I move:
In view of the facts that a large number of persons at present in receipt of Military Service Pensions receive less than £1 per week, that the services of these people played no small part in the foundation of the State and that their numbers are now appreciably reduced by the effluxion of time, Dáil Éireann is of the opinion that the past services of these people should be more generously recognised and calls upon the Government to introduce forthwith amending legislation to ensure a reasonable standard of living for them in their declining years.
Had I followed the usual procedure in seeking an increase for a certain section of the community, I would have tabled a number of Parliamentary Questions to find out the number of persons in receipt of military service pensions, the annual expenditure on such pensions, the percentage expenditure on each person and other such matters. The Minister, with the vast resources at his disposal, would then quite rightly attempt to produce rebutting figures and the debate would develop into a lesson in mathematics rather than a constructive effort to achieve improvement for the persons concerned. Accordingly, I do not propose to follow this line but rather to appeal to the Dáil sense of moral justice in regard to the men so shockingly treated by successive Governments since its foundation.
The meeting of the first Dáil took place on 22nd January, 1919. I may be incorrect, but I think that of the members of that assembly only three sit in Dáil Éireann today, the Tánaiste, the Minister for Finance and Deputy Mulcahy. They must recollect that when the Democratic Programme was read out on that occasion and accepted with enthuasism by the members present, a guarantee was given that the aged and infirm of our community would no longer be regarded as a burden upon the State but rather as people entitled to the nation's gratitude and consideration. The men on whose behalf I speak have not grown aged and infirm in the ordinary way. But for their self-denial and self-sacrifice, this State would not be in existence today.
Yet, in spite of that undertaking given on that historic occasion, we find many of them living in conditions of abject poverty. As a result of the country's economic programme, it has been found desirable to impose a means test for those in receipt of social benefits, but that does not justify the imposition of such a test on men who suffered hunger, deprivation and imprisonment cheerfully in their youth in order that our children might grow up in a free Irish community. The attitude of the Civil Service is seen at its worst in its dealings with these men. Last year, the Minister announced certain increases in military and other service pensions and pointed out that they were justified on a cost of living basis. It later developed that if an unfortunate pensioner was in receipt of another pension, the latter was cut with the result that he got nothing at all. This was in spite of the Ministerial statement that the increases were justified on a cost of living basis alone.