I should like to congratulate the Minister and his predecessor on the general improvement that has taken place in the past few years in our social service code and particularly on the increased efficiency achieved in the Minister's Department in Dublin and in the various branches offices in the country in handling the matters that come within the scope of the Department. That is very satisfactory and we welcome it from the point of view of public relations.
I have noticed that the Minister very wisely suggested that the House should allow him to take the three Votes together, Votes 61, 62 and 63. That arrangement simplifies the general discussion that may take place on the Estimate, which deals mainly with the Social Welfare Act of 1952 and any amendments that may have taken place in that Act since. That was a very fine piece of legislation and a very comprehensive measure. So far as the administrative machinery was concerned it repealed all the former Acts covering unemployment assistance, unemployment benefit, national health benefit, old age pensions and all other benefits under the social code. To a great extent it simplified the legislation and amalgamated the various Acts more or less into one. I am sure it also simplified the administration of the Acts.
A noticeable feature of the Act in question was that the number of contributions necessary for an insured person to qualify for benefit was reduced to a minimum of 26. That was a definite advance in social legislation and I am sure everybody associated with it felt very happy that the Minister was able to limit the qualifying contributions to that figure. Unfortunnately, it has gone a little bit in the opposite direction since and we now find, having heard the Parliamentary Secretary's speech this evening and also having listened to him introducing certain Supplementary Votes, that he complains of widespread fraud, particularly in connection with unemployment benefit, unemployment assistance and national health benefits.
No doubt there are good grounds for such complaints but I do not think fraud is as widespread as the Parliamentaray Secretary believes. One Deputy said that the Department of Social Welfare was rather obsessed with the idea of the existence of wholesale fraud. I think that, however, would be a slight exaggeration.
About three years ago the Department, in the light of its experience at the time, noted that claims for unemployment benefit particularly showed an upward trend. It was right that the officials of the Department should investigate to find what were the special circumstances responsible for such a situation. It would appear that during that preliminary investigations they discovered a number of people in various counties—apparently more in some than in others—were getting benefit, particularly unemployment benefit, for which they were not qalified.
The main trouble evidently arose after the recipient had first exhausted the initial right to unemployment benefit. He then proceeded to qualify for continuation benefit. One of the requirements of the Act is that he would need to have a further 13 weeks' insurable contributions to his credit before he could go back on continuation benefit in the case of unemployment benefit, and sickness benefit, or disablement benefit as it is described, in the case of national health. The Department state that, as a result of investigation, it has come to light now that quite a a large number of people took the liberty of affixing stamps for employment that was not insurable or that did not exist. The Department deal with those claims by refusing benefit, and rightly so.
I have some personal experience of the administration of this social welfare service and I know that always there has been a suspicion that the current claims were not 100 per cent. genuine. There was always a rather watchful eye kept on the payment of benefit, particularly by the former Unified National Health Society when they had separate control of that part of the organisation. After some years of investigations and special inquiry into the incidence of sickness benefit claims, the situation was largely cleaned up. There was quite a lot of hard work put into the special investigation made at that time—about ten years ago—and certainly up to the passing of the Social Welfare Act of 1952 I would be rather surprised if the national health part of the organisation had not put their house very well in order.
The 1952 Act certainly made it somewhat easier for a person who did not qualify under the old Act to come into the line of benefit. Like all good things, which are abused, we can assume that a number of people took advantage of the situation. I have no objection to having claims that are under suspicion investigated. I do, however, suggest to the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary that the time spent on investigation is far too long. I mean that the time which elapses from the date the claimant lodges his claim for benefit, whether that be unemployment benefit, unemployment assistance or national health benefit, until the claim is cleared is far too long. Evidently, when the claim is listed for investigation, it is sent to the local social welfare officer, through the usual channels. As far as I can understand, these officers are more or less obliged—certainly encouraged—not to go out on a claim or two in a particular district. Evidently, they wait for a week or two, or perhaps for three weeks, until sufficient claims accumulate for the particular district. I think the idea is to keep down travelling expenses; and that is all very well in its own way.
An overriding consideration should be the financial circumstances of the particular applicant. The people who normally claim unemployment benefit are ordinary working people. They must be such, as otherwise they would not be eligible, since they would not have cards stamped. When they have to go on unemployment benefit, particularly, they are on rather bare boards. They are unemployed and quite a large percentage have no other means of support. Probably they are mainly, if not entirely, dependent on the benefit from the stamps—to which they themselves have contributed, as well as their employers and, of course, the State. I seriously suggest to the Minister that some arrangement should be made whereby claims listed for special investigation would get priority and be dealt with within a few days from the time they are sent to the local officer. If the investigation is carried out promptly, the decision follows very quickly, as a rule, and the claimant knows where he stands in a short space of time. That would remove some of the present hardship attached to a situation of that kind.
