Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1960. —Second Stage.

Minister for Social Welfare (Mr. MacEntee)

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.

The House has just passed the Social Welfare (Amendment) Bill, 1960. which provides for the introduction of contributory old age pensions, substantially increased rates of disability benefit, unemployment benefit, maternity allowance, widows contributory pensions and orphans contributory allowance and other valuable concessions to recipients of these social welfare benefits who have more than two children.

This measure is mainly concerned with those in receipt of assistance payments of one kind or another, though it does deal with certain other matters as well. Its main purpose is to give effect to the decision of the Government as announced by the Minister for Finance in his Budget Statement on 27th April last, to increase certain social assistance payments from 1st August next. In addition to the increases then announced it also gives a number of other concessions to recipients of social assistance. I shall explain these and other provisions later.

In the first place the Bill, giving effect to the increases announced in the Budget, provides for additional payments of 1/- per week in respect of all old age pensions, and blind pensions. Rates of unemployment assistance are also being increased by 1/- a week for applicants themselves, 1/- a week for adult dependants, and 1/- a week for each child dependant. The extra shilling will be paid for every dependent child and not only for the first two qualified children to whom payments are confined at present.

Thanks to these proposals a man with a wife and two children will qualify for an increase of 4/- a week while a man with a wife and six children, who at present receives the same amount as a man with a wife and two children, will now receive an increase of 8/- a week. For widows with non-contributory pensions the Bill grants an increase of 1/- a week for the widow herself, plus an increase of 1/- for first and second qualified children of a widow. Widows with three or more children will receive an additional 3/6 for each child in excess of two. Thus, a widow with four children will receive a weekly increase of 10/-. Orphans non-contributory pensions are also being raised by approximately 50 per cent. All the increases mentioned will come into effect from the 1st August next.

The Bill furthermore proposes to make a number of other important changes in the law, in favour of recipients of old age pensions, widows pensions and unemployment assistance. One of these, Section 6, affects old age pensioners who go to live in Northern Ireland. As the law stands, payment of their old age pensions must be suspended when they cross the Border and they cannot have their pensions restored unless they come back here. Neither can they qualify for assistance under Northern Ireland legislation until they have lived there for at least five years.

This Bill will make it possible for such people, provided, of course, they continue to qualify otherwise, to get their pensions in the North for five years, or until they are granted an old age pension or national assistance under Northern Ireland legislation. This pension would of course be paid directly to the pensioner whether he is living in his own dwelling or in a home for the aged and infirm.

As an explanatory memorandum setting out in some detail the other provisions in the Bill has been circulated to Deputies it will only be necessary for me to mention some of the more important additional provisions. The Bill also provides in Section 25 for the repeal of a long-standing disqualification for old age pension, one dating back, in fact, to the original Old Age Pensions Act, 1908. I refer to the provision in that Act whereby a person who is detained in a mental hospital is debarred from receiving old age pension.

The effect of repeal of Section 3 (1) (c) of the 1908 Act, provided for in this Bill, is that such persons will be no longer ineligible for old age pensions, as they have been up to this. Nothing would please me better than the knowledge that all those who will be affected by this change in the law would be able personally to enjoy the full benefits, but I have no need to remind the House that many of these unfortunate people would not be capable of managing an income or deriving any personal benefit from the pension at all.

It is necessary to provide, therefore, for the appropriation of the pension, by the authority responsible for the maintenance of the pensioner in such cases, as a contribution towards his maintenance and upkeep. This of course will have an appreciable effect on the demands which the mental hospitals will make on the various health authorities. Those who would be capable of deriving some benefit from the pension, however, will be able to obtain, at the discretion of the Resident Medical Superintendent, up to ten shillings a week, towards such things as extra comforts. I think there will be general agreement that we must leave it to the discretion of the R.M.S. to decide the matter in these cases. The opportunity is being taken in this Bill to repeal subsection 3 of Section 3 of the Old Age Pensions Act, 1908. This subsection, which is in effect a dead letter, empowers a court to disqualify a convicted person over the age of sixty and liable to have a detention order made against him under the Inebriates Act, 1898, from receiving old age pension for a period of up to ten years.

When the matter was raised in this House some years ago the Minister then in office stated that the subsection would be repealed at the first opportunity. This is being done now by Section 25 of this Bill.

A number of important concessions in relation to the assessment of means are also being made. Section 13, for example, makes a change in favour of widowed working mothers, who are claiming or receiving non-contributory pensions. Earnings of a widow from insurable or excepted employment, under the First Schedule to the Social Welfare Act, 1952, up to a limit of £39 per annum for each qualified child of the widow, may, when this provision becomes law, be disregarded when assessing her means.

Other concessions affecting the assessment of means concern those in receipt of allowances or pensions under the Army Pensions Acts and pensions under the Military Service Pensions Acts are conceded by Section 10. They also apply to those in receipt of Connaught Rangers pensions. Under the Social Welfare Act, 1952, the first £80 of each of the first two types of pension which I have mentioned are already disregarded in calculating means for old age and widows pension purposes. The present Bill proposes to extend the disregard to those claiming or receiving unemployment assistance, and, in addition, to apply the disregard of Connaught Rangers pensions for all purposes.

In calculating means for old age pension and widows pension purposes, the maintenance allowances payable to disabled persons under Section 50 of the Health Act, 1953, are legally assessable. The present Bill provides in Section 13 for the disregard of these allowances and proposes to put them on the same footing as the allowance, of a somewhat similar nature, payable under Section 44 of the Health Act, 1947. This is being done by adding them to the relevant portion of the Seventh Schedule to the Social Welfare Act, 1952, and thus excluding them from reckoning as means in old age and widows pension cases.

Another concession provided for in the Bill is one favouring old age pensioners who are also receiving a small statutory pension from some other source. It sometimes happens in this type of case under the existing legislation that a small increase in the other pension can bring about a much greater decrease in the old age pension, the net result being that the pensioner's total income is actually reduced. This is the sort of hardship which we should try to avoid, if possible, and the necessary provision for doing so is made in Section 9 of the Bill.

The provision in Section 11 of the Bill is intended to benefit people who have endured a long spell of unemployment. Deputies will, no doubt, be aware that a person making a claim for either unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance is required to serve what is known as a three days waiting period before he can receive the benefit, or assistance, whichever he may be seeking. During that period of three days he cannot receive either benefit or assistance. If he remains unemployed long enough to exhaust his title to unemployment benefit and then looks for unemployment assistance he is required, as the law is at present, to serve a further three waiting days, during which he can get neither benefit nor assistance. There can be little doubt that this latter requirement is a definite hardship on people who have the misfortune to be unemployed for a long period. The section to which I have referred will abolish this waiting period.

One of the contribution conditions for maternity allowances is that not less than 26 employment contributions have been paid before the relevant time—that is the date of commencement of the sixth week before the end of the expected week of confinement. If the contributions due in respect of insurable employment before that time have not been paid, the insured woman cannot receive any maternity allowance, even though the contributions may have been paid within a short time after the relevant time. The amendment which is being made by Section 15 of this Bill will enable the allowance to be paid in future from the date the contributions are paid.

I am also taking the opportunity in Section 14 of the Bill to clarify the law on one or two points relating to the insurable classes, about which some doubts have arisen as a result of recent court decisions. The amendments concern some classes of civil servants and student and trainee nurses and midwives.

Civil servants of the State, as distinct from civil servants of the Government, and certain student and trainee nurses and midwives are being added to the employments scheduled as insurable under the Social Welfare Acts.

The provisions in question are intended in the first place to deter people from making fraudulent claims and giving false information in order to get pensions to which they are not entitled. Where people have succeeded in getting such pension money in these circumstances this Bill will facilitate recovery of the money from them or from their personal representatives. I should like to emphasise that the strengthening of the law in this respect is aimed solely at dishonest claimants or pensioners, who get, or attempt to get, public money to which they are not entitled and who represent, of course, a small minority, perhaps I should say a very small minority of the general body of old age pensioners. With a few exceptions the provisions and penalties are not new, and are to be found already in operation in relation to other social welfare services.

The old age pensions code differs in some respects from these services, and to the disadvantage of the State, in relation to proceedings for the recovery of money overpaid. The amendments which this Bill proposes to make will bring the old age pension code into line with the other services in that respect. Some of the provisions relating to the recovery of overpayments of pensions are new ones. Among these is the requirement obliging the personal representative of a deceased pensioner before distributing an estate, to give not less than three months notice in writing of his intention to distribute the assets and making him financially liable if he fails to do so. Another is the establishment of a legal presumption that once a pension is proved to have been awarded, and payment made during any period, the pensioner shall be deemed in the absence of evidence to the contrary to have received payment from the date of the award. I think that every fair-minded person will agree that this is a reasonable presumption.

These provisions will be reinforced by Section 17 which authorises the suspension of pension where a pensioner refuses or fails to furnish information or produce books or documents, reasonably required to establish his continued entitlement to pension and by new provisions requiring the personal representative of a deceased pensioner, under penalty, to furnish similar information regarding the pensioner.

