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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 24 Nov 1964

Vol. 213 No. 1

Private Members' Business. - Social Welfare Allowances.

The following motion was moved by Deputy Tully on 11th November, 1964:
That Dáil Éireann is of the opinion that, in view of the recent steep rise in the cost of living, and in particular in the prices of essential foodstuffs, and in view of the resulting hardship inflicted on those in receipt of unemployment, sickness and disability benefits and social welfare benefits and assistance generally, the amounts payable in these benefits and assistance should be reviewed immediately with a view to granting equitable increases.
Debate was resumed on the following amendment moved by the Minister for Social Welfare on 18th November, 1964:
To delete all words after "opinion" and substitute the following: "that the Government should continue to implement its declared policy of arranging that improvements in the national income, resulting from national economic growth, should be shared by Social Welfare recipients, and notes that this has brought about increases in rates of benefit in every year for a number of years past."

It is hard to get from the subject being discussed all the evening to the subject of this motion. When the debate was adjourned last week, I said the Minister's speech had a nineteenth century ring about it. In fact, I said it could have been made by the defeated candidate for the American Presidency, who believed in the sturdy principles of no help for those who are less fortunate than others. That kind of view has of course been rejected all over the world and has now been rejected in the United States, but we must do more than reject it by words. If the capitalist society in which we live worked, it would work only by ensuring that there will be no submerged pretence and we must make certain that if we have an affluent society, that affluence does not contain any miseries. I think any criticism of our society should be measured by our treatment of the underprivileged. If we are embarrassed by the living conditions of any, then we have failed in justice. I do not think any Government plans, any proposals or White Paper on economic expansion, or any progress reports, have any value whatever because if the shares are not fair, we have failed.

The Minister who has just vacated the seat where the Minister now present is seated said in the past few days that, to have a community in the social justice privileges, we cannot contemplate a permanent state of affairs in which a substantial section of our people lag behind in living standards. The Minister for Agriculture was talking about the agricultural community. Indeed, he was quite right in the application of these words to the farmers and those who work the farms, as against those who work in the towns —industrialists and professional people. I have always said the agriculturists did not get a fair share of the cake in this country. If the Minister for Agriculture contrasts himself with the people who are in receipt, or deserving, of social welfare assistance, I think he would be even more indignant than those whom he represents as Minister for Agriculture.

I wonder would the Minister for Social Welfare express similar indignation on behalf of the poor people for whom he is responsible? He should remember the words the Minister for Agriculture used about those who lag behind in living standards. The Minister for Agriculture or the Minister for Social Welfare, or any one of us, should not at this stage start quoting any rebuttal of the case being made of our present attitudes towards these services. We should not bother about what we do now compared with what was, or was not, done in the past. We should not bother about what the community affords but we should concentrate on the words—the group who lag behind. I think the Minister for Social Welfare should have a talk with the Minister for Agriculture and if there is to be another reshuffle in the Government, perhaps the Minister for Agriculture could do good work in the Department of Social Welfare.

The principles the Minister for Agriculture has outlined for the community in which he is now interested apply almost completely to those in receipt of social welfare. Of course, the trouble in this country, and in every western country, is that those in receipt of social welfare—the old and the poor —are not organised. Trade unionists are organised; industrialists are organised; shop-owners and professional people are all organised, and they institute very strong pressures, but there are no pressures that cannot be easily resisted from the poor. Is that not a test of us all? Those who kick up a row will be reasonably well treated; those who cannot kick up a row will have to take what is left. Of course it means that we really have not a Christian conscience in public affairs, if we cannot stand this test. It does not matter a damn what our gross figures are, what OECD says, or what Ministers say, if we fail in this regard, we have failed utterly. If we meet inflation as we have met it up to this, unfairly and unequally, we have failed. Organised workers, public servants, shopkeepers, industrialists, professional people, all reacted very firmly in self-defence when the inflationary wage came. They got their share, and some got too much if we are to believe the Minister for Finance. By getting too much, they added to the trouble of those who did not get enough. The agriculturists did less well, if we are to believe the Minister for Agriculture, but that is his affair.

Who will look after those who require social services? The Minister for Social Welfare should. Inflation more grievously injures that section of our people than any other. Their standards are low and, indeed, in this country they are low by any international standards. This is particularly and shamefully so for us when we compare them with the standard of treatment meted out in Great Britain or Northern Ireland. The figures given are indisputable. I think the percentage declined and the national share-out is the only fair measure by which we can test ourselves in this. There is no good talking about money on its face value. It is only by relating the percentages of the share-out in social welfare services to the entire distribution that we can preserve any kind of picture of what has happened in the last 25 or 30 years.