Another aspect which must be looked into sooner or later is that the officers who investigate these claims, whilst they want to be perfectly fair to the claimants, are nevertheless inclined not to give the benefit of the doubt where doubt exists. It appears to me that the natural slant for an official in a matter of that kind is to report that there is more than a doubt. I have seen cases where there was certainly a very strong doubt and the report given was unfavourable to the claimant. That report goes to the central authority here, where a deciding officer deals with it and makes his decision. The decision is then conveyed to the person concerned and he gets the right to appeal. That right of appeal is a very treasured right of every person who is aggrieved, but I have noticed that there is also a tendency in the Department to have the appeal disposed of summarily by the appeals officer, without giving the appellant the right to go before an oral hearing at a local centre. That is very wrong.
I ask the Minister very specially to look into that point. Those affected are inclined to complain a good deal and, indeed, they are inclined to exaggerate what they term as the unfairness of the decision. There is probably a good deal in what they say. After all, in the normal course of events, there are appeals taking place in various provincial centres every other month and I see no reason why all those cases of appeals for special investigation should not be referred to a local and oral hearing. At that session, the appellant could bring his witnesses and make his case as best he could. An appeals officer, no doubt, will give the decision in the light of the facts as explained to him. I must say that my experience is that, where there are doubts, these appeal officers seem inclined to give the benefit of doubt to the applicant. The point I want to emphasise is that a local hearing is not only desirable but necessary to satisfy the aggrieved person that he has got every opportunity of making his case and, if possible, winning it.
Another Deputy said that a certain allowance, so to speak, has to be made for the making of claims that are not quite correct. I suppose the explanation is that employed people contribute their share to this fund, and if it appears to them that their claim is in order, they have no apology to make for lodging it. Employers contribute and the State contributes, but I think we should at least make a certain allowance where claims, which are described as being fraudulent, are coming along and you will find it hard to credit that.
There is one thing which might help partly to eliminate that practice, that is, the co-operation of all Parties. It is the duty of all Members of this House to tell any people who come to them with representations that, if their claims are wrong, the practice is dishonest and immoral. We should set our faces against this thing. I feel, at the same time, that it would be wrong for Deputies to act in any way as judge and jury in this matter. Once I find that the ordinary avenues of appeal are fully explored by an aggrieved party, I am perfectly satisfied from that forward.
I have a word to say to the Minister in regard to unemployment. A piece-meal investigation seems to have started in recent months in regard to the recipients of unemployment assistance. The first category of recipients attacked seem to be people who have not engaged in any insurable employment for years. Naturally, one of the conditions of the payment of unemployment assistance is that the recipient has to be capable of and available for work. It is only proper, when the local branch manager finds some person on his register has not, in fact, committed himself to any insurable employment for a number of years, that he should queer the pitch.
I find that during the course of investigations into a matter of this kind, the tendency seems to be to suspend benefit. I found that taking place in a number of cases. It is wrong. Though those people have been paid benefits probably for many years, the fact that the local officers feel that the position should be checked up on now is not a good reason why benefits should be discontinued at the moment. It is more serious to discontinue the benefit in that case than it is to discontinue benefit in the case of unemployment benefit. After all, the people on unemployment assistance are certainly worse off as far as circumstances are concerned than people on other benefits. The vast majority of that type of people have probably no other source, of income, good, bad or indifferent; they are trying to manage from week to week with whatever unemployment assistance they get, supplemented probably by certain help in the form of assistance they may get from their holdings if they have any, and from the neighbours, if they have not got holdings. It is a step in the right direction, I will admit, that recipients of that nature should be questioned as to why they have not worked over a certain number of years, but there, again, no hardships should be imposed, because it is quite possible that, when the investigation into that matter concludes, the officers will be satisfied there was no case for a withdrawal of benefit. I think we might ask the Minister to ensure that, where such investigations take place in the future, benefit will be continued.
