Would the Minister say why he is keeping the period 36 months after the passing of the Act? Prior to that, it was 12 months. Surely he should say "12 months after the passing of this Act"? Thirty-six months means only two years of an increase from 1941.
Committee on Finance. - Army Pensions Bill, 1962—Committee and Final Stages.
Sections 1 and 2 agreed to.
SECTION 3.
Question proposed: "That Section 3 stand part of the Bill."
Section 10 of the 1932 Act provided for applications in respect of disability attributable to service; Section 29 of the Act of 1937 provided for applications in respect of disability aggravated by service; subsection (1) of Section 7 of the 1941 Act provided that applications under Section 29 of the Act of 1937 should be made not later than 12 months after the date of the passing of the Act of 1941.
Now you are making it 36 months after the passing of the 1941 Act.
Yes. To tell the Deputy in the fewest possible words, the fact is that when the 1941 Act had come into operation certain people did not avail themselves of the extended time which it provides for applying under the 1937 Act. What we are doing, in effect, is remedying the failure of certain people to take advantage, really, of the 1937 Act. That is all. It is giving extra time.
I appreciate that. I admit it is of some importance, but, as the Minister says, there are people who did not avail of it and they are now being given 24 months. I submit, when the Minister is doing it this way, that he should give them a further 12 months from the passing of this Act. That will make sure that everybody has got full, ample and fair opportunity to make application. We cannot lead them all by the hand but it does give them the opportunity to make their case now.
I assure Deputy MacEoin that the provision we are now recommending to the Dáil covers the known cases.
I know that is what the Minister is doing but the Minister knows as well as I do that there are former friends of his, as well as of mine, who did not recognise this State even up to last year but who have since altered their minds. In my opinion, they are entitled to an opportunity of applying. I suggest they should not be excluded, if they want to apply. I am not holding a brief for any particular person but in order to show that we are, so to speak, leaning backwards in order to be straight with everybody, we should give them that last opportunity. I am not pressing the matter but the Minister should seriously consider 12 months from the passing of this Act.
Subsection (2) gives them the right to apply again.
Subsection (2) of Section 7?
Of Section 3.
That does not bring them in. All that subsection says is:
Accordingly, any such application which was made later than twelve months after the date of the passing of the Act of 1941 and not later than thirty-six months after such passing shall be reconsidered as soon as may be after the passing of this Act.
But they must have had applied before this particular time. That does not provide what I am looking for.
I repeat what I have said to the Deputy, that is, that it covers all the known cases and we thought that was quite sufficient for the time being. If there should be cases which the 36 months does not cover, we shall have to consider them on their merits and if it is considered necessary, we will not hesitate to bring the matter before the Dáil again.
I submit to the Minister that is the most annoying sort of reply that an applicant can get —that he is now late and has to await amending legislation; that he has to wait for another six months, or until a sufficient number of cases are brought up to enable the Minister to do it.
Is the Deputy aware of cases that would not be covered by the section?
I know of two people, one of whom did not recognise the State until last year. He was, so to speak, still at war with everybody.
Surely this House and the country will not suffer in any way by extending the period to give an opportunity to people who have never made an application, for one reason or another, to make that application? If the Minister wants to press for specific cases, he can have specific cases. I know that this matter has caused the Minister and many of his predecessors quite a headache but it is an undoubted fact, and the Minister must be aware of it, that within the recent past, with the amnesty, there are cases which, if they went before the board for the first time would succeed, as I have no doubt they would succeed.
It is not sufficient to legislate for a specific known case. I certainly would not approve of that. I do not think the House or the country would disapprove at this late stage of giving adequate recognition for services rendered. There are many people who did not apply down the years and it is now too late. I have letters from the Department saying it is too late. I do not think it would cause any great trouble to the Department because I do not think there can be many cases left—and I am merely talking about military service pensions; not of disability or any other type of pension —and, therefore, I appeal to the Minister to make this gesture.