The provision in Section 12 of the Bill arises out of the need to adjust on a legal basis a claim in respect of overpayment by a local authority of its contribution towards the cost of unemployment assistance in its area under Section 26 of the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1933.

Under that Act local authorities in areas where the higher rates of unemployment assistance are payable are required to pay to the Minister in each financial year as a contribution to the cost of unemployment assistance certain sums levied on the rateable valuation of their areas. For the purpose of determining the rateable valuations, certificates are obtained annually from the Commissioner of Valuation.

Under the law as it stands the Commissioner has no power to amend any certificate furnished by him or to issue a revised certificate. Previously the Commissioner had included the valuation of certain small dwellings in the certificates furnished by him. The local authorities concerned held that this was wrong and their view was upheld by legal opinion.

Since legal opinion was obtained that the relevant legislation did not give the Commissioner power to amend his certificates the overpayments were adjusted by allowing the local authorities concerned credit in subsequent years in respect of the amounts over-contributed. Both the Comptroller and Auditor-General and the Public Accounts Committee have considered this procedure and have concluded that it is unsatisfactory and the Committee expressed the view that amending legislation should be introduced when the opportunity offered.

A further application for a refund of amounts erroneously contributed by a local authority in respect of the valuation of small dwellings was recently received and the present amendment will enable the Commissioner of Valuation to issue a revised certificate as to rateable value where the facts so warrant and thus enable this, and any other cases which may arise, to be dealt with on a legal basis.

Over 250,000 people, old people and blind persons, widows and their children, orphans, the unemployed and their dependants, will benefit by this Bill as it stands apart from the 200,000 or so men, women and children who will receive new or extended social insurance benefits under the Social Welfare (Amendment) Bill 1960, which has just been passed through this House. In all, therefore, nearly half a million people will benefit, in one way or another, through both pieces of legislation.

A Bill containing so many concessions and providing for increases benefiting so many people could not be anything but a costly one and this brings me to the all important question of the increased expenditure which the provisions of the Bill will involve. The expenditure will, of course, be governed to some extent by the effect which the new contributory old age pensions will have on the number of people drawing the ordinary old age pension.

As I mentioned when moving the Second Reading of the Social Welfare (Amendment) Bill, 1960, a short time ago, it is very difficult to forecast with any precision what this effect is likely to be, owing to the absence of statistics to show how many formerly insured persons are now receiving the old age pension. On the basis of the present numbers of pensions, however, the cost in a full year of the increases announced in the Budget Statement and which are provided for in this Bill is estimated at approximately £657,000. Of this sum £421,000 a year is in respect of old age pensions, £150,000 is in respect of unemployment assistance and £86,000 in respect of non-contributory widows pensions. In addition to these sums the proposal to allow an extra 3s.6d. for each child of a widow in excess of two will cost roughly £15,000 a year and the decision to increase orphans non-contributory pensions £4,000 a year.

Apart from these direct increases in pension and assistance rates the various concessions and relaxations being made by the Bill will also involve extra expenditure. The provision for disregarding the earnings of widows up to a limit of £39 for each child, for instance, will cost a further £25,000 yearly, the proposal to continue old age pensions for a limited period to pensioners who go to live in Northern Ireland will cost approximately £7,000 and the proposal to abolish the three-day waiting period on transfer from unemployment benefit to unemployment assistance is estimated to cost a further £8,000 a year.

The removal of the disqualification for old age pension arising out of detention in a mental hospital will it is estimated increase the outlay on old age pensions by another £153,000, though I shall have more to say about this in a moment or two. The figures I have quoted all add up to a yearly bill of £869,000, additional to the £21,354,000 already voted for Social Assistance requirements for the current year. I mentioned a figure of £153,000 in connection with the proposal regarding payment of old age pension in respect of persons detained in mental hospitals. The net cost to the Exchequer will be somewhat less than the figure I mentioned, arising out of the provision for appropriation of the pension towards the cost of maintenance of the pensioner in such cases. The Exchequer provides 50 per cent. of the cost of the mental hospital services and if the pension were being fully appropriated in all cases the net cost to the Exchequer of this repeal would consequently be only half the figure I gave, that is £76,500. Since, however, it is being provided that up to ten shillings a week may be retained by the patient if he is capable of using the money beneficially the net cost to the Exchequer of repealing this particular disqualification will be substantially more than £76,500; in fact it may be over £100,000 depending on the extent, which there is no means of estimating, to which patients will be found able to avail themselves of the provision enabling them to get up to ten shillings of the pension for their own use.

When the Social Welfare (Amendment) Bill was before the House for its Second Reading I mentioned that, including the commitments which would be required under that Bill and under the present measure, the total amount which would be required in the current year for social welfare schemes runs at the rate of nearly £27¾ millions per year net. I pointed out that this was an enormous figure in relation to our taxable resources, representing, as it does, almost 26 per cent. of the tax revenue which, it is estimated, will be raised in this year for the general purposes of the Budget. I referred then to the great influence of social welfare expenditure upon the Budget and therefore upon taxation also and I mentioned that no other category of public services makes such heavy demands on the taxpayer.

I make no apology for referring to these facts again especially for the benefit of those Deputies who suggested, when the Estimates for my Department were before the House, that the increases announced in the Budget might have been greater. It is well that we should remind ourselves that any increase in social welfare expenditure requires, of necessity, a corresponding increase in tax revenues and that the ultimate governing factor in expanding these services is the capacity of the community, or, rather, of the producing elements in the community, to pay.

Nor should the increases now proposed be looked at in isolation. They represent in fact the third increase in social assistance payments since the Government took office, and the last increase took place only a year ago. It gives me great pleasure to recommend this measure to the House.

Mr. O'Sullivan

The Minister for Social Welfare can always be depended upon to put a good face on anything he introduces no matter how miserable it is. He has shown that this morning in dramatising what is being done and glossing over the hard fact that this Bill is designed to restore 1/- per week to the old age pensioner in compensation for what the Government did deliberately in increasing the cost of living since they assumed office.

The House will recall it was indicated when this Government decided to withdraw the food subsidies that adequate compensation would be paid to certain classes to compensate them for the Government's action. Since then we know that other sections of the community in their dealings with the private sector and with the Government as employers have secured some compensation for the effect of the withdrawal of the food subsidies.

Today we have a further effort by the Government to redress the harm done by the abolition of the food subsidies. The Minister in his opening statement referred to concessions and relaxations. Relaxation of what? Relaxation of the conditions the Government themselves created. To whom are the concessions being made? They are being made to the more unfortunate sections of our community who have been hardest hit by the Government's action in increasing the cost of living. I may say we are very far from reaching the end of the queue of all the sections of the community who expect and deserve relaxation. There is nothing in this to provide small farmers with any improvement in their income. In fact they have suffered a severe drop in their income in the past two years. There is nothing in this to provide them with anything to counteract the increase in the cost of living.

While we welcome anything done to improve the lot of the old age pensioner, this is a puerile effort on the part of the Government to compensate for making things so difficult for those unfortunate people. The Minister talked about 500,000 people benefiting. Again there are benefits, concessions and relaxations. He forgets that at least three times that number of people were hit, and hit hard, by the present Minister when he was Minister for Finance. One would have thought they would have learned their lesson in consequence of the way the people rejected them from office for their action when he was Minister for Finance. Despite the assurances of the former Leader and the present Leader of this Government following their return to office after the last general election, they decided completely to abolish the food subsidies. At the last general election they implied that the amount of money which had to be found by the Exchequer to meet the cost of subsidisation of food could be chopped off our national expenditure. The implication was that taxation would be reduced if the Government did not have to find this money to subsidise essential foodstuffs.

Today there is a reduction in the consumption of butter and a reduction in the consumption of flour and bread, notwithstanding the increases in wages and salaries. The Government have made niggling efforts to compensate the social welfare classes and the hard facts are that our people can no longer buy Irish creamery butter, that we are prepared to pay the foreigner to eat it, that we see our people smuggling it into this country because they cannot afford to pay the price demanded in consequence of the removal of the subsidy on that essential item of food.

There is no doubt that old age pensioners have to depend on a possible three meals per day, constituted in the main of bread, butter and tea. They are seriously affected because of the high cost of living. I have no doubt that I may safely suggest that at the moment the Minister is making a note in reference to the price of butter. I have no doubt that he will indicate that there will be an increase to the creamery milk supplier. He will not, however, indicate that there was a levy of one penny per gallon imposed on milk delivered to the creameries since this Government took office. As a result of that the price of milk to the consumer went up. But the price to the producer did not go up.

The actions of the Government have all tended to increase the cost of production. Consequently the price of butter for the old age pensioner has increased. It has increased also for social welfare recipients generally. None of these increases was transferred to the producer. The indications are that there is a reduction in consumption. Despite the efforts of the Government and the efforts of private employers people are no longer in a position to purchase the essential commodities to the extent to which they purchased them three years ago.

