the old age pensioner. They do their best to help, but they want, first of all, to get the facts, and we who are more or less their employers must agree that that is their job. If they did not do it, they should not be there at all.

We have not got very much power on old age pension committees, but they bring us in touch with people and with the officers, and enable us to see how things are run and where the shoe is pinching, and we are, therefore, able to do a fair amount of good. We are able to get the facts, and then come up to the Custom House to fight our cases. If we have a fairly good case, the officers in the Custom House will meet us half-way, and, if there is any doubt, will give the benefit of that doubt to the applicant. I welcome the Bill, which is an overdue measure of justice for people who deserve it.

Mr. Kyne

Deputy Cowan claims that it was he and the members of the Labour Party who induced the inter-Party Government to agree to the half-crown increase. With his usual modesty, he suggests that Deputy Peadar Cowan was the important factor in that group. But we find that his present colleague, Deputy Cogan, claims that the very opposite was the case, that the halfcrown was to be used as a smoke-screen. I will give his exact words in that connection, because they are interesting. At column 767 of the Official Reports of the 28th June, Deputy Cogan said:

"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."

That was Deputy Cowan's colleague's view, quite distinct from what Deputy Cowan thought. Apparently Deputy Cogan believes that it was purely with the intention of forcing the Social Welfare Bill through that the then Labour Minister put this provision in the Bill. He goes on then to say that it was four Independent Deputies, with the help of Fianna Fáil, who changed the position under this Government and induced them to bring in this Bill. If one is to imply from that, and I think it is a natural inference, that, when this Bill goes through, there will be an end of the proposed social welfare plan, I am not in favour of this Bill. We have an assurance from the Minister, however, an assurance which I am prepared to accept, that it is not the intention of this Government to refrain from putting a Social Welfare Bill through and I am afraid that Deputy Cogan will find that he will be let down because his only justification for opposing the way in which it was introduced by the previous Government was that it safeguarded the passage of the Social Welfare Bill. I will leave Deputy Cogan to his own conscience and his own constituents.

Why this Bill was introduced does not make much material difference to the old age pensioners. Sufficient for all of us it should be that the Bill is long overdue and that an increased pension is very necessary because of the increased cost of living. I agree with my colleague, Deputy Hickey, that we merit no pat on the back and no fine tributes from the old age pensioners for our generosity in providing 20/- a week, because 20/- must surely be the minimum amount to enable a person with no other means to survive at present. I am disappointed that the Minister has not seen fit to modify the means test in conformity with his own suggestion that the full pension should be paid to a person with £100 or less per year. I do not say that in any spirit of wishing to go back to what any Deputy said and contrasting it with his present attitude. It is well known that people who had certain ideas when in Opposition find, when they come to occupy ministerial posts and take part in a Government as members of a team, that they are not free to introduce the things they believe in and desire because of certain consequences, such as the taxation that would have to be imposed and the demand of other Departments for money; but I feel that the Minister, if he possibly can, should introduce an amendment on Committee Stage whereby the upper limit of the means test will be increased, if not up to the figure of £100, to at least some point beyond the present figure. Such an amendment would receive full cooperation and support from all sides of the House, irrespective of political kudos or capital.

I am not quite in agreement with Deputy Cafferky, who suggested that the investigation officers were something like the members of the Spanish Inquisition. Neither do I agree with Deputy Giles, who sought to make them out to be angels. I suggest, however, that, in computing means, and especially the means of people who work on the land and own a few acres, the officer is inclined to show the full receipts, without giving as full a measure of allowance for expenses, such as hiring costs, bad debts in the case of shops and so on, with the result that an exaggerated profit is shown.

As proof of that, I point out that the deciding officers in the Department in practically 50 per cent. of the cases have allowed a bigger amount of money than the investigation officer has recommended and that the old age pensioner, on appeal, has offset the decision of the investigation officer in 50 per cent. of the cases. That indicates that these officers are, to say the least of it, overzealous in carrying out their duties. Perhaps that is a good thing, but I feel that, if there is a doubt in the mind of the officer, the benefit of that doubt should be given to the old age pensioner. If the Minister would introduce an amendment—or if he would express agreement with such an amendment, conditional on it receiving the unanimous support of the House, if introduced by members of the Opposition—to extend further the modification of the means test, he would be carrying out a promise that was made when in Opposition and would be carrying out the wishes of the members of the House and the wishes of the tax-payers who, I believe, would be prepared to face additional taxation of a mild form so that the old and the blind, the two most defenceless type of people, could receive their pensions.

