Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 12 Apr 1956

Vol. 156 No. 3

Committee on Finance. - Vote 57—Army Pensions.

Minister for Defence (General MacEoin)

I move:—

That a sum not exceeding £1,086,910 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1957, for Wound and Disability Pensions, Further Pensions, and Married Pensions, Allowances and Gratuities (No. 26 of 1923, No. 12 of 1927, No. 24 of 1932, No. 15 of 1937, No. 2 of 1941, No. 14 of 1943, No. 3 of 1946, Nos. 19 and 28 of 1949 and No. 23 of 1953); Military Service Pensions, Allowances and Gratuities (No. 48 of 1924, No. 26 of 1932, No. 43 of 1934, No. 33 of 1938, No. 5 of 1944, Nos. 11 and 34 of 1945, Nos. 7 and 29 of 1949 and No. 5 of 1953); Pensions, Allowances and Gratuities (No. 37 of 1936, No. 9 of 1948, No. 30 of 1950, No. 27 of 1952 and No. 4 of 1953); Payments in respect of Compensation for Members of the Local Defence Force (No. 19 of 1946 and No. 15 of 1949); and for sundry Contributions and Expenses in respect thereof, etc.

As in previous years, the principal provisions of this Estimate are for pensions under the Military Service Pensions Acts, wound and disability pensions, special allowances, dependents' allowances and gratuities under the Army Pensions Acts, and service pensions and gratuities under the Defence Forces (Pensions) Schemes in respect of service in the Permanent Defence Force.

The total sum required for 1956-57 is £1,630,360 which is a net increase of £20,781 over the Estimate for 1955-56. The main increases are in sub-heads J and O. The increase of £35,500 in sub-head J—Defence Forces (Pensions) Schemes—is to provide for increased rates of retired pay, pensions and gratuities as authorised by the Defence Forces (Pensions) Scheme, 1956, and for additional cases which will come on pay during the year. We must expect that, for the next few years at any rate, increasing provision must be made for pensioners of this class on account of the greater number of officers and men reaching retiring age.

The increase of £17,000 in sub-head O is to provide for additional cases which will qualify for special allowances under the Army Pensions Acts during the year. The number at present in receipt of these allowances is 4,900 and here again we must expect the number to go on increasing for some considerable time to come. The work of the Military Service Registration Board, which has been mainly concerned with the certification of pre-Truce service in cases of dependents' claims under Part II of the Army Pensions Act, 1953, has been virtually completed. The board will, however, remain in being to deal with any odd cases which may crop up during the year. The members of the board, as at present constituted, are remunerated from other Votes so that no financial provision is necessary for the board in this Estimate.

I hope that the brief outline which I have given will assist Deputies in their examination of the Estimate. If any further explanations are required I shall, of course, be glad to give them. The applications and appeals still awaiting decisions under the Military Service Pensions Acts are being disposed of as quickly as possible and the present indications are that this work will be completed within the next 12 to 18 months. Meanwhile, I am engaged in the review of the whole position about military service pensions, medals and special allowances.

Mr. Traynor

My reference to this Estimate will be almost as brief as the Minister's statement. The only thing one ever hears in respect of this Estimate, as the Minister himself realises, are the complaints we usually hear from individuals who, I suppose, value their own services much more highly than do the people who have to deal with them. Complaints that injustices have been done to them with regard to their service are continually cropping up. The complaints usually are that they were not given sufficient awards, or that they got no awards at all. I do not know that any Minister can do anything to alleviate that kind of situation. A board has been set up and, no matter on which side of the House we are, we must leave the decisions to the board and to the Referee in charge of that board. That is as far as one can go.