I would be satisfied if he put it at six months or even three months, or if he said: "We will reconsider it." I would not expect the Minister to say that we should legislate for known cases only. There are other blatant cases. I cannot see any reason why the Minister cannot make a specific date, say, the end of this year or three or four months' time, as the final date. After all, the Minister is aware that many men who gave service were practically forced to emigrate, and some of them never came back. Indeed, someone else may say that those who emigrated were treated much more favourably. I merely ask the Minister not to say "for known cases" but to set a specific date, no matter how soon it is, as the final date for giving recognition of service rendered to the country to those who rendered it.
May I make a representation to the Minister? I have been a member of two Governments, and during that time and in all the years I have been a member of the House, this problem of setting a time limit within which applications must be made has perennially recurred. I never could understand why there should be a time limit. If a man makes an application which on investigation is a just application, I am not particularly concerned, now that the past has receded into history, to worry about why he did not make his application earlier. Human nature being what it is, men have all sorts of strange reasons for failing to comply with the letter of the law.
Why should we shackle ourselves with a letter that does not seem to me to serve any useful purpose? Would it not be better in respect of that diminishing body of men — whatever our views about their activities in the past may be on either side of the House—if they can bring forward applications which, in the judgment of the Minister, and even with the help of the Minister, can be brought within the scope of the general code of legislation entitling them to pensions or other rights, to let their cases be heard, adjudicated and determined?
I think the Minister will agree with me that there can be nothing more exasperating to an applicant who considers himself to have a good claim than to be told that its merits cannot be examined because the letter of the statute prescribes that he is a week, a month or three weeks late in formulating his claim. So long as he knows his claim is considered on its merits, he may resent the fact that its validity is not acknowledged, but at least he knows that he has had a run for his money and that his application has been considered.
I do not think I am wrong when I I say that my experience has been that whatever Government are in office, such claims are sympathetically considered. I think it would be the wish of every side of the House that where an applicant did not formulate his claim correctly, the Minister would help him to re-formulate it so that it might be brought forward in the form most favourable to its prospects of success.
So far as we are concerned, if the Minister sought the authority of the House to drop this limitation on the date for the making of applications, we would be in favour of saying: "Let the application go forward on its merits. Whether it is old or new, or whether the person formulating it might reasonably have been expected to have formulated it long ago, does not matter. We will examine it on its merits. If it is valid, we will concede it, and if it is not valid, we will tell the applicant the reason his claim was rejected." I know that in successive Military Pensions Acts, words of limitation have recurred. Our experience has been that whatever words of limitation we put in back over the past 30 years, we have always had to come back to Dáil Éireann to change the words of limitation.
May I make a radical suggestion? We should now drop the words of limitation, so that hereafter every application will be considered on its merits, and if it is good, it will be conceded, and if it is bad, it will be rejected.
We have, in fact, provided in a very effective and practical way for the very purpose outlined by Deputy Dillon. I found it very hard to relate Deputy Carroll's remarks to what is proposed in the Bill, or in fact to relate them to what Deputy MacEoin was talking about.
I want to put it to Deputy Dillon that if a man comes along now with an application for a disability pension and tells the Department that his disability is attributable to the service he gave 40 years ago, surely the Deputy will recognise that there are almost insuperable difficulties in relating back his disability now to the service he gave 40 years ago? That is our difficulty.
To meet that difficulty, and to meet the genuine cases, and cases perhaps not so genuine, a system of special allowances was brought in. All that is asked by way of qualification is that the man can prove that he was a member of one of the organisations mentioned in the Acts. If he can prove that—and there are a very large number who have done so—and if he is under 70 years of age and can prove that he is suffering from an infirmity which prevents him from earning his living, he can get a very generous allowance, much more generous than the average military service pension, and more generous, I think, also than many of the disability pensions.
If a man is over 70 years of age, we do not ask him to prove infirmity. All we ask him to prove is that he has not sufficient means to maintain himself. I do not think anything could be more reasonable than that, but Deputy Dillon would impose a task upon us that no set of doctors, in my opinion, could solve satisfactorily. That is why it is not now a practical proposition to reopen generally the question of applicants for disability pensions.
Surely the Minister does not expect me to swallow that? In the first place, the special allowance is a thing in itself—really an extension of social welfare——
So are the others.