There are many of us who believe that when persons have survived to the age of 70 they should as a right receive their pension and that money should not be spent in checking back to see whether during their lifetime they have saved any money, to see whether any son or daughter is contributing to them, as is the normal way of a dutiful son or daughter. I suggest that a means test of a rigid character is putting a penalty on the thrifty. It is encouraging people to spend as they earn during their lifetime, assured that if they do so and they survive to 70 they will be guaranteed at least a certain amount.

I also suggest, and I have suggested to the last Minister, that the money spent on investigation would be better used if it went to increase the pensions, by whatever small amount, of the old and the blind. I can assure the Minister of the full support of the Labour Party Deputies in any measure such as this that will improve the position of the old or blind people of this country.

Mr. Corry

This is a Bill we can all welcome here and I am very glad that it has been brought in as a bald, single measure, cut away from the Social Security Bill, which would undoubtedly have taken months to go through this House. I am afraid there was a lot in what Deputy Cogan said about the smoke-screen, when we remember that this Bill first saw the light of day as an amendment.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,

Mr. Corry

This Bill first saw the light of day as an amendment to the Social Security Bill. It was not in that Bill as introduced, but it came in here as a palliative or as the price to be paid for the support of certain Deputies in getting the Bill through. I have heard appeals made by the present Minister from those benches opposite at that time, to have this matter taken as a Bill, instead of an amendment, and brought directly before the House and passed so that the pensioners would be paid and it would not be used as a bribe. That is the position it occupied until it was reintroduced by Dr. Ryan. I welcome the Bill——

Mr. O'Hara

On a point of order, the Deputy should not refer to the Minister as Dr. Ryan.

Mr. Corry

Is there anything wrong with it? If the Deputy had been here at that time and had seen some of the things I saw, he would keep his mouth shut now.

Mr. O'Hara

I see the Deputy and that is enough.

Mr. Corry

I might not be seeing the Deputy too long. I do not know what will happen to him after a while. I have seen a lot like him here from time to time. I agree with Deputy Keane about the position of the ordinary worker who finds he has to work up to the day he reaches the age of 70 and then finds that calculation on means is made covering his previous 12 months' work. I was told that that was largely weighted on one side, until I had a few cases and found out it was not. I think that should end. When an ordinary worker, in order to earn his daily bread, must work as a farmer or on the roads or somewhere else up to the day he reaches 70, it is unjust that that calculation should be made against him and used to deprive him of portion of his pension. Every one of us here, with perhaps the exception of Deputy Giles, would get rid of the means test altogether if we could. I think more is spent in trying to find out the means than it would cost, perhaps, if we gave nearly it all. This chasing and tearing to find out a person's means would be better avoided.

I remember having to write to the previous Minister, suggesting that the gentleman who made up the table showing the profit on three-quarters of an acre of beet should be transferred immediately from the Department of Social Welfare to the Department of Agriculture, as a special adviser to the Minister, in view of the profit he was able to knock out of an acre of beet, a profit that none of us ever saw. You find inspectors, with very little or no knowledge of agriculture, going into rural districts and making calculations of means. It is time that some curb was put on their activities.

Another matter which I would like to bring before the Minister is the means test on an old farmer and his wife with a small acreage of land. The position is that that old man and woman have a couple of sons and daughters there who have been working that holding, and without whose help and practically unpaid labour the holding would be gone long ago. The calculation in this respect should cease. Any unfortunate devil working on a farm up to the age of 70 should not have any question about getting his pension because he has done purgatory enough in this world.

We have the question of people who lived in this country, who go to other countries and then come back here, and I have one particular case in mind. I wonder what is wrong that those people cannot get the old age pension at the age of 70 when they come back. To endeavour to classify them as a different kind of individual is wrong. These annoyances, if you like, are creeping in making people dissatisfied and leading very largely to soreness among the people. Practically every old person at the age of 70 considers himself entitled to something from the State, a pension, and this thing of inspectors coming out poking and nosing around to see if people have collected a penny in their lifetime should stop. It is all very well for Deputy Captain Giles to talk about the 250-acre man——

Captain Giles

Are you afraid you will not come under it?