Deputy Tully very aptly and clearly pictured it for us when he related the old age pensioner to the agricultural worker before the First World War. That relationship has become a joke. I am afraid the hard fact is that we are a selfish and self-grabbing society. Those of us who have authority, wealth or union power grab for ourselves and the poor and needy get less and less. The old age pensioners, the widows, the widowers and the old pensioners, the retired and scandalously treated old railway workers, are all our responsibility. We have turned our backs on our responsibility to them.

In speaking to this motion, the Minister said something that shocked me. He said that we must not get emotional about this. What other way should we get about it? He said that we are going to give what we can afford. What can we afford? If Deputy Dr. Ryan as Minister for Finance were told in 1957 to increase his Budget from £110 million to £210 million, he would have exploded in horror but now everybody knows that that is just what he has done. It is now costing us £100 million more to run this State than it cost when the Minister first sat in office on those benches over there. The Minister should tell the Minister for Finance that he should use at least one of the instalments which he has taken in those seven years to increase social welfare awards. If the Minister for Finance rejects that proposition, then we should put an end to all this guff about progress in this country. That progress, as it relates to social welfare recipients in that same period, is shameful and disgraceful and brands us as a generation of cynics.

I do not expect any result from this discussion but it will move more minds away from the direction indicated by the Minister in his speech last week. If the question is asked of me: "How can we do it?", the answer is that we can do it only by increasing taxation. I am willing to pay more income tax and to pay higher taxation on my cigarettes and tobacco. I would be proud if this country were the first to tax itself heavily for this particular purpose. I think the majority of Deputies would agree with me in this so as to disprove the case put forward by Deputy Dr. Browne last week that the system we operate here is a failure because it has failed to protect the underprivileged.

The Minister was very critical of the motion put down by the Labour Party and suggested to the House that there was no sincerity behind it. He said that our motion mentioned three things and that the various speakers did not refer to these particular things. If the Minister looks at his own amendment and studies it, he will find that he can only regard it as a pious resolution that says to those in receipt of social welfare benefits: "Live horse and you will get grass." His speech was one of smugness and complacency. From what he said, he does not seem to realise that there is extreme hardship and poverty amongst certain sections of the community here. There is no use in the Minister talking about an increase in the gross national product. There is no point in trying to pretend that we are a prosperous nation because the national income has been going up from year to year. It may also be true that there are not as many people in poverty today as there were 25, 30 or 40 years ago but the fact remains that there are people who have not any sort of a standard of living. The other fact is that the Minister and the Government of which he is a member have a responsibility for those people.

There is no point in telling us that prosperity and the standard of living has gone up for 95 per cent of the people if 5 per cent of them are living on £1, £2, £3 or even £4 a week. I do not think the Minister was serious when he was dealing with this motion. Deputy A. Barry was probably right when he said that there will be no result from this discussion because some Independents will support the Minister and his Party when the matter comes to a vote. This debate will end at ten minutes past seven o'clock and then these people will be forgotten again because there will be a majority against those of us who vote for the motion.

The Minister should read the motion again. It calls attention to the recent steep rise in the cost of living. Does the Minister deny that? It says that the cost of living is inflicting hardship on people in receipt of social benefits and asks for an immediate review of the situation for the purpose of increasing those benefits. That is what the Minister was asked to do at the recent Fianna Fáil Árd Fheis and that is what the Árd Fheis voted for despite the complacency when he said, as reported in the Irish Press of 18th November:

The worst thing we could do in the interest of social welfare recipients, and the community generally, would be to impose an unbearable burden on the economy, raising taxation to a level which would interfere with this growth. The only way to benefit social welfare benefits—and the standard of living generally—was to realise that the economy had to be expanded to yield these results.

The social welfare recipients have not got increases commensurate with the expansion of which the Ministers have boasted since 1957 and 1958. The Minister depends in this debate on the argument that increases in social welfare benefits have been made regularly since Fianna Fáil resumed office. He ignores other facts, I do not know whether deliberately or not. He said that increases were given to match the increases in the cost of living. If that were so, it still would not be sufficient, but it is not so.

First of all, what should be done for those people is to give them a standard and then to relate that standard to increases in the cost of living. It is not good enough in 1964, when we are told we are ready to go into a European community, that we can give increases to our social welfare beneficiaries only in accordance with increases in the cost-of-living figure, without first of all fixing a decent standard.