I notice in the Estimate proper the rise and fall that takes place in the charges that go to make it up. For instance, under sub-head E there is a decrease of £5,000 for wound and disability pensions and gratuities. We have to presume that the amount is reduced to that extent by reason of deaths, or something of that kind. Allowances and gratuities to dependents show a decrease of £18,400 and I take it the same deduction operates there. The reverse is the case when we come to sub-head O—special allowances to persons who served in Easter Week, to persons awarded medals and to persons awarded pensions under the Connaught Rangers (Pensions) Act. There, there is an increase of £17,000, due, no doubt, to the fact that there are a number of people coming in—I hope, under the special allowances end of it—because, of all the pensions that have been granted to men who served the nation, I think the special allowances have provided a greater measure of alleviation of distress than has any other form of pension awarded.

Last year, we were discussing the question of the abuse of that type of allowance, and I have no doubt the Minister has been looking after that facet of the matter since. Every member of this House should aid the Minister in preventing that form of abuse, because, when all is said and done, this was brought in for a very special reason. It was brought in at the request of practically all—in fact, of all—sides of this House to relieve distress in the case of Old I.R.A. who had failed to qualify for ordinary pension, but who were known to have given excellent service, though that service was not then regarded as active service. It was brought in specifically for the purpose of giving relief to that type of Old I.R.A. and I think it would be a pity that it should be abused or that individuals should give aid, especially Old I.R.A. themselves, to the securing of pensions by those who are not entitled to them.

The Minister knows there are plenty of them entitled to these pensions. These are the men we should look after, rather than bring in these very doubtful cases. When I talk about doubtful cases, I mean, of course, those people who gave no service whatsoever, who were not members of the Forces and who, through some form of chicanery, were enabled, and could only have been enabled, to get these pensions with the aid of those who had sufficient information as to the manner in which these pensions could be secured.

Recently, I have been receiving letters—I am sure the Minister has also received them—from people in Cork who seem to think that special allowances are awarded from the date of application. Now I am pretty certain, although I do not wish to be dogmatic on it, that these pensions are paid only from the date of the award.

General MacEoin

That is right.

Mr. Traynor

I think the Minister ought to clarify that position by a statement on this Estimate, so that these people will not think they are being deprived of something to which they are entitled. I do not think there is anything else I can say in relation to this Estimate, except to repeat what I said in the beginning, namely, that the usual forms of complaints are still there and I suppose they will continue.

Mr. A. Barry

I want formally to refer the Minister to the case I made, inappropriately, on the previous Estimate in relation to officers who retired after the emergency and who suffer now from a certain disability as compared with men who have retired since, or who will retire in the future. The fact that these men happen to be those who built up the Army and who also took part in the pre-Truce struggle makes the disability, I think, all the more irritating. I think the sum involved would be a small one and the Minister should make some effort to meet their case.

Mr. MacCarthy

Mention has been made of the fact that there have been complaints about awards under the various Military Service (Pensions) Acts to Old I.R.A. men. I think there is good basis for these complaints. The Minister is aware of that, because representatives of Old I.R.A. organisations from all parts of the country have met him and put their points of view before him on more than one occasion. He has received such deputations sympathetically and I am sure that he is anxious to do what he can to clear up any outstanding difficulties. Without reference to brigade areas, I think it is very hard to come to firm decisions in some of these cases because the officers with whom many of these men worked, or for whom they worked in various ways, lost their lives in the struggle, or have since died, and those now remaining did not have the same intimate contact to be able to certify fully for them. The officers of brigades and battalions would be able to give the Minister a good general idea in all these cases. There are not so many outstanding cases in each area, but, as the Minister is aware, there are people all over the country who still feel aggrieved by decisions. Those of us who were their comrades feel that, if there is anything we can do, even at this late hour, to rectify that situation, it should be done.

There is also complaint that the award of medals some time back is being checked pretty severely when the holders of those medals apply for special allowances. Old I.R.A. men can only justify such application on their being prepared to submit to a medical test that they are now to some extent unfit to earn their own livelihood. I feel that men who have given good service and who have not got an award otherwise should have their cases sympathetically treated in that regard. I have no objection whatever to a check-up on the award of the medals, provided it is not too long delayed; but that is the unfortunate part, as I say, that verifying officers who are written to may have changed their addresses or may have died, and so on. As a result, there is delay in dealing with these cases. At the same time, the person who is unable to work or provide for himself is waiting for this method of getting some contribution towards the family income.