Mr. Corry

It is very seldom that you find a 100-acre man looking for an old age pension.

Captain Giles

I saw a 350-acre man looking for it.

Mr. Corry

There is a different mentality in Meath from other counties.

Captain Giles

He was a Cork man.

Mr. Corry

Deputy Captain Giles should come down for a while and we will civilise him.

We should have some lightening off and the inspectors who come to rural areas should have some way of calculating means besides the cheque the farmer gets for an acre of beet or the cheque he gets from the creamery at the end of the month.

If he considered the cost of the production of the milk and the beet he would find that those people had no income whatever. I am afraid that we have abuses against a section of our community on whom we should not inflict any abuses because if there is one section of our community which I am sure all sides are anxious to serve and see happy it is our aged and infirm. I welcome this Bill on that account and congratulate the Minister on bringing it in, without waiting for any Social Welfare Bill, in a simple measure that can get through the House quickly.

Dr. Ryan

I do not know if I am more sensitive than I was when I last stood here three and a half years ago. I do not think I am, but if I am right in that I do not think I have ever listened to a more dishonest, more insincere, more misinformed and more misrepresentative debate than I have listened to in the last few days. During the last few hours it has proceeded as I would have expected a debate like this to proceed, that is on its merits, but some earlier speakers seemed to give their whole time to misrepresenting the Fianna Fáil attitude and, indeed, the Fine Gael attitude too, because they misrepresented the Fine Gael attitude by trying to make them out to be the great reformers with regard to social welfare in this country. The debate, however, has concluded and it is as well that I should deal with some of the points that were raised. I did try to stop the misrepresentation when Deputy Flanagan and Deputy O'Higgins were talking, but I found that I had to interrupt on an average of once a minute during their long speeches and I gave up in despair and let them say what they liked. It will not do an awful lot of good to them and certainly it will not do any good to the country.

Some speakers pretended not to understand that this is an Old Age Pensions Bill and that there is also on the stocks a comprehensive Social Welfare Bill. They tried to confuse the issue by saying that when in Opposition I had promised certain things which I had not produced in this Bill. I do not know whether these Deputies listened to or read my introductory speech or whether they want to be properly informed on these matters. I am very strongly inclined to the view that they do not want to be properly informed but that they would much prefer to build their speeches on misrepresentation. My introductory speech was not a very long one or a very hard one to read if Deputies were looking for information. I said (column 749, June 28th, 1951):

"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."

When bringing in this Bill I had thought that Deputies would all be glad to do something for the old age pensioners and that they would all be agreed to do it, but judging by the speeches of Deputies Norton, Dunne, Flanagan and O'Higgins I should think that they were very disappointed that I brought in the Bill because there is no other explanation for the type of speeches they made. Deputy Norton was very sore and indeed he, like Deputy O'Higgins and some of the others, talked in a very bitter way and forecast the short time that I might be here. That may be true or it may not, but I think that Deputies Norton and O'Higgins and the other bitter Deputies would be better off if they settled down to work in constructive Opposition rather than nurse their disappointment at the kick they got from the people in the last election.

Mr. Norton

You are the minority, remember.

Dr. Ryan

They should forget about what the people did to them. Politicians must put up with that.

Mr. O'Hara

It is hard to put up with Deputy Captain Cowan; it is hard for you.

Dr. Ryan

I do not think I need defend him. Deputy Norton said early in his speech (column 752):—

"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 the 2nd March."

Mr. Norton

Will the Minister quote me on that?

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy said:—

"Produce a Bill giving effect to what he promised on 2nd March in respect of the means test."

Mr. Norton

In other words, instead of getting my Bill printed print your own amendments.

Dr. Ryan

I am extremely grateful to Deputy Norton. The Deputy has an even better opinion of me than I have of myself—of course I have not a very high opinion of myself it must be admitted—because Deputy Norton was in office for three years and three months before he produced anything and he wants me to produce everything in two weeks. That would be expecting too much even from a much better man.