I wonder what this additional 1/- will do to assist these people. Apart from the impact resulting from the Government's deliberate action in withdrawing the food subsidies there is another increase in the cost of living. The Government have failed to exercise control over the rising cost of living and any efforts they made to nullify the results of their own deliberate action, or their failure to minimise the effect of their action on the cost of living, have been wholly unsuccessful. The meagre effort being made here will help nobody. Indeed, there is something of cynicism in this increase of 1/-. Why the delay in giving this increase? Governments in the past have given such increases immediately. Why the delay now between the Government's announcement of its intention and the implementation of that intention on 1st August next? In the intervening period those whose lot it is intended to alleviate have to suffer on.

The Minister referred to the cost of social services generally. Admittedly the services take quite a large part of the national expenditure. One must bear in mind, however, that the value of money today is less than it was some years ago. One must also bear in mind that the money is being found for other schemes. Only yesterday the Minister for Transport and Power informed the House that within a matter of weeks we will expend £5,000,000 on three jet planes.

Mr. MacEntee

Which will pay. Does that annoy the Deputy?

Mr. O'Sullivan

We heard that before, and they did not pay. The Irish taxpayer paid.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy should read this morning's Irish Times.

This Bill is a puny effort on the part of the Government, perhaps the puniest in a succession of puny efforts they have had to make despite their assurances that they would march Deputies repeatedly into the Lobbies to prevent any increase in salaries or wages resulting from their outrageous decision to withdraw the food subsidies. This meagre assistance will in no way ameliorate the lot of the unfortunate people who need alleviation and it is the deliberate action of the Government over the last two years which has created their unfortunate situation.

Mr. Corish

Needless to remark, we do not oppose the slight increase proposed in this measure. Whilst, as the last speaker said, the Minister has tried to dress up a good case he has, I think, condemned himself. He certainly gives the lie to the exaggeration inherent in his claims when he admits that approximately £800,000 will have to be provided over a full year among 250,000 people. If my figures are correct, and I think I am being generous to the Minister when I say £800,000, each recipient will benefit to the extent of about 60/- per year. I suppose the average benefit, as is generally suggested in the Bill, would be a shilling per week and, as I said, we welcome any increase that is given. In my opinion, however, whilst arguments for greater increases might be all very well in themselves they are of secondary importance to a matter that I consider of the utmost importance at present— to ask ourselves who is responsible for poor people in this country?

Nominally the Minister for Social Welfare is responsible for people who have no income, who are sick, who are unemployed, who are widows or who are old age pensioners, but in actual fact there does not seem to be anyone who takes absolute responsibility for the provision of assistance to people who have no money. A sort of see-saw game takes place between the local authorities and the Minister in this connection. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Social Welfare, particularly at Question Time, when asked about the amount of various allowances given by his Department, has often said that he does not expect people to live on these allowances exclusively and that local authorities should, and in many cases do, come to the assistance of the recipients of such assistance.

The plain fact of the matter, however, is that boards of assistance and public assistance authorities do not take anything like the responsibility that has been imposed upon them by this House for people who find themselves poverty-stricken. The usual attitude of local boards of assistance is that if a person has any sort of allowance, an old age pension, unemployment assistance, sickness benefit, disability benefit or any other allowance, that is the full extent of the responsibility of the people of the country towards that individual recipient and they refuse to assist him further or, if they do, give only a very small pittance.

I shall take for example an old age pensioner who lives on his own and who, at the present time, receives 27/6d. a week. Under this Bill he will receive 28/6d. a week and there is no necessity for me to hold up the House in describing how difficult it is for anyone to live on 27/6d. or 28/6d. a week. To say the least of it, we all appreciate it is very difficult. The responsibility one local authority assumes in such a case is to give an extra 5/- a week which means that person has 32/6d. a week on which to live and I do not think that is good enough.

On the one hand we have the Minister for Social Welfare and his Parliamentary Secretary saying that the public assistance authorities should assist such people but, on the other hand, we have the public assistance authorities who say it is the State's responsibility to cater for many of our unemployed, whether they be on the dole or in receipt of benefit. The State has a particular responsibility for them and so have the local authorities but between these two bodies what I describe as the utmost responsibility is not taken for people who find they have no money by reason of sickness, old age, widowhood and many of the other hazards of life.

On page 14 of his speech the Minister for Social Welfare referred to the "great influence of social welfare expenditure upon the Budget and therefore upon taxation" and went on to say:

I make no apology for referring to these facts again especially for the benefit of Deputies who suggested, when the Estimates for my Department were before the House, that the increases announced in the Budget might have been greater.

I think we have far too many statements of that kind. Some of us in this House seem to think that a big Bill for social welfare is something to be ashamed of but I do not think so. When talking about social welfare some of us seem to think that it merely means payment to people who are unemployed, to people who are sick, to old age pensioners, to widows and orphans, but these from only one category of social welfare and there are many other categories for which we should have regard as well.

I remember Deputy Dr. Browne asking the Minister for Finance how much we spend on social welfare from the Budget each year and the Minister replied, I believe rightly so, that about 90 per cent. of our State expenditure goes on social welfare. We never criticise the fact that we spend practically as much on agriculture as we do on social welfare. If my memory serves me correctly the amount we propose to spend on agriculture this year ranges from anything between £22,000,000 and £30,000,000. I am not objecting to that in the slightest. As far as this House is concerned that could also be regarded as a social welfare expenditure.

Any person who wants to build a house for himself gets a free grant provided he fulfils very simple conditions. He gets something like £300 and that is another reason why we should not complain, or appear to complain, about the amount we spend on social welfare. Another item of social welfare that could well be mentioned is the amount we give by way of assistance, call it what you will, social assistance, or industrial assistance, for the improvement of hotels and the building of new hotels. Someone may say that is all productive work and that we shall get a return in industry and in agriculture, but surely it is unfair to distinguish between the type of people who cannot give a return through no fault of their own, and those people who not alone will give a return to the country but will give a pretty good return to themselves?

That is one of the reasons why I believe this shilling all-round increase is not good enough. To say the least, I do not think it would do any harm to give much more to people who are unemployed, to people who are sick, to widows, old age pensioners and orphans because the State can at least be assured that the money they get will not be sent out of the country. The old age pensioners almost exclusively will but Irish produced goods because their main items of expenditure are food and clothing, things which are produced here. It seems to me a very contradictory situation. On the one hand the Minister for Social Welfare and his Parliamentary Secretary, as is his wont, say this country cannot afford any more than one shilling a week increase in such assistance. That has been the cry of the Minister this morning—that though we would love to do it we cannot afford to do it. On the other hand, we have had a virtual boast from the Taoiseach and members of the Government that in the past two years we have not alone recovered from what they describe as the disastrous years of 1956 and 1957 but our economic position has vastly improved.

In the Budget debate and in all the main financial debates in this House during the present year members of the Government Party were at pains to describe how the national income has gone up, how unemployment has gone down, how industry has boomed, how agriculture is holding its own, how the tourist trade has developed and improved. We have heard a lot about the great prospects for the tourist industry this year and for the years to come. Nevertheless, all we can do is to give the old age pensioners, the widows and the unemployed an increase of 1/- per week in their pensions. Surely it is a Gilbertian situation where on the one hand we boast that the country is improving economically by great strides and on the other hand we say we cannot afford any more than 1/- per week increase in pensions to old age pensioners and to people on unemployment assistance?

The present Government have given three increases to old age pensioners since they came into office in March, 1957, which total 4/6d. per week. They point out that in the period of office of the last inter-Party Government only 2/6d. was given. Those figures are correct. I suppose that at this stage there would be no use in saying, without a gibe and maybe a justifiable one, that the inter-Party Government had two Budgets and, therefore, two opportunities, so to speak, to make provision for such people as against four Budgets which the present Government have had. That is not the point I want to make.

The Minister for Social Welfare or any member of the Government may try to argue that there has been no appeciable change in the cost of living index number in the past 12 months and that any increase given to old age pensioners and such persons is a generous gesture on the part of the Government. I think they will have to go beyond the past 12 months. As far as old age pensioners are concerned, I think they will have to disregard to some extent the cost of living index number.

The people with whom this Bill deals are not concerned with a large number of items in the cost of living index. It includes many items of expenditure that are usual in respect of a big majority of our people. However, many of these items of expenditure are not peculiar to old age pensioners, to people on the dole and to many widows and orphans. These people are concerned mainly with the price of food and, say, the rents of houses, two items which have increased to a very large extent in the past three years.

In two Budgets in a period of three years, the inter-Party Government gave an increase of 2/6 to old age pensioners. That was a period during which the price of the food, according to the cost of living index figure, increased by 4 per cent. However, from March, 1957, to February, 1960, the price of food, again according to the cost of living index figure, increased by 12 per cent. For that reason and for no other reason there should be a much greater increase for old age pensioners and for recipients of unemployment assistance and benefits such as widows and orphans pensions, and so on.

Apart from what the last Government, the previous Fianna Fáil Government, or any Fianna Fáil Government did, or what a Cumann na nGaedheal Government did, it is time we tried to pin responsibility in respect of poor people with no means. I believe the local authorities are not doing their job in that respect and I have no hesitation in saying so. As far as I know, under the Public Assistance Act, 1939, this House imposed upon local authorities—and when I say "local authorities" I means also boards of assistance—and the ratepayers of each county responsibility for looking after people with no incomes but they do not do it. It is not the officials who do not do it; it is the elected representatives who do not do it.

