I move:—
That the Insurance (Intermittent Unemployment) (Extension) Order, 1955, made by the Minister for Social Welfare, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, and laid before Dáil Éireann on the 10th day of May, 1955, pursuant to sub-section (2) of Section 15 of the Insurance (Intermittent Unemployment) Act, 1942 (No. 7 of 1942), be confirmed.
The Insurance (Intermittent Unemployment) Act, 1942, established a scheme of insurance, usually known as the wet time scheme, under which insured persons and their employers pay weekly contributions into a fund known as the Supplementary Unemployment Fund and, in return, insured persons are entitled to compensation at prescribed rates for working time lost due to the weather. The scheme is administered by the Department of Social Welfare. There is no State contribution to the fund but the cost of administration is borne out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas. Up to the present, the scheme has been confined to manual workers employed in the building trade, but there is power to extend its provisions by Order to manual workers in other trades. No such Order may come into force until it has been laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas and has been confirmed by resolution of each House.
The scheme had its origin in the discussions which led to the settlement of the building trade strike in 1937. One of the complaints of the workers at that time was that they suffered considerable loss of earnings due to the time lost owing to the weather, and the then Minister for Industry and Commerce undertook to prepare a scheme of insurance to compensate them for such losses. It has been a feature of the preparation and administration of the scheme that representatives of employers and insured persons have been consulted. At consultations prior to the formulation of the scheme a committee comprised of representatives of employers and workers sought to have the provisions of the Act applied to workers in the civil engineering trade but it was considered that, having regard to the experimental nature of the scheme, as a whole, it should be confined in the beginning to the building trade.
The building and civil engineering trades overlap to a considerable extent. Many civil engineering contracts include work which comes within the definition of "employment in the building trade" contained in the Act and many firms, the bulk of whose work is in the building trade, also carry out engineering contracts. Workers frequently change from one industry to another. Those who have had long spells of employment in the building industry during which they paid contributions into the fund feel aggrieved when they are debarred from receipt of benefit during spells of employment in the civil engineering industry.
Experience of the operation of the Act has shown that some work carried out by painting contractors, for example the painting of bridges and public lighting standards, does not come within the definition of employment in the building trade and there has been constant pressure to have the benefits of the Act extended to all work of a kind commonly carried out by painting contractors.
It is now proposed that the benefits of the Act should be extended to employment in the civil engineering and painting trades. After consultation with representatives of employers and workers, draft definitions of employments in these trades were prepared and discussed at length with State and semi-State bodies which would be affected by extension. Certain exclusions were suggested and they have been embodied in the Order where it is considered that the conditions of employment render it unnecessary that persons in these employments should be insured. They cover broadly all civil engineering work carried out directly by local authorities, Government Departments (exclusive of major marine works), the railway companies and the E.S.B. The primary consideration in framing the exclusions was that persons engaged in these employments receive either full or partial payment for time lost by reason of the weather. This, in effect, reduces the scope of the proposed extension, so far as employment in the civil engineering trade is concerned, to work actually undertaken by civil engineering and public works contractors. Painting work incidental to the excluded employments is also to be excluded.
It has been found extremely difficult to form an estimate of the number of persons who would be brought within the scope of the scheme by extension to employment in the civil engineering and painting trades. On the information available, however, it is estimated that the number will vary between 3,000 in the slack periods in these industries to 10,000 in the busy periods and the weekly average number employed has been estimated at 7,000. It is thought that the demands made by workers in these trades on the fund will be proportionately greater than those made by workers in the building trade. Employment on civil engineering works and on painting contracts is more susceptible to interruption due to the weather as the amount of work available under cover is considerably less than in the building trade. The income to be derived from the classes to which it is proposed to extend the Act is estimated at £18,000 per year and the expenditure at £24,000. In order to qualify for benefit an insured person must have at least 12 stamps to his credit, and it is thought that this will reduce expenditure in the first year to about £18,000. The estimated total income and expenditure of the fund after the first year are £100,000 and £99,000 respectively. The cost of administration of the scheme will not, it is thought, be materially increased by reason of extension.