Mr. Norton

You have run away from your own amendments.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Norton should have some regard for realities and even though his experience in this House for the last 25 years may have given him the impression—and truly—that Fianna Fáil can do things better than the Labour Party, still it is too much to expect that I should do in two weeks what Deputy Norton took three years and two months to do. But he expects that I can.

Deputy Norton told us here, when he was apologising for doing nothing for three years and three months, when he was telling this Government on the first night we were elected what a beautiful country the Coalition Government was handing over to us, that he had made this country social-welfare minded. He said he had settled all the difficulties in these three years and three months. He said he had come to 70 or 80 decisions during that time and had left a Bill ready for this Government to bring in. Is that not a great boast by Deputy Norton? Is that not a great boast by a man who was able to come to a decision on an average once a fortnight and who was able to tabulate these 70 or 80 decisions and say: "Now you go on with the Bill"?

Mr. Norton

I made hundreds of decisions.

Dr. Ryan

The Deputy said 70 or 80 decisions.

Mr. Norton

Look in the Department's files.

Dr. Ryan

Those 70 or 80 decisions are there ready for me after three years and three months—and Deputy Norton accuses me, after two weeks, of not being able to come to three or four decisions or to bring in a more elaborate Bill than the Bill which was introduced. Evidently, Deputy Norton is more piqued by the introduction of this Bill than he is pleased with the good it is going to do for the old age pensioners. He tries to confuse the issue and he has succeeded— to judge by some of the speeches made by his back-benchers who made speeches after listening to him and without reading my speech and the Bill. He has succeeded in confusing the issue and in giving these Deputies the impression that this is the last word of Fianna Fáil.

He knows very well that this Bill was brought in as a separate measure, to be followed by a complete scheme of social welfare. At column 753 of the Official Report of same date he quotes me as saying, on the occasion of the discussion of the Social Welfare Bill in this House when I was in opposition, that I proposed a new way of calculating means for old age pensioners, that I mentioned that a person who was insured would not have to face a means test, that a person who owned a holding the poor law valuation of which was less than £25 would not be subject to a means test nor a person with a cash income of less than £100 per year. Deputy Norton proceeded from that, and he gave the Dáil a very long discourse on the evolution of my ideas on social welfare—and they were very interesting to Deputy Norton. He said that in 1948 we said that we would give retiring allowances at 65. He said that during the debate here in March of this year I departed from that promise, and said that I did not agree with the retiring allowance at 65. He said further that as far as the means test is concerned there was another change when the Committee Stage came along. What he said is true. It is true that when we were a Government facing the people in 1948 we issued a pamphlet promising that if we were returned to power we would bring in a retiring allowance at 65. Three years later, when we were in Opposition, I proposed here that we should not do that, but that we should give old age pensions at 70. Any Deputy, especially any Deputy who thinks as Deputy Norton thinks, will say that that was a retrograde step, that we went back to less favourable terms for retiring allowances and old age pensions than we had announced when we were a Government. Can Deputy Norton mention any other Party who would give less when in Opposition than they had promised when in Government? Can Deputy Norton compare that attitude with his promises on social welfare in 1948 when he was in Opposition and his actions three years later when he was a member of the Government? There was a very big falling back. A scheme promised by the Labour Party in 1948, and which was calculated by the Department of Social Welfare to cost £44,000,000, was replaced by Deputy Norton as Minister by a scheme which he calculated, when he brought it in, to cost in or about half that amount. I think more credit is due to a Deputy who asks less when in Opposition than he is prepared to give as a member of a Government, than there is to a Deputy who promises the sun, moon and stars when in Opposition, and then, when he becomes a Minister, cuts it down to half or less than half.

Deputy Dunne said that I would have to stand by my guns about this matter of 65 years of age. I am not afraid to do so. I gave my reasons in this House—the matter is not altogether relevant now and I am not going to go into it. However, on that occasion I gave my reasons why I did not agree with the principle of retiring allowances at 65—but I made it clear that if the person is out of work he will get unemployment insurance, or that if he is sick he will get sickness allowance. This refers only to insured people: it does not refer to the old age pension class as a whole—only insured people. I said further that I was going to make it easier to qualify. Deputy Norton knows very well what I meant by that. If he took any interest in his work, he could not possibly have spent three years and three months in the Department of Social Welfare without knowing what I meant when I said I would make it easier to qualify. What I meant was that I would make it easier for a person to qualify—using "qualify" in the technical sense. I had not time to look back over the speech made in March. I am sure it was mentioned, but whether it was mentioned or not, Deputy Norton should know. At column 754 of the Official Debates of the same date—the 28th June, 1951— he said:—

"Subsequently he developed"— meaning that I developed—

"some curious opinion that they might get sick pay or unemployment benefit after 65, even though they were not sick or unemployed."