Why talk about legal responsibility in respect of poor people? There is a grave moral responsibility on each and every county to look after people with no means. Nobody wants them to look after wastrels or spendthrifts but they are expected to look after the genuine poor. If the local authorities are not prepared to do that and, up to this, they have not shown evidence that they are prepared to accept their full responsibility we must consider the early introduction of a scheme on the lines of the British system of national assistance and let the State pay. I do not means the State should take on the full responsibility and allow the ratepayers to get off scot free. If necessary, we should get a contribution from them.

It is pathetic to see or to know a person who has no money, who is not an old age pensioner, who is not receiving unemployment assistance, sickness benefit or disability benefit, a person who has absolutely nothing and who is handed out 10/- or even 15/- per week by a local authority. Very seldom if ever do they go to £1 per week. Sometimes one hears it said about such a person: "He is a wastrel. I saw him at the pictures last night. He was at a dance last Sunday. He has got a new suit." They give him nothing because of what may appear to them to be signs of prosperity. The Minister should seriously consider what should be done about what I would term the poor of this country.

I welcome some of the changes which may appear insignificant in this measure. One does not come across such cases very often but they are very irritating when one does. Especially do I welcome the Minister's proposal to allow pensions to inmates of mental hospitals. His proposal is that a sum of money, the pension, may be used by the inmates of a mental hospital. Has the Minister considered making some part of that pension payable to a near relative who, say, has to undergo certain expense in providing comforts for the inmate? Many relatives travel frequently to mental hospitals and take comforts with them to the patient which in the ordinary course of events would not be provided by the hospital. If the Minister would consider covering that point, the Bill would be further improved. The proposal for an easement of the means test in respect of widows pensions is also welcomed.

The Labour Party naturally welcome the abolition of the three day waiting period. It is something which was a source of annoyance to workers generally for very many years and I am glad the Minister has got sanction from the Government to do away with that burden on workers who transferred from unemployment benefit to unemployment assistance. There never did seem to be any good reason for it and its removal is a very good improvement.

At paragraph 11 of his speech, the Minister says:

In calculating means for old age pension and widows' pension purposes the maintenance allowances payable to distressed persons under Section 50 of the Health Act, 1950 are legally assessable.

The present Bill Provides in Section 13 for the disregard of these allowances and proposes to put them on the same footing as the allowance, of a somewhat similar nature, payable under Section 44 of the Health Act, 1947.

I do not think he need have bothered about that at all. It is very difficult to obtain a distressed person's maintenance allowance from the local authority where one is in receipt of any social assistance allowance from the Department. However, for many of the good local authorities, it is a lead and it does prevent them from assessing a distressed person's maintenance allowance as means.

The Minister also introduced an excellent proposal. I am sure it will not cost him a great deal of money but it is a proposal that will ease the means test in respect of a person who is in receipt of an old age pension and who also has a pension from some other source. I think that is an excellent improvement. In many parts of the country, this point crops up from time to time. There are people who had pensions from the British navy or army or some other similar source and who, when they got an increased pension from Britain, discovered, when their means were reassessed, that they suffered a big reduction in their Irish old age pension. In the final analysis, it meant that in total pension, they had less.

The only thing I should like to refer to, in conclusion, is the general question of the means test. I do not remember what it would cost the Minister or the State to make an improvement in that respect but I think these figures in the reassessment of means have obtained for quite a long time. We all agree that money values have changed. Incomes have changed and values generally have changed. I think there is a good case for an easement of the means test.

I do not believe that an easement of the means test will affect to any great degree the existing recipients of the old age pension because I think that well over 50 per cent of them are old age pensioners who have the maximum pension and who have no means whatsoever, but there are, I suppose, many other cases where an easement of the means test would mean an increase in the old age pension.

This is described as a Social Welfare Bill but I do not know whether it would include this item or not. There seems to be an impression that the Minister for Social Welfare contemplates centralising the administration of the services for which he is responsible and that the tendency is to centralise the administration of all these services in Dublin. How that can be done successfully, I cannot imagine. I complained here on one occasion about the discontinuance of the post of local agent in a particular part of the country and confessed afterwards in the House that I thought it had worked out pretty well in respect of sickness benefit. I do not think that the same sort of thing would apply in respect of old age pensions and widows' and orphans' pensions, particularly where there must be a man on the spot to interview these applicants. I do not think means can be assessed from Dublin. The personal interview is of tremendous advantage, not alone to the Minister and his Department but to the applicant. However, the Minister has not mentioned it. Is it only a rumour that the centralisation of the sickness benefit administration is a pointer to the centralisation of the administration of all the services in the Minister's Department?

Mr. Cunningham

I regard this as a good Bill because it makes advances in a number of items concerning the social welfare code. The Minister is to be congratulated since he took up office that a number of very useful improvements have been made. This is a follow-up in the same direction. Of course, it is in keeping with the policy of the Government that we must in this country advances not alone in social welfare but in all other spheres of Governmental and Departmental activity so that the finger of scorn cannot be pointed at us and that our social welfare and other services will not lag behind other nations, especially our neighbours.

Any improvement in the social welfare code to bring it in line with the social welfare code in the Six County area or Britain will go a long way towards improving the relations between the people here and the people in the North and show them that we, under our own Government, are a highly progressive nation. For that reason and because it helps our people here, I welcome the Bill.

Being the representative of a northern constituency, I welcome the section which will in future enable residents in the Twenty-Six County area, who go, either permanently or temporarily to reside in the six northern counties area to receive the old age pension. That is a very good section in the Bill. There was a certain amount of hardship in many cases where old people, who went to reside with their married son or daughter in the Six County area, found that they could not become eligible for the old age pension is that area until they had a certain period of residence. This very useful section in the Minister's Bill takes care of that.

One point which has cropped up very often as far as I am concerned and on which representations have been made to me is that old age pensions should be paid to persons who go to live in homes in the Six County area. I have in mind the Nazareth Home in Derry into which go many Donegal people, especially people from the Border area. They find themselves alone, as all the members of their families have departed, and they have to go in there to receive treatment and are very well looked after. Unfortunately heretofore they could not receive old age pensions while they were in that Home. I hope that this section of the Bill which makes provision for the payment of old age pensions to people who go to reside in the Six Counties will cover people who go into that Home and similar places.

The means test, of course for very good reasons, is discussed during every debate here on social welfare. The first thing that strikes me about the means test and the method of investigation is that it cannot be uniform. Where you have a large number of officers dealing with this means test it is very difficult to secure uniformity. One may find in one area that certain classes are catered for while similar classes in another area may be turned down. I do not know if the Minister can do anything about that or if he has done anything about it but it is causing a lot of discontent. A full investigation and full consideration of the means test, with special reference to present day values, should be undertaken. Many of the regulations concerning the means test were drafted years ago with the result that they are not in line with modern trends.

For instance, since the means test was introduced we have had a very big advance in private house building. The Government and the Department of Local Government are laying particular emphasis on the fact that as many of our people as possible should own their own houses. Every encouragement is given to people to build houses of their own and every encouragement is given by the Government by way of grants and by way of loans to the councils to enable the various councils to finance applicants for loans. The county councils have made available in many cases one-third grants etc.

In any event, we find there is an advance in private house building and I have in mind an area in Donegal where the county council has made available building instructors to help people who build or reconstruct their own houses. Now, after the reconstruction of an existing house the valuation of that building is increased. In many cases the people who do the reconstruction or building are recipients of——

It is even too much for the Tanáiste.

Mr. Cunningham

I maintain that in that case the man's unemployment assistance should not have been affected. We have other cases where the regulations laid down do not conform with modern trends. I would urge the Minister to investigate fully this whole question of the means test so that we will not have cases of hardship such as that I have mentioned. On the whole, this Bill represents a great step forward in our social welfare code and as I say it is in line with Government policy in all Departments.

Sir Anthony Esmonde

This Bill seems to be an indication of the confidence that the present Government have in themselves. We are repeatedly hearing about the re-establishment of good sound financial conditions. There is an anticipated buoyancy of revenue and, if such is the case, surely it would have been possible for the Government who must be alive to the hardships that have been inflicted on, shall we say, the indigent classes, to realise that these people are entitled to a greater measure of security. Be that as it may one welcomes anything which alleviates in any way the difficulties under which old age pensioners, blind pensioners and widows have to exist.

I use the word "exist" advisedly because they do have to exist. What they are getting is barely enough to provide them with the normal necessaries of life. If the Minister and the Government believe what they say, that conditions are so promising here, they could have taken a jump in the dark and at least offered these people more than 1/- a week. The total sum included in this Bill is somewhere in the neighbourhood of £800,000 a year while the revenue of this country is running to £100,000,000 a year.

Is there no room in the imagination of the Government, and in the efforts of the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary, for the provision of a little more for the people they represent? We must all bear in mind that even a married couple, living together and drawing the old age pension, have only just enough to procure for themselves the ordinary necessaries of life. We must consider the purchasing power of the £ to-day. Rents are going up and, in spite of what members of the Government say, the cost of living has gone up continuously since they assumed office a few years ago, entirely due to their deliberate action.