The Minister did not refer to increased prices. He referred to the cost of living in 1950, 1960 and 1961, picking out those years to justify what had been done by the present Government for old age pensioners. I have here what I do not think is an untypical letter. It appeared in the Evening Herald a few weeks ago, written by a person in receipt of sickness benefit. This is what he wrote:

I am drawing Social Welfare sick benefit for some years now, owing to bad health. I receive £2 2s. 6d. and, as I live alone, I have no other help or income. My rent for one room is 12s. weekly. I can only afford two meals of tea and a little bread and butter—no breakfast. Therefore, I have to go into hospital very often in a run-down condition. When coming out, I get a diet chart from my doctor which is put in the fire as how can I buy fowl, meat, fish and other nourishing foods, out of what is left after paying my rent?

I would say there are many people in similar circumstances. Nobody wants to talk about poverty in this country. Not alone do members of the Government, politicians, shy away from that word but other people in other places try to give the impression that there is no such thing as poverty. They point to the social services, to the different charities, but those of us who are close to the people, those of us who have to call on the people and on whom the people call, know that in very many cases bread and tea is a regular diet.

I know, of course, that the Minister has no direct responsibility for the local authorities. It is typical of many local authorities—I am glad to say Labour Party members are not responsible—that they refuse to provide the requisite money for the managers to pay decent amounts in home assistance. I know of one man who has no social welfare allowance and who is getting something like 10/- or £1 a week home assistance to live on. A married couple are expected to live on £2 a week. If there were children, the man would not be given a proportionately higher amount.

I have had a letter from a constituent with eight children. The local authority offer him £2 per week for himself, his wife and eight children. The allowances for children range from 5/- to 10/- per week. Therefore, the local authorities, as well as the Minister, are failing in their jobs of providing reasonably for people who have nothing. The Minister—all Ministers do the same—boasts monotonously about the progress made since Fianna Fáil came back to office, about progressive increases in the national income. None of these speeches is of the least consolation to the people concerned in this motion.

It is no consolation to the 250,000 to 300,000 people depending on our social services, who have not been compensated for increases in prices, even for increases as reflected in the cost of living index figure. Despite what the Minister has said, even considering his own standard, he has cheated the old age pensioners, the widows and orphans. The non-contributory old age pension at the moment is 37/6 per week. The Minister's speech last week seemed to be devoted mainly to the fact that Deputy Tully made a slip and gave the figure of 35/- instead of 37/6. I feel sure the Minister does not doubt that Deputy Tully, in his work in his constituency and here in the Dáil, knows all about benefit rates, but the Minister had so little to say that this seemed a good avenue of escape from the main point of the motion.

The non-contributory old age pension rate was 35/- a week in August, 1963. The cost of living index figure was 159 at that time. The cost of living figure in August, 1964, was 173. In a period of one year, between August, 1963 and August, 1964, the cost of living index figure rose by nine per cent. The old age pensioners did not get an increase of nine per cent. Again, if we take the Minister's standards, the last increase should have been 3/- instead of 2/6, so the Minister and the Government cheated the old age pensioners out of 6d. per week.

Apart from that, the object of this motion is not, as the Minister suggested in his speech, aimed at relating these increases or relating allowances to the cost of living index figure but to trying to get those beneficiaries a standard and then, if anyone likes —I feel sure we all would—to have increases related to increases in the cost of living as per the new standard. The Minister said there was no mention of prices by the mover of the motion. I have a long list here, given in reply to a Parliamentary Question, of prices for the period August, 1963 to August, 1964. In respect of food alone, widows and old age pensioners, the sick and the unemployed, were all hit by increased prices.

Of course, the Minister knows that the introduction of the turnover tax was one of the biggest factors in the increased cost of living, particularly involving food items. Beef, mutton, sausages, eggs, butter, margarine, tea, bread, sugar were all hit. They were all items which affected recipients of old age pensions and other such benefits. As I have said, the Minister cheated the old age pensioners even on his own principle. He has cheated the widows and orphans much more so. There has been no consideration at all for the widow with children. She got no increase. In August, 1963, the weekly pension of a non-contributory widow was 33s. per week. She got an increase of 2s. 6d. The widow with two children got only the same increase, no regard being given to the fact that she had children. Those who had more than two, those who had four, six, or even eight, were cheated more so, taking again the Minister's own principle of applying increases to the increase in the cost of living.

Deputy A. Barry referred to the Exchequer income from taxation. The Minister has never answered this adequately and he may think it monotonous for the Labour Party to go on mentioning it. We have heard it said: "If we got the money, we would give it to the old aged, the sick, the widows". They did get it, and in great quantity during the past six or seven years, but did not apply a fair proportion to social welfare benefits.