I would ask the Minister to do the best he can to follow up the points put to him by the old I.R.A. organisation and to see that, in considering these matters, he will go as far as he can to have justice done to the few remaining members who were his comrades in those days and who were the comrades of many in this House. Perhaps they had not a very spectacular part to play, but a very vital one, whether as guards over the flying columns at night during their resting hours, or whether they were going from one place to another carrying vital dispatches dealing with various matters between the flying columns and the battalion or brigade headquarters. The men who did their part in those days should not now be let down by us or by the House.

Mr. James Tully

I appeal to the Minister to reconsider, if possible, the applications of the people who were recently rejected for special allowances because of insufficient evidence. As the Minister knows, and as we all regret, the evidence is dying out. In very many cases, people who could years ago prove that they had the necessary service, but who did not require an allowance at that time, now find at the end of their days, when they do require some help from the State and apply for it, that they are rejected because they cannot give the necessary proof.

It is amazing that in many cases we find people, who if we ourselves make inquiries locally, can be told that they had very little claim to service, receiving those allowances and people who were in the thick of the fight being turned down because they did not claim until they had to, and, when they did claim, found that they could not get enough evidence to satisfy the Army Pensions Board.

The most galling thing that could happen to anybody happened quite recently in the case of a man everybody in the district knew to have been in the fight from the very start. He was a very independent man and, until he became seriously ill about two years ago, he refused to claim such an allowance. But, when he became seriously ill, he made application and after about six months, the matter was referred back because of insufficient evidence. I asked that the matter be given further consideration and another month was given, but by the end of that month, the man had died and everybody in the district turned out with medals and banners of all kinds to give him a military funeral. He got a fine funeral when he was dead. Though he had served his country faithfully, because of the fact that the authorities would not accept the evidence put forward, they refused to give him the few paltry shillings which might have made all the difference to him.

I would appeal to the Minister on this matter. As I say, unfortunately, it is a fact that these people are getting fewer and fewer as the weeks go by, but they should not be allowed to die in misery, as some of them have, because the evidence is not as substantial as perhaps some of the people at the head of affairs think it should be. In such cases, where the evidence is insufficient, some special effort should be made to have an inspector go to people, who otherwise would not come forward with evidence, to prove that those persons have actually got the necessary qualifications. I am sure that the Department themselves have in every area an idea of who can actually give the evidence; and surely it is not too much to ask that an inspector of some kind or other should have those matters investigated and try to help those unfortunate people who would not be seeking this allowance at all but for the fact that they cannot do without it, and who should not be allowed to suffer bitter memories and left to die without the little help that the State can give them.

I referred earlier to-day to the question of people who retired, or who were compulsorily retired, at the end of the emergency—people who had given their best years in the Army and people who had helped to set up the State. When the emergency period came along, they were the people around whom the Army of that time was formed. Because of Army regulations, or some other reason, they were forced to resign before the present Act came into operation, with the result that they resigned on miserable pensions which would have been increased very much, if they had stayed in longer. I appeal to the Minister to reconsider that matter.

Mr. Bartley

The difficulty that has arisen in the administration of the 1934 Pensions Act has been the absense of a definition of "military service". Now it seems that the Referee and his board do not have regard to any sort of standard in the matter of service in coming to their decisions, even within a particular brigade area. It would be difficult to get a standard in the absence of help from the Act itself. It would be difficult to get a standard that would apply to the whole country. But I have come across discrepancies in the standards applied to cases within the same brigade areas in recent times. I find it very difficult to decide as to exactly what considerations have influenced the board in making their decisions. I have in mind two comparable cases, the better one being refused and the less good one being granted. It causes a good deal of misgiving, because the knowledge of these facts is available to those who are interested, that is, to Old I.R.A. men generally.