I cannot help describing this Bill as a somewhat mean Bill. I remember when we introduced a Social Welfare Bill offering the old age pensioners another 2/6d. a week, it was described, by a Fianna Fáil Deputy of many years standing in this House, as being one of the meanest Bills that ever came before Dáil Éireann. If an extra 2/6d. is mean, I wonder what is 1/?

I agree with the last speaker, who was subjected to a good deal of criticism because he delved into matters dealing with housing and so on, that it is time we had a reappraisal of the means test. What was applicable 20 years ago is not applicable to-day. I want to make a suggestion to the Minister. There are many people I know who have worked hard all their lives for a fairly decent income or wage. They put money by: in some cases, they invested it in house property, and in other cases, they invested it in securities and so on. They were an asset to the country not only by virtue of the service they gave to the country, but by virtue of being stable decent members of society.

When they come to the age of 70 years quite a few people in that category, exemplary, first-class citizens, find themselves subjected to a means test, while living beside them in the same street, there may be someone who lived up to the full value of his pay, spending every shilling, not necessarily in the best or the most suitable way, but who is entitled to draw a full pension or full social benefits.

For that reason, I should like to suggest to the Minister that he should take a look at the means test, and I should like to offer another suggestion to the House as well. Recently we enacted through the Budget a provision whereby those who have money on deposit in the banks are entitled to a relief in taxation. It would be easy for the Minister to embody in the legislation before the House at the moment a system whereby it would be possible to disregard, in its entirely, any money on deposit, in assessing the means of those seeking social welfare benefits.

The Minister may well answer me and say that is not possible or feasible. He may say that anyone could sell a farm and put a huge sum of money on deposit in order to get these benefits. Be that as it may, I would suggest further that if the Minister falls in with my suggestion, for the purpose of national health insurance benefit, unemployment benefit, or widows' and old age pensions, he could confine it to those who have genuinely been in insurable employment throughout their lives. By doing that, not only would he undo an injustice which, in my opinion, exists, but he would encourage saving, and that is what we all want to encourage. People should be encouraged to save and to put something by for another day.

I do not see anything in this Bill which gives any increase whatsoever to those who are entitled to benefits for total disability. I think there is a liaison between the local authorities and the Department of Social Welfare, whereby those who are certified as being totally disabled are entitled to a pension of £1 a week. Fortunately, there are not terribly many people drawing that benefit, and surely it was possible for the Minister to have included them in this Bill.

Mr. MacEntee

Disability allowances are payable under the Health Acts and not under the social welfare code.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

They do not arise on the Bill before the House.

Sir Anthony Esmonde

I beg the Minister's pardon. I welcome the provision of the Bill with regard to mental hospitale, whereby it is left to the discretion of the medical officer to pay back the 10/- per week, if he thinks it is possible for the inmate to utilise it himself. I ask the Minister to go further and consider having that sum paid to the dependants, if the inmate is not in a position to use it himself.

This matter was raised previously by another Deputy, but I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the case of two old age pensioners living together. One may be transferred to a mental institution. When they were living together, they had 27/6d. a week each and two of them could live more comfortably than one could when the other had gone to the institution. The other still stays in the home, still has to pay rent and still has to carry on housekeeping on 27/6d. a week less. In the event of the individual concerned not being able to utilise the 10/- for himself, I think the Minister could embody in this Bill a provision whereby it would be payable to the dependant. It is a fact that there are many people such as I have cited in institutions and if an individual had the power to do so, it is very likely he would hand the 10/-, or the greater part of it, to his partner who is not in an institution, to assist the partner with the housekeeping and the rent. I should like the Minister to give due consideration to that suggestion on Committee Stage.

In regard to blind pensions. I do not know what the position is in other counties, but in my own constituency, I find there is a very rigid application of the law with regard to qualification for blind pensions. I am not referring now so much to the actual means test as to who is or who is not entitled to a blind pension.

It seems to me that an undue number of cases in Wexford are being turned down. Perhaps the Minister would indicate to us who actually come within the scope of the blind pension. I know people who are not actually blind but who at the same time, are not able to engage in ordinary activities. In recent years, anyway, I have noticed a very stringent administering of this law. I know a number of people unable to work—they cannot see sufficiently to work—but still they are not considered to be entitled to a blind pension because they are not, in the strict sense of the word, totally disabled in the matter of vision. Therefore, I think the Minister might ask those acting on his behalf to give a more liberal interpretation to the law relative to this matter.

It is very difficult for anyone with bad sight to procure employment of any sort, and I know cases of considerable hardship. They are not eligible for the old age pension; they are not really considered eligible for national health insurance and, in fact, in a great many cases they have no national health insurance benefits to get because, due to the impediment of bad sight, they have been unable to obtain employment and, therefore, unable to be insured. There are quite a number of people scattered up and down the country—I know them in my own county and I am sure they exist to quite a large extent elsewhere—who find themselves thrown back on the local authority to look for a few shillings to maintain themselves and their families.

I do not know what the actual position is, whether at the moment there is a full appeal for a blind pension or not. I think that one can, when the matter is turned down, apply to the Minister for Social Welfare. However, on applying to the Minister for Social Welfare, I think one always receives the same stereotyped reply: that the applicant does not comply with the conditions relative to the drawing of a blind pension. In other words, there is nothing doing and he gets no pay of any sort. Therefore, I think it is a matter that wants review generally.

Another thing that has struck me over the past few years is the very stringent application of the test in regard to old age pensions. I know quite a number of cases in my own county where the local pensions committee have awarded pensions and when the appeal comes from the Minister's Department, in a great many instances, these cases are turned down. Does that mean that the pension committees who are, I think, in the main elected representatives——

Mr. T. Lynch

They are a nuisance, according to the Parliamentary Secretary.

Sir Anthony Esmonde

——or, if not, people of high repute in the particular district, have no real say in the matter at all? Does it mean that this is some new way of cutting down the applications for old age pensions? I should not like to feel that such would be the case. These pension committees should be given greater jurisdiction in future.

Deputy Corish talked about the means test and it was also referred to by Deputy Esmonde. A person in receipt of £52 per year gets the full old age pension and up to £104 the minimum pension can be got. Deputy Corish referred to the people who have no means whatever. It is calculated in the Department that they represent 15 per cent. of the total recipients of old age pensions. The Deputy advocates relaxing the means test, but at the same time advocates more generous treatment for that 15 per cent. In an economy such as ours, we could not afford to carry out his wishes in both cases.

The means test has been very much relaxed over the past few years. The scales now in operation are as follows.

With £52 10s., you get the full pension; from £52 10s. to £65 10s., there is a reduction of 5/-; from £65 10s. to £78 10s., there is a further reduction of 5/-; and from £78 10s. to £104 15s., another reduction of 5/-. After £104 15s., the claimant is out. That is very liberal compared with what operated 10 years ago.

Deputy O'Sullivan referred to the food subsidies. I have heard him on several occasions talking about them in this House. I want to put this to him, through the Chair. If his Government come back into office, will they restore the food subsidies?

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

Fan go bhfeicfidh.

Mr. Kennedy

Ní freagra é sin chor ar bith. Food subsidies arise in a period of emergency and all Governments get rid of them as soon as possible so as to let the economy run in the ordinary way. I take it from Deputy T.F. O'Higgins, a spokesman for Fine Gael, that when his Government come in, if they do come in, the first thing they will do is to restore the emergency food subsidies. That is information for the electorate and is going to cost a few pence.

Great stress has been placed on minimising the effect of the 1/- increase in old age pensions. Since we came into office, we have given increases amounting to 4/6d. in contrast with our predecessors' 2/6d. While their increase cost £900,000, the total impact on the Exchequer of our 4/6d. is £1,405,000. That more than compensates for any rise in the cost of living.

Mr. Dillon

Ten pence in the lb. on butter and 5d. on the 2-lb loaf.

Mr. Kennedy

It compensates for the increase in the prices of butter, flour and bread.

People can find fault with us that we took a chance that did not come off. We ultimately had to meet the cost out of the revenue because the price of tea did not come down. I am glad that we took the chance. I think we made the right decision, the right effort and it should have carried conviction to our people that we were following a consistent policy all the way through, that we were going to maintain a steady cost of living figure and that the rises and falls we would take on the Exchequer for the purpose of maintaining economic stability. I think our policy paid.

Mr. Corish

We further subsidised the price of butter.

Mr. Dillon

I know. But, observe, our policy was designed to protect all sections of the community and the people who got some of the most valuable protection out of it were the small farmers of this country.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I feel that the Leader of the Opposition is getting away from the Bill before the House. A discussion on subsidies and Government policy at that time is not in order on this Bill.