For the record, I want to repeat what I said on many occasions. In 1957-58 tax revenue was £102.7 million. Out of that £24.3 million was spent on social welfare. That represented 22 per cent. In 1958-59 the relationship between social welfare expenditure and tax revenue fell to 21.5 per cent. In 1959-60 it fell still further to 20.9 per cent; in 1960-61, to 20 per cent; in 1961-62, to 18 per cent. There was an improvement in 1963-64 when it went back to 20 per cent, but for 1964-65 it is down again to 19.1 per cent. Therefore, I would ask the Minister if the social welfare recipients are receiving their fair share of the moneys obtained by the Minister for Finance through the Revenue Commissioners and so on. Rather than the position of these people being improved, the contrary is the case. The Minister may say there is less unemployment. There is not. There is a smaller number of non-contributory old age pensioners because of the introduction of the contributory pension scheme. But if the number is smaller, surely there is a greater case for giving them a little more?

The Minister ignores all these things in his amendment. Compared with the firm and direct motion of the Labour Party, his amendment looks puny and watery. It says:

"that the Government should continue to implement its declared policy of arranging that improvements in the national income, resulting from national economic growth, should be shared by Social Welfare recipients, and notes that this has brought about increases in rates of benefit in every year for a number of years past."

Having regard to the increases in the gross national product, in national income and in the revenue the Government have got from the taxpayers, all these social welfare recipients have been cheated.

The Minister says: "You will not vote the money." We made our position very clear, especially on the Budget in which the turnover tax was introduced, and on the one before that and before that. We said we would not vote for these taxes when we saw that a fair proportion of the taxation was not being given to these deserving people. A week last Wednesday the Taoiseach came into the House and proposed that Irish industry be subsidised to a tune of X million pounds. The House agreed to give him general approval. Did the Taoiseach say how he was going to raise the money? We had a notion from the Minister for Justice to the effect that the turnover tax being such an easy tax, another half per cent or one per cent on it would get all the money we need. That is what we were afraid of when we opposed it in the first instance. By and large, in respect of that tax and other tax proposals of the Government, we were not convinced that a fair proportion of the money derived from them was being given to these deserving people.

The Minister criticised my regime in the Department of Social Welfare. I make no apology for saying that when I was Minister for Social Welfare in an inter-Party Government and two Budgets were introduced, the social welfare recipients were the people who got first consideration. If we could have a balance either by economies or increases in taxation, the first charge demanded by the Ministers for Social Welfare in those inter-Party Governments, who happened to be Labour Ministers, were the social welfare recipients. I do not think the present Minister can say, even if he did make the claim, that his Government listened to him in the past five or six Budgets.

The Minister's amendment says that the Government should continue to implement their declared policy of improving the position of social welfare recipients according as economic growth increases. We ask: how long must they wait? Even since the Minister came into the Dáil old age pensioners have died off. They have waited month after month and year after year, for somebody to come to their aid. Surely we will not let another decade pass until we can say to them: "Here is an allowance that will give you a reasonable standard of living and we will improve it as the cost of living goes up."

In 1963—I have not the figures for 1964—national income stood at £677 million. The old age pension in 1963 was 35/-. In 1957 national income was £469 million and the old age pension was 25/-. Between 1957 and 1963 national income increased by 50 per cent but the old age pensioner got only 40 per cent. Therefore, on cost of living figures, social welfare recipients have been cheated; and on national income figures they have been left behind. Yet the Minister drags in some phrase to the effect that when the economic growth is sufficient we will do more for them. Between 1957 and 1963 the gross national product increased by 43 per cent. But the old age pensioner did not get 43 per cent. Therefore, as far as the cost of living is concerned, as far as national income is concerned and as far as the gross national product is concerned, this Government have not done the right thing by the old age pensioners, the widows, the sick and the unemployed.

What is the policy of the Government in respect of these people? There was not tremendous mention of them in the two programmes for economic expansion. It is true they are not productive, that they do not toil or manufacture. But it is also true that they are our responsibility. I do not think anybody in this House would object if a Minister for Finance came in and said: "We want at least that amount of money from this sort of tax to give to these people." The Minister for Finance is getting £15 million per year out of the turnover tax. These people we are concerned about did not get their fair proportion of it. It can be given to this, that and the other section, but these people have to lag behind.

