Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 10 Dec 1964

Vol. 213 No. 6

Committee on Finance. - Vote 23—Garda Síochána.

Minister for Justice (Mr. Lenihan):

I move:

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £805,000 be granted to defray the charges which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1965, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Garda Síochána, including pensions, etc., and for payment of compensation and other expenses arising out of service in the Local Security Force.

A sum of £647,000 is required under Subhead A to meet the additional cost for the year, 1964/65, of the 12 per cent pay increase granted to members of the Garda Síochána with effect from the 1st February, 1964. This award followed the acceptance by the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Finance of an Agreed Recommendation of the Garda Síochána Conciliation Council on a claim for a 12 per cent increase in Garda pay in line with the national agreement on salary and wage increases.

An additional sum of £5,000 is required under Subhead B to meet increases in locomotion rates payable to Officers and Inspectors in the Garda Síochána. These increases were granted following acceptance by the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Finance of an agreed recommendation on a claim for an increase in locomotion rates in line with an increase granted to Civil Servants and with effect from the same date, namely, 1st April, 1964.

A further £5,000 is required under this Subhead to meet the additional cost of cleaning Garda Stations outside the Dublin area. This represents a 25 per cent increase on the existing allowance which was last revised in 1960.

Postal and other services rendered by the Post Office are paid for, since the 1st April, 1964, on a cash basis. The original Estimate for these services has now been increased by the Post Office from £30,000 to £37,500. In addition, the cost of telephone rentals, etc., has been increased since the 1st July, 1964, and it is estimated that this increase will amount to £8,500, making a total additional charge of £16,000 under Subhead C.

An additional sum of £132,000 is required to meet the increases in pensions and gratuities payable to members of the Garda Síochána on retirement, and to their widows. The increase follows automatically from the increase in pay to which I have already referred.

Mr. Dillon:

There is nothing in this Supplementary Estimate to which we take any exception, but really I must make this comment. We are informed by the Government that they are engaged in what they are pleased to describe as a programme—a Programme for Economic Expansion. When you speak of programmes, you may expect them to involve some foresight on the part of the Government in respect of their proposed outlay in any current financial year.

Mr. Lenihan:

This is prior to the national wage agreement.

Mr. Dillon:

I know. We are all aware that the necessity for Supplementary Estimates arises from time to time owing to unforeseen developments, but in the very recent past—that is to say, in the past two or three weeks— we have had a Supplementary Estimate for the Department of Agriculture for £6,666,000, a large part of which resulted from a miscalculation amounting to——

Mr. O'Malley:

The heifer subsidy.

Mr. Dillon:

——£2,550,000 in respect of a scheme originally designed to cost £405,000 in this year.

Mr. Lenihan:

It is not proper to deal with this matter in the absence of the Minister. I am sure the Deputy is wrong because he never does his homework.

An Ceann Comhairle:

It does not fall for discussion on this Estimate.

Mr. Dillon:

If the Minister imagines for a moment that bluff will deter me, he is barking up the wrong tree.

Mr. Lenihan:

The Ceann Comhairle is bringing the Deputy back to order as he was trying to do during Question Time yesterday.

An Ceann Comhairle:

We now have a Supplementary Estimate before us and extraneous matters do not arise.

Mr. Dillon:

We have now before us a Supplementary Estimate for £805,000 for the Garda Síochána. We are about to consider an Estimate for £469,000 for the Forestry Branch, and we are asked to take into consideration tomorrow or Tuesday next a further Supplementary Estimate of between £2 million and £3 million for another service.

Mr. Lenihan:

Will the Deputy deal with this Estimate?

Mr. Dillon:

I think it right on the occasion when these three Estimates are down on the Order Paper to direct the attention of the House to the fact that if this be the fruit of a programme for economic expansion, we had better revise our understanding of the word "programme".

An Ceann Comhairle:

The programme for economic expansion does not arise on this Estimate. The items are set out in the White Paper, and those are the only items that relevantly fall for discussion.

Mr. Lenihan:

Would the Deputy observe the order of the House?

Mr. Dillon:

One of these items is a Supplementary Estimate for £805,000. In connection with this Estimate——

Mr. Lenihan:

Thank you.