Mr. Dillon

I do not wish to try the patience of the Leas-Cheann Comhairle but the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will remember that the Parliamentary Secretary, intervening in the debate— not concluding—drew down the question of the penultimate straw on the backs of the oppressed producers of this country. I wanted to remind him that if this is the penultimate straw, all the previous straws that are now bending the camel's back were put there by him. I am pointing out that they are a heavy burden and I am trying to point out to Deputy Corry— and whatever we may say against Corry, he has usually held himself out to be a representative of farming interests in this House—that the only section of the community for whom nothing is done to compensate them for the burden that is bending their backs is the small farmer for whom he holds himself forth as spokesman.

We shall get back to the strict limits of the Bill. I am sure the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will excuse me for having travelled thus far in pursuit of the penultimate straw of which the Parliamentary Secretary spoke so eloquently in his intervention in this debate.

I want to refer to certain specific matters that arise in connection with the Bill. Section 18 deals with the power to ask personal representatives to make a true return of the assets of a deceased person with a view to enabling the Minister to claim from the estate of a deceased person who, he believes, has collected old age pension incorrectly whatever sum has been improperly paid. I want to make this case to the Parliamentary Secretary in that regard. It is a perfectly natural thing to say that if people get money from the State or from anybody else by a false pretence it is reasonable and just that they should be asked to refund it but has the Minister considered this situation? I imagine these circumstances must be fairly familiar to him in his own experience. You get an old person in rural Ireland and he has a man or a woman working for him in the house. Not infrequently, the wages run into arrears in a case of that kind and instead of being paid weekly they are paid a lump sum from time to time. The old person dies and leaves a small estate. A small shopkeeper may have been providing the domestic necessities through a pass book for a period. It is found that the old person now deceased owes the shopkeeper perhaps £17—and for a country shop that is a big bill; he may owe the woman who is working in the house anything up to £50; he may owe the agricultural worker on the farm, who is looking after the livestock and so forth, a similar sum. Ordinarily, whoever takes out administration of the estate will pay these people off out of whatever assets there are.

Section 19 subsection (1) provides:

The personal representative of a person who dies after the commencement of this Act and who was at any time in receipt of a pension shall, before distributing the assets of the person inform the Minister by notice in writing delivered to the Minister not less than three months before the distribution commences, of his intention to distribute the assets.

That in itself is a very grievous delay but, over and above that, under the existing law the Minister has a prior claim on assets. At first glance that may seem to be just because the Minister is recovering money improperly taken from him but the penalty does not fall on the deceased person. The resultant penalty of the prior claim upon the assets of the deceased's estate falls on an unfortunate workingman or on a girl who has been working in the house or on a small country shopkeeper who has given credit to a neighbour. I had a case recently where a woman had due to her something like £120 but it transpired that the Minister for Social Welfare had a claim against the estate for over £200. Under the existing law I do not think the Minister has any discretion. He must get that money back but if he does get it back that person will get no wages and any other debts the deceased person owes will be unpaid.

It is not unreasonable for the Minister to rank with other creditors and get his share but it is a hardship that the Minister should claim for himself the very onerous rights which are claimed by the Revenue Commissioners who have a pre-emptive claim on all the assets before any other creditor has any claim at all. I do not underestimate the difficulties here. I fully appreciate that if there is a small estate and there is a claim against it by the Minister, it is not impossible in the conditions of rural Ireland that a number of fictitious claims against the estate would be raised to save the estate from the Minister's claim.

I would be ready and willing to discuss with the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary the means of providing against that contingency, but I think the Parliamentary Secretary will agree with me that where there is a genuine claim for service or for goods supplied by a country shop, some regard ought to be had to that claim even where we know that the deceased person had improperly collected a pension. I do not think that many cases of this kind would arise because if a deceased person had been improperly collecting a pension that suggests that he had substantial assets which came to light after his death. Therefore, to act upon the lines I suggest would not involve the Exchequer in any substantial loss. It would be only in an exceptional case where the Minister's claim would exhaust the available assets and it is only in such circumstances that the remedy is urgently necessary.

There is a provision in the Bill which I welcome. I think I am entitled to claim some credit for the reform and that is the one incorporated in Section 6. Glad as I am to see this reform I think there is a flaw in it. Section 6 says:—

Where a person who is in receipt of a pension takes up residence, after the commencement of this Act, in Northern Ireland, payment of the pension may, notwithstanding anything contained in paragraph (a) of Section 5 of the Act of 1911 be made until....

Then it provides for two contingencies which on the whole are reasonable, but what are we going to do with the old people who have already been forced by circumstances to go to Northern Ireland?

There is an old constituent of mine who lived with her daughter in county Monaghan until she was 80 and was in regular receipt of a pension. Then the daughter which whom she lived at home died and the old lady tried to struggle on herself, but it became manifest that she could not live alone. She went to live with her married daughter in county Armagh.

Let me say at once that the attitude of the Department of Social Welfare was sympathetic and helpful in so far as the law would allow. They pointed out that if the old lady was going on a protracted holiday to Northern Ireland there was no difficulty about that provided she maintained her place of permanent residence in Ireland. However, if she changed her permanent place of residence the law required that her pension should be withdrawn.

I am not suggesting that the existing law was applied in any unsympathetic way but ultimately the circumstances were such that I certainly could not go on representing to the Department of Social Welfare that she was maintaining residence here. Despite their best endeavours they could not deem her to have a place of residence here because she was not able to live here, and she had to go permanently to live with her daughter.

What will her position be under this Bill? It will be a great hardship if we say to her that because her circumstances forced her to go to Northern Ireland six months ago she can never draw her pension again, while her next door neighbour who comes from Monaghan and goes up to live beside her in Armagh will continue to draw her pension. I do not see any difficulty here. Do any of us feel there would be anything wrong in saying to old people who have already gone to Northern Ireland, if they are over 70 years of age, that we are prepared now to give them their pensions? I cannot see that would involve the Minister in any dangerous liability. If you confine this relief to people who go north after the passing of this Bill you will create a series of anomalies which will cause a great deal of misunderstanding and difficulty. However, I do not want to press the Parliamentary Secretary at this stage because it is a matter that can be looked into and which can be discussed in greater detail on the Committee Stage of the Bill.

There is only one other point I wish to make. I believe it is right to speak the truth as far as one can even in regard to much maligned Departments of State and I must say that in my own experience of the Department of Social Welfare their approach to most problems relating to old age pensions is sympathetic, kindly and well-informed. Nevertheless there is a flaw in our existing administration and I wish I were in a position to make a clear and certain recommendation to the Minister as to how it could be remedied. I am not sure that I can. My experience of country people, and it is very extensive—and the same goes for the people of the city of Dublin amongst whom I was born and reared —is that they are reasonable on the whole if they feel that justice is being done. Every pensioner who does not get the full pension will make loud hullabaloo but when they get what they believe they are honestly entitled to, and what they think is fair and just according to the law, they feel no real, enduring grievance.

Here is a problem, however, to which I find it hard to get the right answer. I am sure every Deputy has had this experience. You meet a widow; she has perhaps 28 acres of land; she says she has the land set to a relative who is living with her and that all the stock belongs not to her but to him; she has to have somebody in the house with her; she is a lone woman and she must have a man about the house. She has a nephew, or a cousin, living with her and part of the consideration is that she will set the land to that nephew, or whoever it is, and the stock on the place is his. He does all the business and she has literally nothing except the right of residence, and whatever preferential rent is paid by the relative.

The Department of Social Welfare officer comes upon the scene. He sees the farm; there are cattle and pigs and livestock on it; there is an elderly woman in the house; the place is registered in her name; she has a hardy chap living with her, who is running the place. There is an atmosphere of reasonable prosperity all about it. He cannot accept the premise that she has no income, and she either gets no pension at all or a very much reduced pension. You then go down the road and not fifty yards away you come upon another farm, where the valuation is much higher, and yet, through some mysterious working of bureaucracy, you find that the person, whom all the neighbours believe to be much better off than the widow, and whom the widow looks upon as a well-to-do neighbour, is getting the full pension.

That is the great cause of grievance in rural Ireland. Mark you, some cynical people may say: "Oh, that is rooted only in jealousy". But who amongst us is so exalted in spirit that he accepts less than he hopes to get and feels no resentment when his nextdoor neighbour gets substantially more than that to which we believe he is entitled under the law? The Department of Social Welfare would, I suppose, be legitimately entitled to say to someone who makes that complaint: "Very well. If you believe so-and-so down the road is getting more than he is entitled to, give us the information, and we shall soon take it off him. We do not want anyone getting more than that to which he is entitled under the law. We examine every case scrupulously. If the woman has a neighbour who is getting more than he is entitled to and if she is getting only half of that to which she is entitled under the law, tell us about it."

I should like Deputies to give me their experience and opinion on this: if a neighbour of mine in rural Ireland battles her way through the pensions committee, through the pensions officer and, finally, turns up, after the passage of this Bill, with 28/6 per week, does it behove any of us to go to the Department of Social Welfare and say: "I think my neighbour ‘X. Y.' is getting too much"? I do not think I would do it. I think I would decide that my duty as a public representative, and my duty as a Deputy to the people of Monaghan, imposes upon me an obligation to approach the Department of Social Welfare wherever it appears to me that a constituent of mine is getting less than that to which he or she is entitled under the law. But where a constituent of mine has made his case to a Department of State and has undergone all the correct procedures for investigation of his means and circumstances, and has emerged with a full old age pension, even though I suspect, but have no certain knowledge, that he is getting more than his due, it is no part of my public duty to go to the Department of Social Welfare and say: "Take another look at that fellow. He is getting too much."