Our motion draws the attention of the Dáil—and, we hope, of the Minister—to the undeniable fact that there has been an increase in prices. This makes it extremely difficult for certain people to live. I have no hesitation in saying that some of these people die of malnutrition. There is a notion among some of the back benchers of Fianna Fáil that these payments are not supposed to be complete allowances but should be supplemented by allowances from other sources such as local authorities. The Minister knows that such is not the case. Others believe that because old age pensioners have a son married in Canada, Britain or elsewhere, that such people have responsibility for them. They have a certain amount of responsibility for them, but that does not operate in practice. In many cases it cannot operate because the young man with his wife and family, no matter where he is working, may find it difficult—despite what the Minister for Transport and Power says—to provide for them all.

Therefore, we ask that there should be an examination and a review of this whole question of social welfare. The Minister taunts us by asking: "Where do you get the money from?" Every Minister in this Government is spending money for which there will be no provision until the next Budget. When a Minister for Agriculture, a Minister for Transport and Power or a Minister for Defence embarks on new projects, he brings his Estimate to the Dáil for £1 million or £2 million, but in doing so he does not tell the Dáil or the people how he will get the money to pay for it. Similarly during election time, the Fianna Fáil Party promised many things—I am not objecting to the promises they made— but they never told the people they intended to impose a turnover tax. They want us to behave as they would not behave, as they will not behave, even though they are members of the Government and responsible for expenditure and the collection of money.

There is, therefore, an unanswerable case for this review of social welfare services which the Labour Party members call for. There is an exhortation now by members of the Government that in view of the circumstances in which we find ourselves, hardships must be borne. I suggest that if there are hardships, the burden should be borne by other than those who are mentioned in this motion. If there is a burden to be borne by way of expenditure, that burden should be placed on the backs of those best able to bear it. I suggest that the turnover tax was a burden that should not have been placed on people who could ill afford to pay anything extra for their foodstuffs.

I conclude by reminding the House again that, even by Fianna Fáil standards, even by the standards which the Minister lays down for increases in social welfare, he and the Government have failed. They have failed to live up to their responsibility and they are ignoring the fact that 250,000 of our people have a very low standard of living. I, therefore, ask the House, and ask even the members of the Fianna Fáil Party, to vote for this motion because it draws attention to the fact that there are hardships, that prices have increased and that there is a case for a review of the whole system. It is no more than what the members of the Fianna Fáil Party at the Árd Fheis last week asked the Minister to do.

Naturally the wording of the motion appeals to me because I have made it my life's work to help these people. In fact I think I can claim that the increases the disabled have got over the past few years are largely due to my agitation here. They got four increases in four years, whereas they got no increases in the previous six years and they got five shillings last week, due to a motion I was instrumental in passing. The last seven increases in social benefits were not taken into account by the Dublin Corporation for differential rents, due to my motion, whereas before that they were. Therefor I helped those people considerably.

I am still willing to do all I can for the people mentioned in the motion but I can say from my experience since I came into this House, that these motions are not so much intended to help those people as to be a stick with which to beat the Government. Whether we like it or not, it is the wherewithal that counts, not the words. The great difficulty is getting the money and when you try to get the money, you make enemies of somebody. Then the Opposition sharpen their knife to get it in as far as they can between the shoulder blades of the Government every time they try to get a penny to help those people.

In those circumstances, how can I support this motion? There have been marches and attacks on the Government due to the turnover tax. Now we are told there is not enough money to pay increases to all the people employed by the Government. Is it the suggestion that there should be no further taxation and that these people should be paid only six per cent? There probably will be increased taxation—I do not know—but these people employed by the Government will have to get their 12 per cent increase.

There is also the fact that in order to save thousands of workers from being unemployed, the Government have been compelled to bring forward a motion here to subsidise employers up to 50 per cent of the surcharge imposed by the British Government. It will be seen that the Government have other problems besides the old age pensioner. There is the problem of paying their employees the 12 per cent, the problem of keeping thousands of workers employed, and various other problems, including demands from certain lobbies. It does not matter what the Government try to get money for, the Opposition will use their knife because somebody must pay and the Opposition would want to be on the side of those who pay. That has been the practice since I came here.

If the Opposition were genuine, they would organise a joint deputation to the Minister for Finance and make suggestions. They would commit themselves to voting for certain taxation. Instead of that, the Opposition say they will vote for tax but they never say who is to be taxed because naturally their idea is to be on the side of all groups, including any group that may be taxed. That is good politics, but how can we accept a motion like that as genuine?

The Government have a tough job. They have the dirty job of trying to get the money. The Opposition have the easy job of promising something in the bush. However, if the Government give only half a crown once a year to the old age pensioner, it is of much more value to him than four times that amount in the bush—in other words, something that may never happen.