——operated by the Minister for Defence and the person who applies for the special allowance has to say what he will have for his breakfast the following morning and where he will get it. The pension officer inquires and inquires. It does not matter what age the applicant is. While I agree the special allowance is of great benefit, at the same time, it has no relation whatever with a disability pension because the special allowance is paid to the person who proves membership. I am arguing on behalf of the applicant who has a disability contracted 30 or 40 years ago. The Minister is now, on the other hand, saying that provided that man applied within six months of the 1941 Act, he will be investigated now. What will be investigated? The Minister will be investigating something that happened 40 years ago.
No. We have the information already in the cases we are covering. We are giving an extension of the time to apply.
The applicant will have the same responsibility to prove on medical grounds that the disability he suffers from was contracted 40 years ago and the Board will consider whether it really is something he contracted 40 years ago. When the Minister said what he said here this evening, he must have had his tongue in his cheek. What he said does not hold water and it is a pity he tried to make that case. I have argued in office and out of office that if you contract a disability from a bullet wound, it is an easy matter to establish and it should not matter when the application for benefit was made. There is no use in saying to such a person that he is six months late.
I am glad Deputy Dillon intervened in the way he did to advocate to the Minister and the Government that the qualifying date should be removed. If the cause of the disability becomes too difficult to establish, then the phrase used by the Minister can be applied — that it has not been proved to the satisfaction of the Board that the disability was contracted due to service. The case can then be investigated and there is an opportunity for the person concerned to put forward additional evidence. One cannot refer to the Military Service Pensions Act as having anything to do with this Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Section 4 agreed to.
SECTION 5.
Question proposed: "That Section 5 stand part of the Bill."
The Minister should tell us a little more about this section. From what I can gather from my reading of it, I agree with the amendment it proposes. I think it is right and I want the House to realise that the dependants of a person who dies—one or more—can receive the continuing pension under this section. At the same time, the Minister is excluding the widow of the person concerned—somebody who has died from bullet wounds, as in the case I cited earlier on a different section. The Minister is continuing the pension to a person who, in the opinion of the Minister, is a dependant but he will not continue it to the widow.
Deputy MacEoin sees the virtue in this section but again he has brought in the bullet wounds. I want to deny categorically that in the case of a person who has his pension because of a bullet wound and whose certificate of death shows he died from that wound, his widow does not get an allowance after his death. I want to repeat what I said in respect of an earlier section—that I have to accept the medical evidence submitted to me. I am not empowered by any Act to alter the effect of any such medical certificate. In this section, we are deleting the phrase used by the Deputy —"as the Minister may direct." It is not now necessary for the Minister to direct who the particular dependant is who will get the allowance. In other words, each one of the dependants of persons within the category provided for in this section can get an allowance. The section substitutes the one word "any" for the two words "such one".
That means somebody has to decide and somebody must make an investigation. I agree that is perfectly all right, but, in passing, I would say to the Minister that in the other case, he must carry out a post mortem examination in the future. That is the only way it could be decided in my case, were I to die in the morning. I shall put it in my will that a post mortem examination must be carried out.
Question put and agreed to.
Section 6 agreed to.
SECTION 7.
Amendment No. 1 not moved.
Question proposed: "That Section 7 stand part of the Bill."
Section 26 of the Act of 1937 provided for final flat-rate pensions where disease attributable to service was below 80 per cent. —that was the degree necessary for an attributability pension—and not less than 50 per cent. Sections 28 and 29 of the Act of 1937 provided for pensions in respect of wound or disease aggravated, accelerated or excited through service, pre-Truce or post-Truce. Section 6 of the Act of 1941 made further provision for final flat rate pensions such as those provided for in Section 26 of the Act of 1937. Section 6 of the Act of 1943 did likewise. In these various sections there were distinctions in detail related to the time of service, etc. Section 12 of the Act of 1946 provided for pensions in respect of tuberculosis, aggravated, accelerated or excited by Emergency service. Section 5 of the No. 2 Act of 1960 provided for final flat rate pensions where disease attributable to service with a United Nations Force was below 80 per cent, and not less than 50 per cent. Section 7 of the No. 2 Act of 1960 provided for pensions in respect of disease aggravated, accelerated or excited by service with a United Nations Force. The foregoing pensions which I have outlined did not so far carry entitlement to married pensions and this section now provides them. That is the meaning of Section 7.