Maybe I am wrong but, if I am wrong, I should like to be told it, and told it by some of my experienced colleagues in this House who would suggest to me that my public duty extends to that. I do not think it does. But there is a real difficulty and it is that difficulty which, I think, comprises 99 per cent. of the complaints about the administration of the old age pension code. It is not the suggestion that habitually people are denied what they are entitled to under the law; it is that there is no full equity in the treatment of one case and another. So long as that continues there will continue to be a sense of grievance amongst people in rural Ireland. I think that is why many of us lean strongly in favour of the abolition of the means test, if that were financially and economically possible, because it would remove a notion of resentment and jealousy and a genuine sense of grievance that one person is getting the pension and another, whose circumstances would suggest he is better entitled to it, is not getting the full pension, or possibly no pension at all.

I should be glad if, when the Minister comes to conclude, he would give us the benefit of his experience in that particular matter. I should be grateful, too, if the specific matters to which I referred under Section 6 and Sections 17, 18 and 19 would also be considered between now and the Committee Stage.

Mr. Tierney

I believe that this Government, like the Governments which preceded it, are approaching this problem of old age pensions in a wrong light. We are arguing here today as to whether or not 1/- per week is adequate compensation for the increase in the cost of living, an increase inflicted on us because of the actions of past Governments and of the present Government. And that 1/- per week is the compensation offered to the aged, the infirm, and the poor.

The reason I say this problem is approached in the wrong light is because successive Governments have been so niggardly where the aged, the infirm, and the poor are concerned. Certain speakers here assert that 1/- per week is not adequate compensation for these categories. The Government maintain that it is ample compensation. All down the years we have neglected the aged, the sick, and the infirm and it is that continued neglect which has us here this morning disputing as to whether or not 1/- per week is sufficient.

I cannot understand the Minister or Parliamentary Secretary in this year, 1960, offering to these necessitous classes less than 2d. per day. The Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary are fully aware that there are seven days in the week. I wonder would the Minister, when he comes to reply, give us some details as to what that amount of money will buy for these people.

We are told what this increase of 1/- per week will cost the taxpayers of the country. The figures are given in millions, half millions and hundreds of thousands of pounds, but very rarely does anyone get up to tell us what other highfalutin schemes will cost the taxpayers. Schemes providing for jet propelled planes and other such things cost the country far more than the amount involved here. Many harebrained schemes introduced by various Ministers cost more than is involved in increasing old age pensions but that is not brought before the public, so that whenever a Minister or a Parliamentary Secretary tells us that an increase over and above a certain figure will cost the taxpayers and ratepayers a lot of money I am inclined to take that with a grain of salt because it is only put forward to frighten people who are already overburdened.

How any Government can offer the poor, the infirm, and the aged an increase of less than twopence a day is beyond me when I recall that by their own deliberate action the present Government steeply increased the cost of living for poor people. Some months ago we discussed other increases for other sections of the community and I believed at the time that they were entitled to the increases proposed. I still do, but when High Court judges are given an increase of £10 a week——

An Ceann Comhairle

We may not discuss that now.

Mr. Tierney

I am only pointing out the difference between 1/- a week and £10 a week. It is only a passing reference. County managers also got an increase of £1 a week to meet the same increase in the cost of living and other workers got increases ranging from 6/- to 12/-. Considering all that, I cannot understand how we can be told that an increase of 1/- a week, which is less than twopence a day, is sufficient for old age pensioners to meet the increase in the cost of living. The costs of bread, sugar, tea, butter, heating, clothes and other things have all risen, and 1/- a week is a very niggardly increase to offer any group of people to offset that.

As I stated earlier, we started off on the wrong foot some years ago. When one Party is in power it gives a niggardly increase to these people and it is succeeded by another Party which follows on with another niggardly increase. But all Parties have forgotten that when pensions were first introduced they were at a very low level so that, instead of talking of an increase of less than 2d. a day now, we should be talking in terms of pounds.

There is another aspect of this matter which I should like to draw to the notice of the Parliamentary Secretary. Under the present system if a person is admitted to a mental hospital he cannot qualify for an old age pension. Anyone who has served on mental hospital visiting committees will know that the hospital authorities treat such persons very well. A patient who is in receipt of a British or Irish army pension gets a certain amount of it for himself as pocket money, but a patient over 70 years of age, under our regulations, does not qualify for an old age pension when admitted to a mental hospital. Patients, however, do qualify for old age pensions in county homes and in ordinary hospitals. They would also qualify if they were admitted to private nursing homes but now, especially that persons can become voluntary inmates of mental hospitals, I believe the Parliamentary Secretary should consider the matter very carefully and see that such people should qualify for old age pensions.

An Ceann Comhairle

Now, now! The Deputy will please deal with the provisions of the Bill.

Mr. Corry

With regard to the Bill, the man is going to get 28/6d. a week to live on. I am endeavouring to find out whether he has to pay out of that 28/6d. for a medical officer. In my capacity as Chairman of a Board of Assistance I have met recently several cases where medical cards were refused to old age pensioners. If an old age pensioner had £1,000, he would not get the full old age pension. If he is entitled to the full old age pension, surely he is not expected to pay for a doctor out of that miserable 28/6d?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should raise that on the Health Estimate.

Mr. Corry

I hope to.

An Ceann Comhairle

It is quite irrelevant on this Bill. I cannot allow the Deputy to comment on my rulings.

Mr. Corry

Right, Sir. I think that is all I have to say. I shall reserve this for the Health Estimate. We shall have it out on that.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

The Deputy said nothing.

Mr. Coogan

I had the privilege of being elected on local bodies despite the remark made by the Minister in the course of the debate. Let me remind him that I had the privilege of heading the poll on both occasions and defeating six of his Party in my own constituency in the elections for Galway Corporation, thereby being put in close contact again with "welfarism", home assistance and so forth for another 12 months.

Much could be said about the fact that the unfortunate old age pensioners are not even considered to be worth 2d. a day—2d. a day to meet the increased cost of living, from bus fares to the bite on their tables. The Minister has hinted or suggested that if he had his way there would be no old age pension committees. I believe this is one of the last vestiges of democracy we have and that being so the powers of these committees, instead of being cut, should be increased. Are we going to hand over the whole system to Departments? The Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary should clarify the position in regard to that.

I must refer again to this question of old age pensions. We have here a system whereby the harder a man works the less he finds himself entitled to at the end of his days. That is not an incentive to anybody to work hard. We should try to abolish the system whereby a pension officer must investigate the amount of a claimant's hard-earned money. We should try to evolve a system such as they have in England and which has a lot to recommend it. Officials cost a lot more under the present system than if we were to pay full pensions without subjecting people to a system of interrogation to find out what they have. I can assure the Minister that a vast number of these people in my constituency have "sweet all" after working all their lives. That is all I have to say on this Bill because it does not offer a lot but I should like the Minister to clarify the point about old age pension committees.

Mr. Loughman

I listened to several speakers during this debate and I must say I found many of them amusing when I took the actual facts into consideration. I listened to Deputy O'Sullivan raising again the question of the food subsidies as if these food subsidies had not been referred to sufficiently over the years to make the people sick when they hear about them now. I should like to remind Deputy O'Sullivan that before he came into this House, when the food subsidies were first introduced, the Deputies in Opposition proclaimed that they were niggardly, that they were a disgrace and that the amounts offered were not worth considering. But the food subsidies became of tremendous value when eventually, because of the previous Government's faults, they had to be abolished. Of course something which they failed to take into consideration when talking about these subsidies was the fact that the people actually paid them. Even though they were not aware of it they were paying the subsidies which were taken out of the same pool as the ordinary taxes are taken from. If the people did not get full benefit for the money saved by the abolition of the food subsidies it was simply because of the legacy of debt left to the Government and the country by the preceding Government.

I heard some Deputies speak about the niggardly increase given to old age pensioners. We weep over the old age pensioners constantly in this House. Every Deputy in Opposition seems to think that an appeal to the 160,000 old age pensioners will get him elected here, that he can use the softest words possible about their hardships and so on and that is going to benefit him. Deputy Coogan used the phrase that the harder a man works the less he is entitled to at the end of his days. That to me is a very strange philosophy because I hold the harder a man works during his lifetime, the more he will have when he reaches the end of his days.

Mr. Coogan

Not always.

Mr. Loughman

I should like to point out to Deputy Coogan that he does not understand the idea of the old age pension. Like Deputy Corish on one occasion, he seems to regard it as a means of livelihood. It was never intended, so far as I know, that it should be regarded as a means of livelihood. The old age pension was granted, in the first instance, as Deputy Coogan knows, as some form of assistance from the State to help old people when they reached a certain age and could no longer work. It was never, from the beginning, intended to be a means of livelihood. I say, and I have said this before, that if members of the Opposition Parties look on it as a means of livelihood, then, when they had the opportunity, they should have increased it to such an extent that it would enable old people to live on it solely.