There is another aspect of this question of the 1934 Pensions Act which has also come to my notice recently. I know of a case where a man was turned down for a technical reason which was supposed to be provided for in the Act itself. This particular case qualified within the past year or so. He gave no additional evidence. He had been before the board himself and had been up on appeal. As a matter of fact, I think his case was considered three times. But he gave no additional evidence, and there was no additional evidence that he could give. I know the case very well myself and in the end he qualified. Here is the question I want to ask the Minister. I understand that Deputy Traynor said that the pension is payable only from the date of the award.

Mr. Traynor

As a special allowance.

Mr. Bartley

In any event, this man's case was up very early on and it seems to me that, if he is only getting payment from the date on which the award was given——

General MacEoin

No. He gets it from 1949.

Mr. Bartley

Of course, his application is much older than that, and I think——

General MacEoin

I thrashed that out at various stages here myself.

Mr. Traynor

The 1949 Act covers that.

Mr. Bartley

While I agree that the man had justice on his side, I could not offer him any hope of redress.

Mr. Desmond

I agree with Deputy Traynor when he mentions, first of all, the difficulties of some people who may have been getting pensions under certain doubtful conditions. We know that in the rural areas there are many people in receipt of pensions—people who deserve every penny they get—but because it is common knowledge in many places that some people have secured pensions under doubtful circumstances, everyone seems to be tarred with the one brush. I think the real victim of anything happening in that respect is the honest person who is getting a pension for the services he rendered. I hope it will be made quite clear that anyone attempting to take pensions under doubtful conditions is unfair not only to the State but to the people who got pensions honestly and above board for the part they played in the past.

I was glad Deputy Traynor mentioned the matter of the special allowances. I was speaking to the Minister about this matter and I was in touch with his Department. In relation to any special allowance cases in which I was interested from time to time, the people did not get the allowance from the time of their application and why, quite recently, an organisation seemed to think otherwise, I do not know. I would ask the Minister to make it quite clear, so that these people will not be suffering as unfortunately I think they are from a delusion as to the date from which the successful applicant should get the pension.

I should certainly like to draw the Minister's attention to one other fact in relation to pensions. In 1953, the Government, through Deputy Traynor, as Minister for Defence, introduced a Bill which had the wholehearted support of the Labour Party. It dealt with the position of a dependent relative of any man who had been killed either in ambush or afterwards, during the 1920 period. It may be true that it was a bit late in the day, but the Bill was undoubtedly an effort to help a dependent sister or brother.

On many occasions I myself drew attention to three cases—the claims of three different women, the brother of one of whom took a brave part and lost his life in the Crossbarry ambush. These claims have been in the Department as far as I am aware for over two years, or at least a year and nine months. I am convinced the claims of these women are justified, and, what is more, I am convinced that whatever inquiries may have been made by the Department must have satisfied the Department officials that the claims are honest, just, and above board.

The applicants in each of the cases with which I am connected are elderly people. When legislation is passed in this House giving the right of a few shillings at this hour of their lives to these elderly people, having regard to the tragic circumstances which so many years ago affected their lives, surely it is not too much to expect the Department and the Government as a whole to meet the obligations imposed upon them by the right of law in regard to these people and their claims. I would ask the Minister in fairness to himself and, above all, in fairness to those genuine, honest applicants to consider their cases not alone sympathetically but satisfactorily in the very near future.

Finally, I should like to join with my colleague, Deputy Tully, in drawing attention to what we consider to be the most unfair discrimination in relation to the pensions of those men who were compelled to retire after the emergency, but prior to the increases which were brought about in regard to other pensions. The cost of living has gone up for one as well as for the other. If a man could retire from the Irish Army in 1952, though he might not be in the same rank in the Army and perhaps might be in a lower rank than a man who had to come out round about 1946-47, it is grossly unjust that the man coming out in 1952 should be protected by legislation giving him an increased pension, while the other man is debarred.

