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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 11 Mar 1965

Vol. 214 No. 12

Committee on Finance. - Vote 47—Social Welfare.

Tairgim:

Go ndeonófar suim nach mó ná £23,672,000 chun slánaithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an mhuirir a thiocaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31 ú lá de Mhárta, 1966, le haghaidh Tuarastail agus Costais Oifig an Aire Leasa Shóisialaigh, le haghaidh Seirbhísí áirithe atá faoi riaradh na hOifige sin, le haghaidh íocaíchtaí leis an gCiste Árachais Shóisialaigh, agus le haghaidh Ildeontas.

'Sé an méid glan atá ag teastáil don bhliain 1965-66 le h-aghaidh na seirbhísí as a bhfuilim-se freagrach ná £35,508,000. Is méadú é seo de £1,608,000 ar an mbun-soláthar a rinneadh do'n bhliain 1964-65. 'Séard is príomh-chúis leis an méadú ná an costas breise a bhéas iníoctha i rith na bliana seo chugainn de thoradh forálacha an Achta Leasa Shóisialaigh a ritheadh anuraidh. Mar is eol do Theachtaí méadaíoch rátaí cúnaimh shóisialaigh le h-éifeacht ó thosach mí Lúnasa seo chaite, agus bhí orm meastachán forlíontach a thabhairt os comhair na Dála le déanaí chun costas na bhforalácha sin a íoc i mbliana.

Do réir an meastachán 'sé £37,289,000 an t-ollmhéid a bhéas ag teastáil in aghaidh na bliana seo chugainn. Ní h-é sin, áfach, méid iomlán an chaiteachais ar na seirbhísí atá faoi chúram mo Roinn-se. I gcás Fo-Mhírcheann E ní taispeántar ach an deontas a íocfar as an Státchiste. Má bhreathnaimíd ar an Aguisín feicfimíd go gcosnóidh na seirbhísí árachais £24,024,000. Nuair a chuirtear an tsuim sin le costas na seirbhísí cúnaimh, sé sin £25,194,000, is soiléir go gcosnóidh na seirbhísí árachais agus cúnaimh le chéile £49,218,000 sa bhliain 1965-66 gan costas riaracháin a chur san áireamh.

Nuair a chuirimíd meastachán na bliana 1965-66 i gcomparáid le bunmheastachán na bliana 1964-65, feicimíd go bhfuil ollmhéadú de £1,873,500 sa tsuim atáthar á lorg. Baineann £450,000 de'n mhéadú le costas riaracháin agus is toradh é seo ar na hárdaithe pá a deonadh i rith na bliana 1964-65 agus an méadú a tháinig ar chostaisí poist, telegraf agus telefóin. I gcás Árachais Shóisialaigh meastar go mbeidh méadú de £1,267,000 san gcaiteachas ach táthar ag súil le breis fáltaisí de £833,000. Mar sin 'sé £434,000 an tsuim bhreise a thiocfaidh as an Státchiste. Ar shochar míchumais, pinsin seanaoise ranníocacha agus riarachán is mó a éireoidh an caiteachas breise. Táthar ag súil le teacht isteach breise de £800,000 ó ranníocaíochtaí de réir claonadh an ioncaim sin sa bhliain 1964-65.

I gcás Cúnaimh Shóisialaigh tá méadú de £989,500 agus sé is mó is cúis leis seo ná na méadaithe i rátaí pinsin seanaoise, i rátaí pinsin baintreach agus i rátaí cúnaimh difhostaíochta a luaidh mé cheana. Meastar go gcosnóidh forálacha an Achta Leasa Shóisialaigh, 1964, £1,238,000 sa bhliain 1965-66. Tá laghdú, áfach, ó bhliain go bliain i líon na bpinsinéiri faoin na scéimeanna cúnaimh de bhrí go bhfuil níos mó daoine i dteideal pinsean faoi na scéimeanna árachais, agus mar sin ní gá ach £989,500 sa bhreis a sholáthar.

The total net provision being sought for Social Welfare for the financial year 1965-66 is £35,508,000. This represents a net increase of £1,608,000 on the provision made for the current year. The increase is attributable mainly to the increased rates of payment and the other improvements effected by the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1964. As Deputies are aware, the principal increases operated from the beginning of August last, and their cost in the current year will have to be met by a Supplementary Estimate which has recently been before the House.

The estimated gross total requirement for 1965-66 is shown on the Estimate as £37,289,000. This does not, however, represent the total expenditure on the services administered by my Department as the amount shown against Subhead E—Payment to the Social Insurance Fund—is not the total cost of the insurance services but merely the portion of such cost which has to be met by the Exchequer. Particulars of the estimated income and expenditure of the Social Insurance Fund in 1965-66 are shown separately for the first time by way of an appendix to the Estimate. As set out in the appendix the total cost of insurance benefits is estimated at £24,024,000. When this figure is added to the sum of £25,194,000 included in the Estimate under Social Assistance it will be seen that the total estimated gross outlay on insurance and assistance benefits in 1965-66 amounts to £49,218,000 excluding administration expenses.