Deputy Coogan also mentioned the cost of the officials administering the scheme and said that a saving on these officials would provide pensions for everyone. That is the greatest nonsense.

Mr. Coogan

Not at all.

Mr. Loughman

Absolute nonsense.

Mr. Coogan

Not at all.

Mr. Loughman

He should study the matter before he makes a statement of that description. He knows that the reason we have a means test for old age pensions is the extraordinarily heavy cost that would be involved were we to abolish the means test. People earning £1,000, £9,000, £10,000, or £500 a year would get the old age pension equally with the person who gets it now under the means test.

Very good; I just wanted to make those few brief comments.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I intervene to say a word or two in relation to what has been said in this debate. The last speaker referred to the benefits given to old age pensioners by this measure, and suggested that when the Fianna Fáil Government first dealt with old age pensions, the means test was based on an income of £15, and he referred to how much better off people were today when they could have £1 a week and not be disqualified. That, I respectfully submit, is typical of the complacent and rather stupid attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party with regard to these measures.

Everyone knows—certainly anyone who has to fend for himself on limited means knows well—that from 1939 to now, a period of 21 years, the value of money has dropped three times. The £1 today is worth 6/8 compared with the 1939 £1. Were we to do even elementary justice to the old age pensioners, we should increase their pensions to at least three times what it was in 1939. If we were merely to ensure that the real benefits drawn from the old age pensions were to be the same as they were pre-war, the pension should now be 30/- per week.

Of course the truth is that the Fianna Fáil Government have, in fact, reduced the old age pension. It was 10/- in 1939, and at that time that money bought what it takes 30/- to buy today. But here in this measure, which has been introduced with a fanfare of trumpets by the Fianna Fáil Party, expecting everybody to applaud, they are not even giving the old age pensioner what he enjoyed before an assault was made on his living costs by successive Fianna Fáil Governments.

This is a miserable measure—one shilling a week to compensate the poorest in this land for the fact that butter is dearer, bread is dearer, flour is dearer, through no fault of these people, through no circumstance of an increase in the costs of production or anything like that, but because of the deliberate decision of the Government. It is difficult for Deputies on this side of the House to regard this measure with any degree of patience. It has been pointed out that in relation to more powerful elements in this State, this Government, having abolished the food subsidies and having increased the cost of living, then proceeded to compensate these powerful sections. It is not necessary to mention them. Everybody knows what has been done in the past few years to cushion certain sections in this State against the pinch of rising prices. But the old age pensioners who have no organisation, no effective political weapon available to them, are thrown a shilling at the end of the queue and are expected to doff their caps, touch their forelocks to the Minister for Social Welfare and say "Thank you very much, sir."

As I said, this is a miserable measure. Certainly it is most disheartening if it is indicative of the manner in which the Fianna Fáil Government shape up to their social responsibilities. We can appreciate and understand what the cost to the State would be in relation to any increase in the old age pension. The Parliamentary Secretary told us all about it today. He painted a terrible picture of how the State would crack and bend and practically disrupt if we gave anything more than the shilling increase. I do not know whom that was intended to impress. So far as I can see, for any measure the Government desire to embark upon, irrespective of what the financial stringency may be, money is found for it. In the past three years, the Government have increased enormously the cost of running the State because of their decision to embark upon measures which they regard as politically attractive; but when it comes to merely ensuring that the old age pensioner will not be worse off, that cannot be done.

This measure is, in effect, a measure in this House to reduce the old age pension. That is what it is. Let no Deputy be under any illusion in relation to that. When the food subsidies were abolished and when later that year, there was a further increase in the price of the necessaries of life, quite naturally every old age pensioner in the State felt that the Government must come to his assistance. The Government recognised that, and this is the Government's measure to deal with that situation. It solidifies and makes final the old age pension in this year and for whatever time exists before the next election. This final measure by the Fianna Fáil Government is a measure reducing the old age pension. In effect, it is giving the old age pensioner, in real benefits, less than he had before these increases in prices of food and other necessaries were imposed.

I do not think this measure will achieve anything. It will make more sullen and deep the sense of social injustice which must be felt by these people throughout the country. They can do nothing about it. They have to accept what is doled out to them. They have to accept the Government's view on what they should get. I am sure they will accept it, as they have to, but certainly it does not reflect any credit on the Government or on this House. I always feel in relation to measures of this kind for the worst off section of the community that speeches are frequently made, that Deputies come in here, weep crocodile tears and all the rest of it, but in effect very little is ever done for such people.

We have now come to a new phase in social welfare and there is no doubt that this is the forerunner of a more comprehensive scheme of social insurance. The Minister is to be highly commended and the best wishes of the House and of the people of the country as a whole should be extended to him for the fearless step he has taken in catering in a more magnificent way for the insured workers in the winter of their days. Every day of the week, we meet people who are in exceptionally good health at the age of 70 years and, with modern medical services available, 70 is not now regarded as an old age. It is quite on the cards that a man of 70 may be capable of giving further service to the nation, even in manual labour. Napoleon went down not because he was too old but because he was too tired. At the age of 46 years, he handed in his gun, but I feel very proud that we today have people of even 80 years of age who are quite capable of taking their places amongst people still working and doing their share of manual labour.

Some Deputies have asked why the appointed date was fixed as 1st August but people who talk like that know very little about social services. On a previous occasion, a break was made in a middle of a period of national health insurance service. The price of stamps was changed in, I think, the month of September and I do not know if there ever was more confusion created for the officials of the Department than at that time. It took years to clear up the terrible mess that was created by the change in the price of stamps in what could be called the middle of the insurance period.

I can readily understand that there are great difficulties in bringing a Bill of this kind into operation. It is a far greater measure of social insurance than what most people could appreciate at first, second and even third reading. It is a difficult Bill to interpret, though the Minister, no doubt, has explained in no small way what every section means and is intended to convey. It is always difficult to interpret intricate Bills of this kind but the intricacies of this Bill are compensated for by the benefits it confers on insured workers.

There may be attempts at fraud arising out of the Bill. I would ask the Minister to see that that does not happen. Prior to the amalgamation of national health insurance, there was an era of fraud unsurpassed in any country. The amalgamation helped to eradicate abuse. Insurance societies paid whom they liked to pay and people in full health claimed benefit. There was an attempt made to make insurance retrospective. I would ask the Minister to guard against that type of fraud because fraud leads to curtailment of services. I do not believe that retrospective insurance should be tolerated. There must be the fullest consideration for the man who insured himself, who did not deny that he had entered into a contract of service, who aided the State and, incidentally, himself, by having his card stamped.

At one time people who had never been insured made it their business to contact local agents, as was then possible, and have cards stamped. When the required number of stamps was affixed to qualify them for benefit, they were the first to claim benefit. Many of them were in receipt of national health insurance benefit from the days of the old societies up to the period when the Department of Social Welfare conducted what is known as the blitz. They blitzed those who were frauds out of benefit and they are to be highly commended for doing so. Subsequent to the amalgamation, the Department did great work in eliminating fraud. Some cases were brought to court and I was sorry that they were not dealt with more severely.

I mention this matter because there could be a repetition of that sort of thing. People who have not a bona fide contract of service might endeavour to draw benefit. That would be disastrous and I would ask the Minister to guard against it because the more fraud there is, the less the State can afford to give the bona fide insured worker.

In the old days, agents were depending on subsidies from the State. Many people obtained benefit because they were able to fool the doctor into giving them a certificate. It is not always possible for a doctor to be certain as to whether a man has a pain in his toe or not. He may have a doubt but the benefit of the doubt must be given to the insured person. I mention that in order to ensure that there will not be a recurrence of that type of fraud.

——when the pension was a miserable pittance of 10/-. If there is one matter more than another the Fine Gael Party ought to keep out of it is the matter of old age pensions. Not alone did they take a shilling off the old age pensioners but in the enacting of the 1928 Bill, they made it impossible for any small farmer to draw an old age pension. That was the policy of the Fine Gael Party of which Deputy Lynch is now such a strong advocate.

Mr. MacEntee

Not such an ornament.

Mr. Davern

The Party of which Deputy Lynch is now such a strong supporter reduced the old age pension by a shilling per week. Deputy O'Sullivan does not remember that. He was hanging up his stockings for Daddy Christmas at that time. When Deputy Dillon talks about old age pensions, he is treading on very dangerous ground. The Fianna Fáil Party had to come to the rescue of the old age pensioners and give them back the shilling of which the Cumann na nGaedheal Government deprived them.

I often say that the prayers of the old people have always been with us in our difficult times and that the fact that we have had so many magnificent achievements in the past 30 years is due to the prayers of the old age pensioners who appreciated being rescued from that Government. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. It is difficult to bring a blush of shame to their faces but Deputy Dillon is blushing now because he remembers that period.

To come back to what I was saying when I was interrupted by these arch enemies of the old age pensioners——

Mr. Dillon

Courage, courage; the Deputy has only five minutes to go.

Mr. Davern

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 7 Jul 1960

Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1960. —Second Stage.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 7 Jul 1960