I suppose I cannot do any more about my amendments. I just want it recorded that I accept the Minister's assurance that he will look into the matter again and I shall leave it at that.
Question put and agreed to.
Section 8 agreed to.
SECTION 9.
Question proposed: "That Section 9 stand part of the Bill."
Section 9 states that "any pension or allowance granted by virtue of this Act shall, notwithstanding anything contained in any other enactment, be payable as from such date as the Minister may determine not being earlier than the date of the passing of this Act." That means that although a person's application under the 1932 Act is accepted as being an application under the 1937 Act, although he will now apply and although he will prove a disease, he will get nothing retrospective and whatever he gets will be only from this date. Even if he can prove to the satisfaction of a medical board that his disease is as bad now as when he applied under the 1932 Act and even though he can produce medical evidence in support of that he gets no retrospective payment for that disease or disability.
It may be the practice that when an Act is passed allowances under it only become payable from the date of the passage of the Act but Section 3 relates to the Act of 1937 and specifically states that if an applicant was an applicant under the 1932 Act and was refused, he shall, nevertheless, be treated as having made application under the 1937 Act. Therefore, it is an application under the 1937 Act that is required and that he is going to stand on. Although he will have another medical board and although he will be able to prove to the hilt that his disease is now as bad as it was when he applied previously, he gets nothing at all. He is applying as if it had only happened yesterday: let us say that he was a serving soldier and became ill for some reason because of his service. He would prove that fully even though up to the previous week he was in full employment and able to earn his livelihood.
This section, however, states that although all the evidence is there a man could be crippled for 40 years but would benefit nothing on that account. It does not matter if he has not worked for 40 years, was in debt up to his eyes for 40 years, he gets nothing. Nevertheless, the basis on which he is going to prove his case is that he did apply under the 1932 Act and that he did prove his disability but that it was not attributable to service but was "aggravated by service." Yet, it will be established that he did suffer from disease 30 years ago. He has to establish that, in fact, he was a serious case 30 years ago. He probably appealed and established it a second time but it was not "attributable to service"; it was "aggravated by service." Still, he is able to establish continuity of disease over a period.
Let us say a person did apply under the 1937 Act and let us say, for argument sake, that he was turned down and appealed only this week. Let us suppose he has new evidence and applies to the Minister for an appeal. Let us say he wins the appeal. Let us say he has applied under the 1937 Act. In this Act he will get his retrospective pension to 1937, or if he appeals under the 1937 Act but produces new evidence. But the fact remains that it does not matter what a man has suffered he does not get a penny for his past and what he gets now will be limited to his life span, whether 10, 15 or 20 years. That is all he gets.
When one considers the pension, including the new marriage allowance of 11/6d. —he would want to be a complete cripple to get the whole lot—he would get £4 5s., approximately, per week and that a man on social benefit, without stamps, can now get £3 12s. 6d. if he has four children in addition to fuel allowances and milk, we find that even though he is temporarily unemployed he can get almost as much as an applicant under this Bill will now get.
This refers to the pension, not the amount.
I am referring to the injustice of saying that any successful applicant under this Act will get nothing for his past injuries and that he will only get, if he can establish that he is a complete cripple, £4 5s. a week for his lifespan whether it be one year or five years and that will necessarily be limited in the case of those who were of an age to take part in the Tan War or the Civil War.
It is completely unjust because the man's case is that when his application was made his disease was accepted and the only argument was that while it was not accepted as attributable it may have been aggravated by service. That was all accepted 30 years ago. The question of a man coming in after 40 years does not apply in this case. This is a man who established a disease before a medical board. They have all the evidence. This is not a case of a man coming along 40 years afterwards. All the evidence is with the pension board, proved probably not once but twice. This Bill gives the man nothing or gives him a little more than a man can get as a non-contributory allowance.
This section is a penal section. This is the section that says that no matter what disability you suffered prior to this, any pension payable before this Act will only be payable on the passing of this Act. That is bad enough, but you are not allowed to apply at all once you did not apply before so many months passed. That is a double penalty. If the time limit were eliminated altogether, this section would be ample punishment for their failure to apply in time. But it is there, however, and all appeals to the Minister to eliminate that have been in vain. When you apply for a disability pension, it should be paid and all the circumstances should be taken into account in calculating the amount of retrospective pay.