I never said any such thing and Deputy Norton knows well that I never said any such thing. It is a pity that a Deputy such as Deputy Norton, who has had very great experience in the administration of social welfare, would not put whatever intelligence he has into improving those schemes instead of coming along with his misrepresentations and trying to get the plaudits of the dwindling number of Deputies sitting behind him. He said, on the Second Reading of this Bill last March, that, when he produced his scheme for old age pensions at the last minute, he put me in a panic and that I did not know how to deal with the matter. I must thank the Deputy again because, if any Deputy will read my speech on that occasion he will see my proposals, which include this £1 for old age pensioners. If any Deputy thinks that I am capable of thinking out a complete scheme and talking at the same time and fitting everything in as I did on that occasion, well, I am a much more intelligent person than I think I am. Deputy Norton says I am. I thank him. Who was in the panic that day? Captain Cowan told us. Do we not know that Deputy Norton was in the panic when he was told that he was going to be beaten on this Bill unless he put in something to sweeten it for certain Deputies? At the last moment, he came along with an increase for the old age pensioners so that he could say, and did say: "If you vote against this scheme, you will vote against an increase for old age pensioners." It was the panic of Deputy Norton which produced that increase for old age pensioners on that occasion.

I want to quote one more thing from Deputy Norton because it is interesting. He said that his association with the Social Welfare Department was a creditable one. So it is. I told Deputy Norton on the last occasion he spoke that he had done well; that he had a very high standard to live up to, and he did it. I told him that Fianna Fáil had controlled that Department for 16 years, and that we had improved the social welfare services of this country by an average of £500,000 per year. We increased expenditure from £3,500,000 to £11,500,000 in 16 years, exactly at the rate of £500,000 per year. Deputy Norton, when Minister, maintained that rate. He maintained the same rate for the three years he was there. He increased the social welfare services by £500,000 per year. I am not denying that his associations with the Department of Health were creditable. I say that even for the three years it must have been an effort for Deputy Norton to maintain the Fianna Fáil record, but he did it. Whether he could have done it for 16 years, I do not know. I do not think he could. I suppose we will never know now because the people decided otherwise.

We always like to have a little bit of humour in these debates. I think Deputy MacBride provided the humour. He said:—

"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."

Deputy MacBride accuses us of cynical laughter but, as I pointed out, it was the source we laughed at and not at the sentiments expressed by him.

I want, again, if I may, to return to a point made by Deputy Dunne with regard to this retiring pension at 65, because there are certain Deputies on the Opposition Benches who either purposely misunderstand or are purposely trying to make other people misunderstand this whole question of old age pensions and retiring allowances.

Mr. Killilea

They are not here now.

Dr. Ryan

They are not. The old age pensions, as Deputies know, have been here for 40 years or so. The retiring allowance, proposed by Deputy Norton in his Social Welfare Bill, was only applicable to an insured person. The proposal made by Deputy Norton in his Social Welfare Bill was that an insured person would get a retiring allowance at 65, provided he qualified with regard to having his cards stamped and all that. Deputy Norton did not propose and never did propose that old age pensions be paid at 65. The people who were not insured could not get any retiring allowance at 70. There are Deputies behind Deputy Norton who do not know that. That point was made by Deputy Cowan and a Deputy of the Labour Party said that was not true. That shows you how Deputy Norton and others like him can mislead their own followers into believing something that is not true. It is up to Deputy Norton and others to, at least, make their followers, and in fact, everybody in this House know what the facts are before we can deal with them and see what can be done. There never was a proposal to give old age pensions at 65. Yet, there were Deputies who made speeches just as if Deputy Norton had promised to give old age pensions at 65. The retiring allowance at 65 or 70 was one point of difference between Deputy Norton and myself when his Bill came before the House last March. So let us be clear, Deputies from the Labour side especially, that no Party in this House ever proposed that old age pensions be given at 65. It was never proposed. It was proposed by Deputy Norton that there should be a retiring allowance at 65, but for that the employee and employer had to pay. I am not trying to run away from this, as Deputy Dunne accused me. I still believe that my proposal on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party was a more sensible one. My proposal is that we should not encourage people to retire at 65 but rather should we encourage them to work until 70, if work is available.