Only one thing made a difference and that was the person's age. There is one thing in regard to which we had no say and that is the time of our birth. It means, therefore, that some men compelled to retire at a certain stage after serving their country, have definitely a just and honest grievance when they can point to the position of other men retiring at a later period and receiving better consideration by way of pension from the State. I ask the Minister to have this matter straightened out in fairness to all those affected.

General MacEoin

I am grateful for the manner in which this Vote has been received. It has always been, and will always be, a very difficult problem. I think it is unfair that everything should be lumped in under Army pensions, military service pensions and special allowances. This practice has been in operation for a long time and one can see how hard and difficult it is for Deputies to disentangle the different matters. Deputies talked a moment ago about military service pensions when related with the permanent forces. Deputy Bartley spoke about the military service certificate and thought that what had been said about the special allowance referred to the Military Service Pensions Act. I admit it is very difficult. I think that at some future date this should be segregated and a small explanatory note attached, so that each Deputy would know exactly what to talk about. Let me take a few points.

Deputy Traynor, of course, put his finger on the problem. There will always be complaints. They are very widespread. Of course, as Deputies are aware, no suggestion of legislation can be introduced upon the Estimates. Therefore, that is left aside. It is only the administration of the present law as it stands that is under review. Therefore, if I have purposely avoided mentioning anything, it is because of Standing Orders. I have always been fairly well-mannered towards the Chair and I try to keep within the realm of order, as far as I can.

The difficulty with regard to special allowances is that they are only payable from the date upon which the Minister is satisfied that the conditions apply. Generally speaking, that is the day upon which the medical board make its final report. When the report comes in signed by the medical board, it is from that date that the special allowance is payable.

Pensions under the Military Service Pensions Act are payable from 1949. I do not know whether Deputies will remember that when that Act was going through the House, I was a Minister but not Minister for Defence and I argued with my colleague that if a person was entitled to a military service pension in 1942, he was entitled to it in 1934 and that the date upon which he was found to qualify was all the more reason why he should be paid retrospectively from the time it should have been paid, in the first instance. However, financial and other obligations knock that on the head. My view has not changed very much. The personal view has not changed very much in that regard. All I can say is that anything I can do towards making the conditions better will be done.

On the question of the permanent Defence Forces, the increase in the pensions there is linked up with that of school teachers and people like that. If I did something or was allowed by the Government to do something for them, I would be creating a precedent. The Government are seriously examining that whole question. Therefore, the indicator I am putting out is that there is some hope not only for the ex-members of the Defence Forces but the old smaller-pensioned people who have rendered service to the State in other fields. I think they are entitled to it because of the change in money values, and one thing and another.

I do not think there is any other point to which I should refer except the 1953 Act. I said here before that I have not the full deciding of that matter. I am responsible; the former Minister knows well what I mean. I have the responsibility for investigating, and everything like that, but not of deciding it. That is someone else's responsibility. That is a flaw in the Act whereby the responsibility is not mine. I would leave it at that except to say that I am urging the completion of the investigations, which is the best phrase I can use to express what I mean. The investigations are being pressed forward as quickly as possible and I trust they will be brought to a conclusion at an early date.

Mr. Desmond

Could the Minister make any recommendations to the other responsible Minister in connection with the 1953 cases? Is it just sufficient to say he is satisfied with the claims and to leave it at that? Why not give a prod to the Minister for Finance?

General MacEoin

The Act gave me authority to investigate. Then it said: "The Minister for Finance may pay ..." It did not say he would have to pay, he would have to refuse, he would have to reject or he would have to decide. All the Minister for Finance may do is put it in a pigeon hole.

Mr. A. Barry

There are a lot of things in these pigeon holes.

Mr. Desmond

Could the Minister not show some of the famous power he had in 1920? Do not let old age——

General MacEoin

You cannot advocate a change in legislation on this Vote.

Vote put and agreed to.