In the case of old age pensions, I notice from a return which I obtained some time ago that the percentage has gone up considerably since 1922, when the State was first formed. Nowadays, the percentage of old age pensions as against the total population over 70 years of age seems to be up almost to 80 per cent. One might truthfully say that 80 per cent. of the people over 70 are in receipt of old age pensions. Nevertheless, I think there are still cases of hardship. Whilst I accept the views given here by a previous speaker —I think the Minister referred to the matter also—regarding the cost, it would be a pity that there should be any small number of individual cases lagging behind of which we are not able to dispose.
Some years ago, the then Minister introduced a concession which was undoubtedly very welcome at the time so far as landowners were concerned, whereby a holding with a poor law valuation of £30 or less could be handed over to a son or daughter, without a marriage, and the former owner would qualify so far as the holding is concerned for an old age pension. That was a very valuable concession. It is one which, I am sure, is appreciated.
It does not extend to people in certain other occupations, small shopkeepers and business people. If they have a concern or a business equal in income to or even less than a holding of £30 (in so far as its return is concerned) they are out, for the purposes of an old age pension. I have come across a couple of cases where shopkeepers carrying on a small line of business, which might not make £3 per week, were unable to get the pension, whereas a farmer with a holding of a valuation under £30 was able to qualify. There is some inconsistency there.
I think a Deputy would be entitled to suggest to the Minister that he might review that matter and see what could be done to meet the requirements of that very small category of people. The number, I would say, would be one in 1,000 of the land-owning category.
There is also, in my opinion, too conservative an attitude on the part of the Department in accepting some claimants for old age pensions, if they have disposed of certain moneys. That situation mainly arises with the land owner who gets a fortune on the disposal of his land or with the claimant who, because of hard work and thrift, has accumulated a certain amount of money prior to the disposal of the holding. He may have a family. The case I refer to is where money is handed over to members of the family. The transfer is looked upon usually with a lot of suspicion. The ground that seems to be put forward by the Department is that the money was handed over for the purpose of qualifying the applicant for a pension. That may be as broad as it is long.
Country people, undoubtedly, when handing over their properties would be well-advised to dispose of their entire financial affairs together. They are inclined, however, to be rather conservative in that connection. There are, probably, other reasons for it. It has been put up to me on many occasions that they do not like doing the whole job together. They want to look about. They have only a limited amount of money. They just want to see how things will go with a view to disposing of that amount of money in the most equitable form possible to the other members of the family. Either way, the transfer of money takes place to a member of the family. It is quite wrong for the Department to take the attitude that it has been done to enable the claimant to be excluded from the value of that money.
We all know that members of families in rural areas work many years on their parents' holding without getting anything in the line of a direct wage. We further more know that if they happen to be lucky enough to get some allocation of money from their parents, it would be a very hard job to divert that money back again to the parents. Quite a lot of hardship has been caused to claimants in that connection. Whilst I appreciate that the investigation officers have to be careful and probably have to be very conservative, too, in accepting statements from claimants in that connection, I think they are inclined to carry the official attitude a bit too far. These people are entitled to the benefit of the doubt. Where there is any reasonable ground for believing that the money was transferred, it is no longer in the person's name—he cannot get it back—I do not see why it should be debited against the claimant of an old age pension.
I want to make a very special appeal with regard to the insurability and also with regard to the assessment of means for outworkers, particularly fishermen. I am sure every Deputy is seriously concerned about this question. Probably the best contribution a Deputy can make is to deal with the aspect of the matter as it applies to his own constituency. In my constituency, the main people affected are inland fishermen. There are a few deep-sea fishermen also. The normal period of occupation in the inland fishing business is from April to about August. There is no commercial interest available locally to exploit the fishing potentialities of the area and to take people into employment. The only way they can secure employment is more or less to employ themselves.
A number of these people come together, select one as the head—he is called the skipper of the boat—then proceed to buy a boat or, if they have one, to repair it, or to renew one, as the case may be, take out the licence and buy the net. In nine out of ten cases, they are not in a financial position either to take out the licence or to buy the net. They have to depend on the help and co-operation of the local fish vendor, who usually advances the money. From their catches, he collects each week what he is entitled to. After paying off for the nets, contributing to the licence fee, and so on, the money is divided equally between them.
In the first instance, I understand the skipper is obliged to have the members of his team covered by social insurance. There is a special contribution rate of 3/- a week. This is 2/6 less than the ordinary rate of contribution, but the contribution that is affixed excludes the right to the holder of the card the draw unemployment benefit when he is unable—in other words, when the fishing season is finished—to obtain employment. The holder of this card does not qualify for unemployment benefit.