A Deputy

And work harder? Is that your outlook?

Dr. Ryan

Not necessarily. My outlook is that everybody should work hard, but there is a rule amongst the Labour Party that everybody must come down to the minimum, the laziest man in the bunch, whoever he may be.

Deputy Dunne, in his enthusiasm, said that Deputy Norton had produced the most constructive effort towards a comprehensive social security scheme ever introduced in the history of this country. But what did Deputy Norton do? Will Deputy Norton tell me some time or other the differences between his scheme and the Beveridge plan? Are there any commas different? Are there brackets different? Is there any difference between the Beveridge plan and Deputy Norton's scheme? Yet we are told by a follower of Deputy Norton that his scheme was the most constructive scheme that was ever produced in this country. I would like to know what difference there is between the Beveridge plan and Deputy Norton's scheme.

Deputy Dunne, at column 764 of the Official Debates, dated 28th June, 1951, also says:—

"I think it is a fair bet that this is the first and last improvement for a long time"—

that is, the Bill we are now discussing—

"until, perhaps, the next election comes along, when it may be considered politics to throw out some other sprats."

I want Deputy Dunne and the other Labour Deputies and the members of the Fine Gael Party and all the other elements that are now in Opposition——

Mr. O'Hara

And the five Independents.

Mr. McAuliffe

And Captain Cowan.

Dr. Ryan

I want all the elements in opposition to realise that the country now has a Government prepared to do things without having to keep an eye on the possibility of an election. For three years Deputy Norton sat here and did nothing until he was told by those who knew that there was an election coming and it was time for him to get ready. I remember making a speech down in Wexford during the local authority elections and I prophesied then that Deputy Norton would produce his Bill just before the Government was ready to go to the country in order that the Fine Gael Party would not find itself in the embarrassing position of having to defend it. We will not wait until an election comes along to produce Bills and schemes. We are doing it now. We will introduce the comprehensive social welfare scheme as soon as we have it ready. I will have another word to say on that before I finish— as soon as we have it ready.

Mr. McAuliffe

Sixteen years.

Dr. Ryan

Sixteen years of plenty.

Mr. Norton

Plenty for whom?

Mr. Killilea

Deputy Norton starved on it.

Mr. Norton

The industrialists got plenty for the 16 years, but that was all.

Dr. Ryan

I do not intend to deal in detail with the speeches made by Deputy Oliver Flanagan and Deputy O'Higgins. They did not raise any points relevant to the present Bill. They made that bitter type of speech that invariably comes from men who are sorry to find themselves on the wrong side of the House. I do not know why Deputy Oliver Flanagan talked this Bill out last Thursday.

It has made a difference of one week and, although that week may not make any difference in the time stipulated for the payment of the increase of 2/6, it does make a week's difference in relation to the other provisions in the Bill. If the Deputy examines the Bill he will see that the other provisions dealing with concessions to certain pensioners such as those who have a disability pension or an allowance as a result of I.R.A. activities come into operation immediately the Bill goes through. In the case of the old age pension provision there is an appointed day. The net result of Deputy Oliver Flanagan's speech is that these people who would benefit immediately have been deprived of £5,000 by the delay of one week. I do not know whether or not anyone thinks Deputy Flanagan's speech is worth that. I certainly do not but I take it he had to do what he was told.

Deputies sometimes refer to a speech I made on the 27th October, 1947. Deputy Norton makes frequent reference to it and he has succeeded in persuading members of his own Party and of the Fine Gael Party, too, that I should not have voted as I did on that occasion. I think it is time that the issue on that occasion should be put clearly and concisely and perhaps Deputy Norton will then have a sufficient sense of shame not to repeat his groundless allegation. I sincerely hope he will have sufficient shame.