Mr. Dillon:

——I want to raise a specific point. The Minister states that "An additional sum of £132,000 is required to meet the increases in pensions and gratuities payable to members of the Garda Síochána on retirement, and to their widows. The increase follows automatically from the increase in pay to which I have already referred."

A situation has arisen in regard to Garda widows' pensions in that they circulate between the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Social Welfare, and the Minister for Justice, and no matter who you take it up with, you are referred to someone else. Ultimately responsibility for the Garda Síochána and their pension scheme, and the provisions made for their widows, must devolve on the Minister for Justice. I understand very full and detailed representations have been made to the Minister by the Garda representative body in regard to the problem of the Garda widows who were in receipt of non-contributory widows' pensions in addition to Garda widows' pensions which they received.

A special provision was made in the Pensions (Increases) Acts of 1956, and I think 1962 and 1963, requiring for the purpose of the social service code that Garda widows' pensions would be treated as income not to be reckoned for the purpose of social service benefits. The story, as I understand it from what the Minister for Finance told me yesterday, is that some elaborate calculation was made in the Department of Finance under which it appears that Garda widows whose minimum rate of pension has risen to £110 a year received some pension benefit which represented a percentage somewhat greater than that given to other beneficiaries under the Pension Acts, and accordingly out of the Pensions Act of 1964 there was left the proviso that appeared in the three previous Pensions Acts exempting Garda widows' pensions from being deemed to be income for the purpose of social welfare code.

The net result of that was that in a strictly limited number of cases, the increase in the Garda widow's pension has brought about a reduction in the total income of the widow, because where a widow had received a Garda widow's pension under the code prior to 1964, she was getting the full pension, and when the 1964 pension increase came into operation, and the minimum scale of the Garda widow's pension rose to £110, apparently part at least of that adjusted pension was treated as income by the Department of Social Welfare, and the Garda widow's non-contributory pension was proportionately reduced.

I have no doubt that the Minister for Finance, and possibly the Minister for Social Welfare, found themselves caught up in some abstruse calculation which, in accordance with the letter of the law as it was inadvertently written, obliged them to make this adjustment. Surely this House is not so paralysed, when we find we have done something we did not want to do but which is causing an intolerable sense of grievance to a tiny group of people and which can be remedied by the annual expenditure of a relatively small sum of money, that we cannot do anything about it. Is it beyond our capacity to say that, without creating any precedent, without establishing any departure from the general rule governing such matters, we shall hereby determine that the minimum £111 will in future be treated on the same basis as it was prior to the 1964 Act?

I know it sometimes is not easy to prevail on the Department of Finance to approach these matters in a constructive way, but I put it to the Minister that he should say to the Department of Finance: "I do not care what kind of Bill you draft, or what kind of section, or what steps you deem necessary. All I want to secure is that if a Garda widow gets this £111, it will not operate to reduce her widow's pension under the social welfare code".

The whole House wants this done, so let it be done. If the Minister faces this request in that way, nobody will chase him, or shock him or harass him. We fully realise it will take some little time to draft the necessary legislation, but if the Minister says it will be done, a relatively few decent widow women will say: "Give him time to get it done".

Each one of us would surely like to see this provision made retrospective, if that is possible. I realise the Minister's difficulties. There may be the suggestion that this might set off a whole forest of precedents. If it cannot be done, let a regulation be made putting the matter to rights, at least from now. I can assure the Minister that whatever steps he finds it necessary to take to effect that purpose will secure the support of this Party and, I am quite sure, of the Labour Party and of every other section of the House. I believe the present situation arises from an over-zealous mathematical calculation in the Department of Finance. Whatever the reason, let us put it right, and the sooner we do it the better.

I hope the Minister will find himself free to say this thing will be done as soon as the appropriate machinery can be devised. If he does, he will secure our support in any ensuing encounter he may have with the Minister for Finance or, on this occasion, with his colleague the Minister for Social Welfare, and he can rest assured I shall not describe his behaviour as a crack in the ceiling that requires the neighbours to examine the foundation of the Fianna Fáil Party.

