Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 10 Feb 1954

Vol. 144 No. 1

Committee on Finance. - Joint Committee on Workmen's Compensation—Motion.

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

Minister for Social Welfare (Dr. Ryan)

I move:—

That it is expedient that a Joint Committee consisting of 15 members of the Dáil and 6 members of the Seanad be appointed with power to send for persons, papers and records, to inquire into the present system of workmen's compensation for injuries due to employment and to consider and report as to what changes are necessary or desirable and, in particular, whether a nationalised scheme of social insurance should be substituted for the existing system, or, if no such change is recommended, whether insurance by employers should be made compulsory.

Deputies will recall that during the passage of the Workmen's Compensation (Amendment) Bill last year it was suggested that a Parliamentary Committee might be set up to go into the whole question of workmen's compensation. The present system has long been criticised on various grounds and I am of opinion that a committee of investigation would be very desirable. I put down this motion asking the Dáil to approve of a committee composed of members of both Houses and I recommend the motion to the House. I do not think any fault will be found with the terms of reference.

Every Deputy will admit that there is necessity for an inquiry. A comprehensive scheme of workmen's compensation has been demanded indeed by many people both in this House and outside it for a long time past and I personally feel that the best way to get a report on a comprehensive scheme is to get a committee composed of all Parties of the two Houses. If we get agreement between the Parties I feel that it will be a good scheme, that it will be a scheme that will go through without any political division and, therefore, will have the goodwill and the good wishes of everybody in the country.

An amendment has been put in by Deputy Sweetman. Deputy Sweetman is of opinion that this would be better done by a commission on which the various interested parties would be represented. Personally, I prefer the Oireachtas Committee because I think members of the Dáil and Seanad, asking them all round, probably have much sounder idea of what is required than any other group you night get and there would be great advantage indeed in having an agreed scheme by having an Oireachtas Committee appointed.

I know there is an argument that house who are interested should be represented. There are employers represented, say, by chambers of commerce and manufacturers' organisations and various employers' organisations and there are the workers represented by the trade unions. You might also have those interested in a financial way—insurance companies, bankers, auditors and so on. I feel that all these interested parties could be called before a Committee of the Oireachtas and could give their views. The committee could weigh up those views and make up their minds as to whether there was substance in the arguments put forward or not and then they could submit a report.

I do not think there is much room for argument or explanation on this proposal. We probably have our minds made up fairly well that some investigation is necessary—I think we are all agreed on that—and a decision on the net point, whether it should be an Oireachtas Committee or an outside commission, should be a simple matter. There is one point I should say in favour of an Oireachtas Committee, that is, that we are likely to get a quicker decision. A commission composed of outside people sometimes goes very slowly. Some of the commissions appointed in the past have acted with great expedition but others have gone very slowly. From all points of view, therefore, I would recommend the motion for the approval of the Dáil.

Mr. Sweetman

I move the amendment standing in my name:—

To delete all words after the word "expedient" and substitute the following:—

"that a commission of inquiry, representative of suitable interests, be appointed with power to send for persons, papers and records, to inquire into the present system of workmen's compensation for inquries due to employment, and to consider and report thereon, and as to what changes are necessary or desirable, and in particular whether a nationalised scheme of social insurance should be substituted for the existing system, and as to how insurance by employers could be made compulsory, and whether either of these alternatives (nationalisation or compulsion) would be recommended".

In the first place I want to underline what the Minister has said in regard to his motion. It is the same as that in my amendment. We are both in entire agreement on the necessity for an inquiry and on the terms of reference. The Minister will agree that the terms in my amendment follow his wording exactly, as I wanted it to be clearly understood that there was no difference between us on that point. This is not the time to discuss whether it is desirable to have nationalised insurance or to have insurance made compulsory. The whole idea of this motion is to have an inquiry to get the facts upon which the House ultimately can make up its mind. I suggest that a body of 21 members of the Oireachtas —15 from this House and six from the other House—is far too unwieldy, if each member individually is to take part in the inquiry, and under those circumstances I feel we will not get any results within any reasonable period of time. As far as I can appreciate the position, what the House wants is the relevant facts and data so as to be able to make up its mind.

If the Minister adverts to the method of having a committee for the sole purpose of having a non-political scheme. then it would be far better to get all the facts presented by a White Paper or otherwise and then have a Select Committee of the two Houses to consider them. I feel personally that the worst possible way of getting the information in a reasonable time is by having 21 members of the Oireachtas sitting down to this task. We all agree that it is a very technical job. Presumably there will be certain evidence first from the Department and then from various interested bodies— chambers of commerce and the Federated Union of Employers on the one side and the Congress of Irish Unions and the Trade Union Congress on the other side. I hope that some bodies representative of the people who would be in the position of consumers, so to speak, will be called before this committee to give evidence. Inevitably that committee will take much longer to assimilate that evidence, highly technical as it will be, than a much smaller committee. The type I had in mind was a commission of not more than five or seven people—say, one representative of the Federated Union of Employers, one of the chambers of commerce, one from each of the two trade union congresses and three others selected as representative of the ordinary man in the street. I know there is difficulty in getting representatives of that class, but they can be got. I seriously suggest that a body of seven like that would produce the facts more quickly than a body of 21 if the 21 are going to do their job. Of course, if the 21 are not going to do their task, there is no point in setting them up and we might just as well ask the Department to produce a White Paper on its own.