On that occasion there was a motion before the House in the names of Deputy Dr. O'Higgins and Deputy Costello. The motion was first tabled on 20th March, 1947, but Private Members' Time was not given and the motion did not finish until 27th October, 1947. Deputy Norton did not speak on that motion. Apparently he was not interested in social welfare at the time. The Fine Gael Party talked a good deal on it. When I spoke on that occasion I said I would not accept the motion. There was a division and the Government voted against it. Both the Fine Gael and the Labour Party voted for it. Ever since that night Deputy Norton has been telling the people that I voted against this motion in October, 1947. If Deputy Norton is honest he must believe that I was wrong in voting against it. If I was wrong in voting against it, then it should have been adopted when the Coalition Government took office.

Why did Deputy Norton not adopt it? Obviously he never had the slightest intention of adopting it. Yet he goes on talking as if I had done something wrong. Is not that a very hypocritical attitude for the Deputy to adopt?

Deputy Norton does not know what was in that motion, but even that does not keep him from talking about it. Of course Deputy Norton is always talking about things he knows nothing about. Deputy O'Higgins spoke about it to-day. That shows the harm an irresponsible Deputy like Deputy Norton can do. He really should be more careful. Obviously Deputy O'Higgins believed there was something in it. When I asked him what the motion was he said I voted against an increase in the means test. I told him that was wrong, and he then made some other allegation.

What the motion proposed was that the means test should be changed for old age pensioners, blind pensioners and for widows and orphans, so that the assistance given to a pensioner by members of the family, whether in cash or in kind, should be excluded. When I spoke on that motion I pointed out that such assistance was excluded. Deputy Norton did not know as much at that time as he knows now. Secondly, it was suggested that any benefits received otherwise than in actual cash should also be excluded. I explained that they are also excluded. It was quite unnecessary, therefore, to include two points out of three, and the time of this House was taken up in discussing something that had no reality. The third point, however, was the real crux: casual moneys earned by the pensioner should also be excluded.

Now, I voted against that. Deputy Norton boasts that he introduced two or three old age pension Bills when he was Minister for Social Welfare. Did he ever mention casual earnings? Do we not all know that that was a most dishonest motion? I remember saying on that occasion that I would take the case of a journalist in relation to casual earnings. I do not refer to journalists as millionaires, but a journalist over 70 years of age might do reports or send articles to foreign papers and earn quite a tidy sum in that way. Were we to exclude such earnings? It was so fantastic that nobody but the Labour Party and the Fine Gael Party would have voted for it in 1947. I would not mind their having done that if they were now prepared to forget about it, but they keep on talking as if we should not have voted against it on that occasion. Deputy Norton never once referred to that matter during the three years he was in office. So long as there is a means test that third provision could not be adopted. I hope Deputy Norton will now stop talking about 27th October, 1947, and find something else.

Mr. Norton

I will be back on it in ten minutes if you finish to-night.

Dr. Ryan

How will you be back on it in ten minutes?

Mr. Norton

Wait and see. I will teach you something about parliamentary procedure.

Dr. Ryan

You may know something about that. You know nothing about social welfare.

Mr. Norton

It would be damn hard to find anybody who knows less about it than you do.

Dr. Ryan

Someone asked when this Bill is likely to come into operation.

Fine Gael and Labour complained about the delay in bringing in the Bill. Deputy Norton told us since he went into Opposition that he hoped when he was Minister to bring his comprehensive scheme into operation on 1st January, 1952, but he put in a saver— his officials advised him it could not be done before 1st April, 1952. Deputy Norton put this provision into his comprehensive scheme. Therefore—let the Labour members take note—these old age pensions could not come into operation until, at the best, the 1st January, 1952.

Mr. Norton

I hope the Minister is not misquoting the officials against me. The officials know that they got instructions from me even to print the old age pension books and put that part of the scheme into operation before the main scheme. You can consult them there beside you.

Dr. Ryan

The then Minister insisted on putting it into the comprehensive Bill. We asked him to put it into a separate Bill and he would not agree. Whatever second thoughts he may have had, let him make any point he likes about it, but he would not do that when he was asked. That is all I can say. On that point I want to remind certain Deputies here that on the Second Reading of the Social Welfare Bill in March, Deputy Norton said that he would bring in this scheme for old age pensioners on the Committee Stage. It was not there on the Second Reading and anybody who voted against the Second Reading did not vote against the proposal in regard to old age pensioners because it was not there. There is no use therefore in Deputies accusing members on this side of the House of voting against old age pensions when they voted against the Second Reading of the Bill.