Let us say there is a change of Government. I said myself a number of times I would not mind a change of Government because I would like to see everybody finding out these people who have been making all the attacks and making all the promises. The Labour Party who were returned recently in Britain made promises but they did not say before the election there would be an increase in income tax, an increase of 6d. in the price of petrol and that all employees would have to pay an increase of 1/9d. in the case of females, and 2/- in the case of males.

If there were a change of Government here tomorrow, those who now want the blood of the Fianna Fáil Party would want the blood of the present Opposition in three months' time. The Opposition want to have all the groups on their side. Therefore they will not mention what particular group should be taxed. No one could be blamed for being sceptical. I am all for any attempt to give the old age pensioners an increase of 5/- or 10/- but if the Opposition want it also it is not sincere for them to criticise the imposition of a tax to raise the required amount. I hope that, when the next Budget comes, they will get another increase. That, at least, will be something in hand and it will be much more satisfactory than all the political gimmicks which are, in my opinion, shadow and not substance.

Deputy Medlar rose.

There are just five minutes for the Deputy.

I had no intention of intervening in this debate and I should not do so now, were it not for the points made by the various speakers supporting the motion. Their guns were trained on the plight of the old age pensioners. I would ask them now to do an about turn and try to eradicate the cause which, they state in their motion, is the steep rise in the cost of living. Economists tell us that when income outpaces productivity, inflation follows, and inflation is the cause of poverty. In other words, the rising cost of living is the cause of the poverty of those like the old age pensioners in receipt of fixed incomes. Income has outpaced productivity in recent years and we have not heard one protest all the time. One speaker stated we should not argue about what was given in the past; our problem now is to put some bread upon the old age pensioner's table. I want to protest against the action of those who are taking the bread off the old age pensioner's table. I give the small farmer's point of view, the point of view of the man who is producing most of the wealth of this country and, when that increased productivity occurs, it is other sections who reap the benefit.

The bacon industry has been very much in the news in recent months. The cost of building a certain type of house six years ago was £3,000; today the same house costs £3,500. I do not know where to lay the blame, whether at the feet of the manufacturer, the builders' provider or the employee in the building industry but the fact remains that today only six houses can be built where seven houses were built six years ago, with a consequential increase in the rent of the poor aged pensioner. Take the ordinary motor car. I have one in the forecourt here which cost £1,000 two years ago. It has gone rusty. I have a similar make of car at home in my backyard. It is rustproof. It did not cost anything like £1,000 30 years ago. Indeed, that is four times what I paid for the car in my backyard.

We produced wheat 15 years ago and we got £4 per barrel. Today we get £3 10s. for a much superior quality. Eggs are cheaper than they were at any time in the past 20 years. As far as the farmer is concerned, he is putting food on the old age pensioner's table at much lower prices.

I must interrupt the Deputy. His time is up. The Deputy is not allowed to speak for more than five minutes as I have now to call on Deputy Tully to conclude.

Why does it apply to this side? There was only one speaker from this side.

And more shame to them. They were not here to talk.

Standing Orders provide the time allowed to Deputies on Private Members' motions.

In any case he is talking about the failures of Fianna Fáil Ministers for Agriculture.

Why impose it on our side?

The Minister is making a charge. Every Deputy who spoke got 30 minutes.

Sure the time is up.

Deputy Medlar got the amount of time available to him and such charge should not be made against the Chair from any part of the House.

I know, of course, that Deputy Medlar was not aware of the true position and I should like to make the point that, if Deputy Medlar feels so strongly about the trade unionists having got wages increases, to which he feels they were not entitled, he has the example of a Minister of his Government; he can resign and demonstrate to the country that he is a hero. Deputy Medlar's approach does not fit in with the fact that Fianna Fáil claim they gave the 12 per cent increase. Deputy Medlar now says they are ruining the country.

I mentioned the manufacturers and the builders' providers.

I am talking about the poor old age pensioners, about the person on home assistance, or on unemployment assistance, who has not got enough to eat. I am not talking about the old age pensioner who can build a £3,000 house or the old age pensioner who can buy a rustless motor car for £1,000. I am talking about those who find it very hard to exist. Let us get down now to bare facts. There is no point in drawing a red herring across the trail. A previous speaker—he has unfortunately left the house——

Or, perhaps, fortunately.

——set standards here, and I shall comment on what the standards usually are, but the standards he wanted observed were that the Labour Party should see how the money was provided before we ask the Minister and the Government to provide increases for old age pensioners.

Now, when he introduced his motion for increases for disabled persons, a motion which was carried because the Government were too cowardly to challenge it to a division, he did not stipulate how the money should be found.

And he did not care if it were not implemented.