This is to a large extent a fact-finding or data-finding inquiry. The Minister will agree when I say that large committees are very unsatisfactory in that type of investigation. It is very different if you have a cut-and-dried scheme already there and you are asking a committee to consider it to see what amendments could be brought in or the implications of the scheme. In the present case it is a wide, roaming investigation. A committee of 21 will do one of two things —it will take infinitely longer to get an efficient inquiry or there will be few of the 21 people concerned carrying out the investigation. I want to stress again that the inquiry is necessary, and now it is purely a question of the way in which it will be carried out. I agree with the Minister that, if he is going to have an Oireachtas Committee it is not feasible, in the Oireachtas position, to have a smaller one. This is not in any way a political issue. On the contrary, it is far less likely to be a political issue if you have a body set up outside as a departmental commission to gather the information which would be put before the House or issued as a White Paper by the Minister. At this stage I cannot see how 21 people can enter on a roaming investigation without taking an endless amount of time to produce the information that all of us want.

Mr. Hickey

I am inclined to agree with the Minister's point of view that an Oireachtas Committee would be more effective. If we leave it to a commission I do not think we will get the quick results that Deputy Sweetman envisages. As far as the members of the House are involved, I believe that it would need only nine or ten members from the big Parties and probably only two would turn up to the committee as they would have certain information and certain instructions. The same would apply from our end. I agree with the Minister that a committee of the House would be more effective. The sooner we can get a committee working the better, as there are many things which need to be done in regard to the Workmen's Compensation Act. Even the last amendment operated against many workers who were injured. The sooner we get this committee going the better, as I do not think it would be a controversial matter at all.

Mr. Cogan

On the particular issue raised in this motion and amendment, I would like to express the view that as far as possible investigations of this kind should depend on a committee of the House rather than on a professional commission. We have had a number of professional commissions from time to time—those dealing with education and unemployment, for example. While they may be suitable for that particular purpose, I think that a Parliamentary Committee would work more expeditiously. There are people who have a specialised knowledge of these matters. A Committee of the Dáil can summon these people before it and ask them questions. In the past, we have had a number of matters referred for examination to commissions of experts. I think it would have been far better if we had had a Committee of the Dáil and Seanad investigating these matters for themselves, with an opportunity to question and cross-examine the experts, rather than having such matters investigated by the experts themselves.

I do not think there is any substance whatever in Deputy Sweetman's suggestion that the greater the number you have on a Parliamentary Committee the more will that tend to prolong its discussions. I think you could have much more prolonged discussions with a small number of persons, particularly if those making the investigation were experts on the subject under examination. Some of them might have a vested interest in preventing legislation coming along quickly. I think that a representative committee of both Houses would feel that there was an imperative duty on it to report and get a decision as quickly as possible. The members would feel that they owed that duty to their constituents and to the country, that is, to present their report as soon as possible so that desirable reformative legislation could be put through.

I was rather struck by one reference which Deputy Sweetman made. It seemed to me somewhat amusing. He referred to what he called consumers, in addition to the trade unions and representatives of employers. He said that there was another type of people called consumers. It would be interesting to know what type of people he had in mind, whether members of the legal profession or of the medical profession.

Mr. MacCarthy

It seems to me that Deputy Sweetman, in the suggestion that he made, wants more or less to have the best of both worlds. I am of the opinion that his amendment, if accepted, would tend to prolong the whole proceedings. I understood his suggestion to mean that there should, first of all, be a commission to examine the facts and tabulate them, and that then a Committee of the Dáil should consider the whole matter. It might put the whole thing aside and say that the report it had received did not suit at all. That would mean starting the whole proceedings over again. I agree that the position would be different if we had to start on something on which we really had no basis for examination. But that is not the situation. We have the position as it exists and, therefore, its advantages and effects can be examined by a Committee of the Dáil with a view to examining its defects, if there are any, and of suggesting a remedy for them. I think myself that a committee is going to give the best results. It will be representative of different interests and different views, and all the available information will be at its disposal. I expect that, in addition, there will be memoranda from the trade unions, the Federation of Employers, insurance companies and other interested parties. All that information can be supplemented by the personal attendance of witnesses before the committee and so there can be a very full inquiry. That, I suggest, is a much better approach to an examination of this question than to have a commission. In my opinion, it is far better that a Committee of the Dáil should get to work at once on this question rather than that a commission should be set up. The findings of the commission might not be agreeable to the Dáil, and in consequence it might be necessary, subsequently, to set up a Dáil Committee to start all over again on the investigation. A Dáil Committee can go ahead with the work at once and finish it as quickly as possible. That, I submit, is the better approach.

Mr. Sweetman

Could the Minister say if a commission sat to deal with this question in 1920 or thereabouts?

Dr. Ryan

There was a commission which sat either in 1925 or 1926. It was an outside commission of which Mr. Dickie, a senior member of the Bar, was chairman.

Mr. Sweetman

Was it an outside commission or a departmental commission?

Dr. Ryan

An outside commission.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main motion put and agreed to.