Section 3 may be of benefit to Deputy Sherwin and others, but I do not know if Deputy Sherwin made his point sufficiently clear. Take the case of a person who applied for a disability pension in the '30s and narrowly failed before the medical board, but who now has evidence available to him which, if it were available at the time of his application, would have resulted in the application being approved. Surely there is no reason in the world why retrospective payment should not be given in that case? If the evidence originally submitted can now be substantiated with additional evidence pertinent to the case, which had not been available at that time, surely the Minister would consider that that person has suffered unduly and has not been recompensed in accordance with the Act? I can give a specific case of an applicant who went before the medical board in the 1930s but was narrowly turned down because the medical evidence was not sufficient. He now has evidence available to him which, had it been available to him at that time, would have resulted in the approval of the application without any question of deterioration entering into it. In that case it would be only equitable that retrospective payment be made. Possibly I am wrong, but I took the Minister as saying that cases would be taken on their merits.
I know the type of case referred to by Deputy Sherwin and Deputy Carroll. They are asking me again to introduce a new principle. Deputy MacEoin asked me to introduce a new principle earlier on. I do not feel I can concede that on this Bill anyway. Retrospection there has not been, and the outstanding case of refusal of retrospection was, we all know, the 1934 Military Service Pensions Act. All efforts, including my own, failed to succeed there. It has never been conceded in any of these Acts. At this short notice on this Bill I can hardly be expected to suspend the further passage of the Bill and go back to the Government with a request for a further examination for the introduction of two new principles.
What I would say to the two Deputies is: Let this go through. Let us, as far as we can, in the quickest possible time tidy up all these Acts, get some sort of compendious view of them and see what further improvements we can make. All I can say to the two Deputies is that every reasonable case will receive a very sympathetic hearing from the Government. I do not want to detract one iota from the case made by the two Deputies, knowing, as I do, the type of case they have in mind; but it is not within my competence at this stage to meet them.
The Minister referred to considering the matter at some other time. If the Minister makes inquiries from his Department, he will find that requests were made over the years as far back as 15 years ago for a section like the one he has now brought in, but that request was ignored for 15 years. Had that been done 15 years ago, there would be no point in making the appeal now. I am not at all satisfied to accept letting the matter drop now and that it will be thought of again. The people concerned will probably be dead by then. The Minister has to bring this Bill through the Seanad and he can very easily make provision for this between now and then. It is a fact that once a person applies under a scheme, he is finished. It is like the people taking corporation houses, even dumps. They say they are only taking them temporarily but the corporation say: "You are permanently stuck with it." Applicants under this Bill will be stuck, too. They will not get the justice they are demanding.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 10 and 11 agreed to.
FIRST SCHEDULE.
Question proposed: "That the First Schedule be the First Schedule to the Bill."
How did the Minister arrive at the figure 11/6d. per week for the wife of a person with 100 per cent disability? What calculation is that based on? Is it just a question of somebody thinking of a number and subtracting or adding to it? It is an amazing figure when you take into account the present cost of living.
I should like to refer to this figure of 11/6d. We appreciate that it is the first time it has been mentioned but there is no children's allowance. There is only a children's allowance when the pensioner dies. A man who has his health and strength and who is temporarily unemployed can get £3 12s. 6d. for himself, his wife and four children plus fuel and a number of other things. He can even go to the relief people and get another 10/-. But to get £4 5s. including this 11/6d. you have to be a complete cripple. There should be a stepping up of all these allowances. It is too miserable to expect a man who has been completely crippled as a result of national service to exist on £4 5s. a week.
How did the Minister arrive at this 11/6d.?
It is, broadly, the married pension attached to an attributability pension of like amount.
Question put and agreed to.
Second Schedule agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment.
Can I have the remaining Stages now?
You will not do anything between this and tomorrow?
If the Seanad alters anything in the Bill, has it to come back to this House?
Whatever is to be done has to be done between now and tomorrow.
I do not think the Seanad can amend it.
Agreed to take remaining Stages today.
Bill received for final consideration and passed.
This Bill is a Money Bill in accordance with Article 22 of the Constitution.