There were a few points raised as to what would be useful amendments to this Bill. I should like to say that I was anxious that this Bill should go through very rapidly so that the old age pensioners could get as soon as possible what they were entitled to under the Bill, while we are in process of preparing the comprehensive scheme. Amendments suggesting, however, a big change in the means test, as I proposed in March, or any other change of a major kind would not be advisable and would not be welcome indeed, because they would have the effect of holding up the Bill. The bigger changes can come along before the comprehensive Bill is brought in. The comprehensive Bill will contain the old age pensions proposal again and I hope will contain these various suggestions that were made here by me in March.

The case was made by certain Labour Deputies, Deputy Desmond in particular, that where a man is working and where his wife is over 70, that woman got a pension for the first time in 1949. I must say I know one case where a man was working on the roads—I do not know what he had; about £3 10s. a week I suppose—and his wife was over 70 having no other means but his wage, and she did not succeed in getting the pension, although I tried several times when Deputy Norton was Minister to see if a pension could be granted to that woman. She never go it; so far as I know there has been no change and there will not be any change under this Bill until the means test is raised. It is a matter that has to await the comprehensive scheme.

Another question that was asked was whether it was a fact that a man retiring from work at 70 has his means assessed at what he was earning up to the time he reached 70 and therefore could not get the old age pension until he was some time out of work. I do not believe that that is altogether true. I believe that if a man retires from work at 70, having previously applied for a pension, and if the pension officer is satisfied that he is retiring and is not going back to work, then whatever wage he was getting while he was working will not be taken into account; in other words, he gets the full pension if he has no other means.

A question was raised by some Deputies with regard to a person leaving the country, going to England or America, as the case may be, and who when he comes back finds it hard to get a pension. I believe that from the very beginning there has been a residence qualification for the old age pension. It is not as stringent since 1932 as it was before 1832, but any applicant for an old age pension must have 30 years' residence. If he is a citizen, six of those years must have been since he was 50 years of age; if he is not a citizen, 16 of those years must have been since he was 50 years of age. That is the rule. I am only giving the information here for the benefit of some Deputies who raised the question. In fact, there were very few points raised on this Bill as suggestions for change or amendment. There was, as I said at the beginning, any amount of misrepresentation as to what was in the Bill and what was left out by me although I was alleged to have made certain promises. I am glad now that the debate has come to an end so that the Bill may be put through this stage, at any rate.

Question put and agreed to.

An Ceann Comhairle

Next stage?

Dr. Ryan

As soon as possible.

An Ceann Comhairle

Would the Minister say what that means?

Dr. Ryan

Now, if possible.

Mr. Norton

We shall give you the Money Resolution now.

Dr. Ryan

We shall leave it over until to-morrow so.

Committee Stage ordered for Thursday, 5th July.

Mr. Norton

May I ask the Minister is there any reason why there should be any delay in implementing the increased old age pension because of the fact that this Bill may be before the House, say, for another week? Does the Minister not know perfectly well— he should certainly know if he consults his officials—that some advance work has to be done, some advance calculations——

An Ceann Comhairle

That does not arise now.

Mr. Norton

Am I allowed to say anything? Of the two efforts I have made already both seemed to have incurred your displeasure.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy is learning something about procedure.

Dr. Ryan

I raised that matter in winding up when I pointed out the urgency of the Bill. I agree with Deputy Norton that so far as the 2/6 is concerned, some advance calculations had to be carried out but as regards the other provisions—that is in regard to recipients of disability pensions and special allowances—they will come into operation immediately the Bill goes through.

Mr. Norton

As regards the disability pensions this Bill needs complementary legislation by the Department of Finance.

Dr. Ryan

Not necessarily.

Mr. Norton

I asked the Minister to have some consultation on that point with his officials. In any case I told the officials more than a month ago to print the old age pension books with these rates in the hope that we would be able to reach a stage by which we could pay these rates in September. You can consult your officials on that. However, you are in second-hand clothes this evening, and we can leave it open until to-morrow.