I look for wisdom in different sources from those which the Minister constituted. In 1947 the cost of accepting that motion was £500,000 per year and, though Fianna Fáil voted against the motion, they did nothing else in lieu of it. As I said, the cost then was £500,000, and it could not be found or provided to implement a motion of that kind. The Fianna Fáil Party were afraid then of an inflationary tendency if old age pensioners had the means test modified.
In 1948 I introduced a Bill in this House which gave old age pensioners, blind pensioners and widows and orphans, non-contributory, an additional £2,500,000 per year, which they have been getting every year since. When one contrasts what we did in providing an additional £2,500,000 per year since 1948 with the scrooge-like attitude of refusing to provide £500,000 to implement the 1947 motion, I think we are entitled to look back with pleasure and with a certain amount of pride on the achievements which the 1948 Bill brought to old age pensioners, blind pensioners and widows and orphans throughout the country. Let us see the way in which we provided old age pensions and blind pensions under that Act.
In 1916 a British administration, hostile and alien though it was, paid old age pensioners at the rate of 10/- per week. Between 1916 and 1948, a period of 32 years, the old age pensioners in the rural areas, and that is four-fifths of the old age pensioners of the country, received an increase of 2/6 per week in their pensions, making them 12/6 per week. Therefore, 80 per cent. of the 149,000 old age pensioners had only 12/6 per week in 1948 as a right, and it took them 32 years to get the extra 2/6. Within six months of taking office, the Social Welfare Bill, 1948, which I put through the Dáil, gave them an increase of 5/- per week, but those now responsible would give only 2/6 to old age pensioners in rural areas, that is 80 per cent. of the total number of old age pensioners. I do not think that ours was a bad achievement. At any rate, it was better than anything that has been done before.
What is being done now in the Social Welfare Bill which is before the Dáil is part and parcel of the plan which I had in mind for meeting old age pensions. When Fianna Fáil comes to talk about its achievements in respect of old age pensions, let this be clear, that never before did so many old age pensioners and so many blind pensioners get such a substantial increase in their pensions as they got under the 1948 Act. In so far as I had any hand, act or part in that, I look upon it as a credit-worthy achievement. So when the Minister strives to trip the Labour Party with not having done this or that, let him keep under his hat that we did more during three and a quarter years for old age pensioners than was ever done in the 32 years preceding our assumption of office, and that is not a bad achievement.