I may be wrong, but he said I should go on a joint deputation to the Minister for Finance. There was an old character named "Gabby Hayes" and he used to tell about how he captured 12 Indians by surrounding them. Maybe Deputy Sherwin surrounded the Government and showed them how it could be done. It is all very like the nonsense we get from people who write to the papers—I am not now referring to the letter to which Deputy Corish referred—usually finishing off by asking what are the Labour Party doing about it, whatever the "it" happens to be. I have a letter here signed "Old Age Pensioner" from somewhere in Drogheda. This pensioner asks what are we doing or what are we not doing about the old age pensioners. I suggest to the writer that he would be much better off if he approached Deputy Faulkner and the Minister for External Affairs, Deputy Aiken, and asked them what they are doing. They are the people who are in a position to deal with this matter of increases and not people like us who are doing our best and getting very little assistance in our efforts.

Now, in what I am about to say I intend nothing personal. I have a great respect for the Minister's Department and for the Minister, though he may not think so. Within his restricted limits, he is doing what he can. I should like to point out, however, that the Taoiseach in reply to a question of mine when the turnover tax was introduced and it was announced there would be an increase of 2/6 to assistance groups, with effect from 1st November of that year, had the answer, as he always has the answer; I asked him what about the benefit sections and he said that where the assistance sections were entitled to 2/6, he believed the benefit sections were entitled to double that. They got 5/- from 4th January. The benefit section got 5/- from 4th January but the assistance section in the last Budget got 2/6. The benefits section got nothing. Does this type of logic only work in one way, that when it becomes logical no longer, it is in order for him to change, to take a different line?

This question of people living on social welfare benefits and social welfare assistance has to be faced by this House. I am prepared to give the Minister any proof he may desire that in this city and in every town and village there are old people who are too proud to beg and too poor to pay for the necessaries of life and who are slowly dying. They are people who have not had a new suit, a pair of boots, or any new clothing for years. Sometimes, when they become desperate, they approach somebody like myself in public life to see if we can do something for them with the local authorities. It is shocking that they have to do that. If the Minister wants to, he can check with any of the charitable organisations in the city and find out to whom they give most of their assistance. He will find, as I did, that it has to be given to these unfortunate recipients of the assistance given by his Department.

It is quite easy to say that there has been this percentage increase and that percentage increase but those of us who live with our feet on the ground and realise what the situation is can see in the country and in this city the difference in prices now compared with what they were a few years ago. There is no point in the Minister saying: "We gave a percentage increase which was more than the increase in the cost of living." Deputy Corish put his finger on the matter. There must be a basic rate on which ordinary people can live in ordinary frugal comfort. I referred in my opening speech to the comparison between pensions in 1909 and now. We have now got a contributory old age pension. That was a great thing to introduce and an excellent idea. I would not say one word against that particular scheme except that the farm labourer in 1909 was able to get for himself from a non-contributory pension one half his week's wages and if he was married he received an amount equal to his full week's wages, which was 10/- a week. At present the contributory old age pensioner gets one-third of a farm worker's wages for himself, or slightly less, and if he is married he gets 60 per cent, so that even the contributory pension falls far short of the basis on which the original pension was based.

No matter from what angle we look at it, we can say that the whole question of social welfare benefits and social welfare assistance has been sadly neglected. The small farmer who has a bad farm and who now has a valuation put on it, if he has no stamps, or if he had stamps and was unfortunate enough to stop getting stamps for one reason or another—perhaps because he acquired the farm—by the time he reaches the age of 60 and has no qualifying stamps, will get no con-contributory pension. In 1909 he could have an income from the farm equal to a farm worker's wages and still get the full pension but at present if he has more than £3 a week he gets nothing. It goes right down to the full pension, he will only have a fraction of what a farm worker can earn. Surely this must make an impression on the Minister. If he did not know before that that was the situation he must say to himself: "There is something wrong with this, we cannot be going backwards. If it was right to do that in 1909 it cannot be right to give such small amounts now in relation to wages." Yet the Minister asks: "Why did Deputy Tully not say it was 37/6d instead of 35/-?" That seemed to be the main point of his argument which I think was rather a stupid one.

I have already referred to the little green book, S.W.4, which is an excellent production but the next time the Minister is adjusting the rates in the middle of the year, would he ensure that his Department issues leaves for the book which are the same size and not like this? It is only a small point but he will appreciate it is something that could be easily dealt with and a great aid to those who have to plough through them.