Mr. Tully:

The Labour Party agree that the Supplementary Estimate should be passed as quickly as possible. I should like to support Deputy Dillon in what he said about this hardship which has been imposed this year. I do not know whether it was done inadvertently or not but it has caused grave hardship to a small number of widows. An effort should now be made to rectify it and to have that done retrospectively. I do not see how retrospective payment could cause embarrassment because the Minister for Local Government has agreed to have payments made retrospectively to 1st October, 1963, and an Act which has not yet been presented to the House will effect this.

Mr. Dillon:

That is what they call clean programming for economic expansion.

Mr. Tully:

Let us have this programme for the widows; let us give them that which has been taken away from them. Gardaí and their widows are in a most peculiar position in the social structure. Whether we like it or not, gardaí are members of the police force and in this country and every other country are not members of any particular class. They do not belong to any particular section of society because their job requires them to enforce the law. For that reason, they do not have the ordinary connections, the ordinary friends that other people have.

Mr. Dillon:

Oh, oh.

Mr. Tully:

Unfortunately, in country districts——

Mr. Dillon:

Oh, oh.

Mr. Lenihan:

Not in the west of Ireland.

Mr. Tully:

Strange things happen over there.

Mr. Lenihan:

There is no more respected man in the community than the Garda sergeant.

Mr. Tully:

That may be, while he is in power, but when he is no longer able to exercise the law, he, and later his unfortunate widow, must depend on what they get from the State. These people need protection more than anybody else. The Minister is in a position to do this without breaking any regulations. If he finds it impossible to persuade his colleagues in the Departments of Finance and Social Welfare to give the compensation required to restore the status quo, could the Minister not have the increase operated through the Department of Justice?

Mr. Dillon:

The Minister for Justice puts the amount up and the other fellow puts it down.

Mr. Tully:

If the whole lot came through the Department of Justice, there would be no danger.

Mr. Dillon:

If he puts the amount up, the other fellow puts it down.

Mr. Tully:

Let the whole lot come from the Department of Justice and there will be no trouble. Like Deputy Dillon, I do not know whether a regulation was made instructing the investigating officers, who are so diligent.

Mr. Dillon:

A section was left out of the 1964 Bill.

Mr. Tully:

This could be possible if we had not those diligent fellows going around. I suggest to the Minister that this hardship can be very simply fixed up.

Minister for Justice (Mr. Lenihan):

Like Deputy Dillon, I would not put up any defence of Garda widows on the basis that they are pariahs in the community. That was the suggestion of Deputy Tully. My experience in the West is that there is never any suggestion of local people sending the Garda sergeant to Coventry. In fact, he is usually the keystone, the friend and adviser in any difficulties that arise in the parish. I have a certain amount of sympathy with the point made. As Deputies are aware, it is not my function: it is a matter for the Department of Finance to make regulations altering the social welfare code. I assure the House I shall take this matter up with the Minister for Finance to see what can be done. There does appear to have been a case made for it.

In regard to the Estimate as a whole, it arises as a result of the 12 per cent increase given under the national wage and salary agreement. This, of course, is in accordance also with the Programme for Economic Expansion where we are seeking to have salaries and wages and all forms of incomes go forward at a stable rate. Indeed, the whole purpose of the National Agreement, freely entered into, was that all income sections would benefit in accordance with the prescribed increases in income for a certain definite period, so that we would get over any haphazard increases, or any frustrations caused by not granting particular increases in salaries when these became due. Since then, certain storms have arisen regarding particular categories of our economy but the entire idea of a National Agreement is laudable. It is the first attempt to achieve this object which the British Government are now seeking to achieve. All Parties, I take it, would subscribe to the hope that such agreements and their observance of them would be a permanent feature in our economic development in the future. I shall not go any further into the matter; I leave it at that.

This particular Supplementary Estimate arises because, as Deputies know, the original Estimate for the Department was drawn up prior to the conclusion of the National Agreement. Since it was concluded, the automatic increase has been applied to every section of the community and this Supplementary Estimate is required for the categories and purposes mentioned. I do not think there is anything further to be said, beyond adding that I will take up the point made by Deputy Dillon.

Vote put and agreed to.