Whether or not there is going to be an increase in taxation, as was suggested by one of the speakers, for the purpose of finding the extra money is a decision which the Government must make and whether or not there will be an increase in the turnover tax for the same reason is a decision which the Government must take, but I want to throw back in the Government's face the allegation that the Labour Party have been voting against increases for those people. I want to tell the Minister, and I have repeated it again and again, and so have all of us on these benches, that if the Government are prepared to earmark a certain sum of money and say that it is going to be applied for the relief of those on social welfare benefits and social welfare assistance, then they will get any support they want from the Labour Party to see that that amount of money is voted, provided, and I assume it will be, the tax is put on in a fair way. I want to assure the Minister, however, that if the Government decide to raise a certain amount of money and try to throw out the sprat that there will be a few shillings in it for the old age pensioners, in order to get something passed as they did before, that will not wash.

The whole question of social welfare benefits and assistance came to be discussed under this motion. We introduced it, as it was pointed out, some years ago. The Minister thought he was making a good point by saying it was not one which we introduced last week. If I was the Minister I would be ashamed to say that because the motion was gaining strength on the Order Paper and the arguments in favour of it are 100 times stronger now than when the motion was first put down. The Minister may have overlooked that point when he was speaking and criticising us for discussing a motion which he said had nearly been two years on the Order Paper. Things were bad two years ago for these people but now they are a whole lot worse. The answer to all this lies with the Government. The Government may decide that the old age pensioners, the widows and orphans, the unemployed man, and the sick man or woman, are entitled to a fair deal. If they offer to give them a fair deal they will find no opposition either inside or outside this House but if they continue with their stingy methods of dealing with them, where they will give nothing except what they have to give to whitewash themselves and in order to give the impression that they are catering for them, then they will continue to get opposition from the Labour Party.

Amendment put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 60; Níl, 54.

  • Allen, Lorcan.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Blaney, Neil T.
  • Boland, Kevin.
  • Booth, Lionel.
  • Boylan, Terence.
  • Brady, Philip A.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Brennan, Joseph.
  • Brennan, Paudge.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Burke, Patrick J.
  • Carter, Frank.
  • Childers, Erskine.
  • Clohessy, Patrick.
  • Colley, George.
  • Cotter, Edward.
  • Crinion, Brendan.
  • Crowley, Honor M.
  • Cummins, Patrick J.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Lynch, Celia.
  • Lynch, Jack.
  • MacCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Meaney, Con.
  • Medlar, Martin.
  • Millar, Anthony G.
  • Moher, John W.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • de Valera, Vivion.
  • Dolan, Séamus.
  • Dooley, Patrick.
  • Egan, Kieran P.
  • Egan, Nicholas.
  • Fanning, John.
  • Faulkner, Padraig.
  • Gallagher, James.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gibbons, James M.
  • Gilbride, Eugene.
  • Gogan, Richard P.
  • Haughey, Charles.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Kitt, Michael F.
  • Lalor, Patrick J.
  • Lemass, Noel T.
  • Lemass, Seán.
  • Mooney, Patrick.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
  • Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
  • O'Connor, Timothy.
  • O'Malley, Donogh.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Sherwin, Frank.
  • Timmons, Eugene.

Níl.

  • Barrett, Stephen D.
  • Barron, Joseph.
  • Barry, Anthony.
  • Barry, Richard.
  • Belton, Paddy.
  • Browne, Michael.
  • Browne, Noel C.
  • Burke, Joan T.
  • Burton, Philip.
  • Byrne, Patrick.
  • Collins, Seán.
  • Connor, Patrick.
  • Coogan, Fintan.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Costello, Declan D.
  • Costello, John A.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Dockrell, Henry P.
  • Donegan, Patrick S.
  • Dunne, Seán.
  • Dunne, Thomas.
  • Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
  • Everett, James.
  • Farrelly, Denis.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Gilhawley, Eugene.
  • Governey, Desmond.
  • Harte, Patrick D.
  • Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary).
  • Kenny, Henry.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • McGilligan, Patrick.
  • McLaughlin, Joseph.
  • McQuillan, John.
  • Mullen, Michael.
  • Murphy, Michael P.
  • Murphy, William.
  • O'Donnell, Patrick.
  • O'Donnell, Thomas G.
  • O'Higgins, Michael J.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.K.
  • O'Keeffe, James.
  • O'Reilly, Patrick.
  • O'Sullivan, Denis J.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Reynolds, Patrick J.
  • Rooney, Eamonn.
  • Ryan, Richie.
  • Spring, Dan.
  • Sweetman, Gerard.
  • Tierney, Patrick.
  • Treacy, Seán.
  • Tully, James.
Tellers: Tá: Deputies J. Brennan and Geoghegan; Nil: Deputies Pattison and Tully.
Amendment declared carried.
Motion, as amended, put and agreed to.
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