The Social Welfare Estimate comprises three main divisions namely, Administration costs shown at Subheads A to D, Social Insurance— Subheads E and F, and Social Assistance—Subheads G to K. The Administration Subheads show an increase of £450,000 as compared with the original estimate for 1964-65 mainly due to ninth round and other salary revisions and to increased postal, telegraph and telephone charges. The increase of £434,000 in respect of social insurance represents the Exchequer proportion of the total estimated increase of £1,267,000 on expenditure from the Social Insurance Fund, the balance of £833,000 being the anticipated increase in income from contributions etc. On the assistance side, the increase of £989,500 is mainly attributable to the increased rates of old age and widows' non-contributory pensions and unemployment assistance to which I have already referred. The estimated cost of the increased rates and the other improvements in the assistance services in the coming year is £1,238,000. There is, however, a downward trend in the number of old age and widow non-contributory pensioners as a consequence of more persons in these groups becoming eligible for the corresponding contributory pensions. The result is that the increased cost is offset to the extent of about £248,000, and the additional provision required is reduced to £989,500.

Expenditure from the Social Insurance Fund is expected to increase by £1,267,000. The main heads under which increases are anticipated are disability benefit £300,000, old age (contributory) pension £300,000, unemployment benefit £128,000, widows' and orphans' (contributory) pension £112,000 and administration £328,000. On the income side an increase of £800,000 is expected in the income from employment contributions as compared with the original estimate for the current year. Income in the current year is likely to be appreciably higher than the original estimate, and this upward trend is expected to be maintained in 1965-66.

It may be helpful to Deputies if I give a brief review of the main developments in social welfare matters over the past twelve months. The Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1964, effected a number of improvements apart from the increases in rates to which I have already referred. Provision was made for the first time for payment in respect of dependent children of old age pensioners, both contributory and non-contributory, and for the disregarding of £39 in respect of each qualified child in assessing a pensioner's income from earnings. The result of this has been that whereas the maximum contributory and non-contributory pensions payable were 87/6d. and 37/6d. respectively, the highest rates now in payment are, contributory 169/6d. and non-contributory 97/6d. per week. The practice of extending the means scale to take account of increases in assistance rates which was initiated in 1962 was continued.

In the case of unemployment assistance, provision was made for the giving of retrospective effect to decisions affecting Qualification Certificates, thus enabling unemployment assistance to be paid retrospectively where this was not previously possible, and in the case of fishermen working seasonally on their own account or on a share basis, for the disregard of income derived from seasonal fishing up to a limit of £80 a year. Other improvements were the abolition of the lower age limit for receipt of widows' non-contributory pension, the removal of the overriding limit of half a million pounds on expenditure on treatment benefits, and the bringing of pensionable teachers in training colleges into line with pensionable teachers in other schools in the matter of insurability under the Social Welfare Acts. A Regulation made during the year provided that persons insurably employed as sharefishermen and who derive their livelihood wholly or mainly from that occupation must be insured at the ordinary rate of contribution, and consequently such persons will, for the first time, become eligible for unemployment benefit. Another Regulation increased from 6/8d. to 10/- the daily amount which a person may earn from a subsidiary occupation without affecting his title to unemployment benefit. Finally, with effect from 1st April, 1964, the State capitation grants payable to approved institutions for the blind in respect of each resident of a school, home or hostel were increased by £20.

These changes, and those made in earlier years, are the expression of a definite policy on my part of keeping our social welfare services under constant scrutiny, to ensure the removal of anomalies and the making of improvements wherever possible. This policy will be continued in the coming year.

I have now covered the main features of the Estimate and I would ask the House to approve of it.

We agree to this Estimate, which merely provides the money to finance the decisions already taken by the House in regard to social services. However, I do not think we should lose sight of the fundamental fact that no source of income is more vulnerable to the steadily-rising cost of living than the income of those who are beneficiaries of the social services which the House provides. We are now paying a non-contributory old age pension of 37/6d. per week. How many of us fully realise that, as a result of the rise in the cost of living since 1957, that pension of 37/6d. today will purchase approximately what 28/- would have purchased in 1957? The same is true of all the other payments which social service beneficiaries receive.

The increase in the cost of living impinges on everybody—wage earners and salary earners—but it is, perhaps, most dramatically illustrated in the case of old age pensioners, particularly those who have no other source of income. I am gravely concerned about the condition of old people, particularly those who live alone and who have no income other than the old age pension. I do not want to exaggerate this picture, but I think we should be realistic about it. We all know that in a great part of rural Ireland old age pensioners live with their families. If the old people hand over the place to their children, to their son, and retain the use of a room, the man and his wife living together will be eligible for two old age pensions. With the contribution their family rightly make to their maintenance and the provision of comforts, the old age pension is tolerable for them. But when we come to the case of old persons who have no family, who live apart from their family, particularly in our towns and cities, their existence on this income would be utterly tragic and disastrous were it not supplemented from some other source. I often wonder how they manage to carry on at all. I assume they get home assistance.

Not in all cases.

I do not see how any old person can live on 37/6d per week, keep a fire going and pay the rent of a room. I have the feeling, from my experience of rural life, that access to home assistance is not as easy, as regular or as permanent as we would wish it to be and is not really sufficient to bring the income of old people to a tolerable level. I should like to hear from the Minister if, in his judgment, some other scheme could be devised which would effectively provide that old people exclusively dependent on the old age pension and living alone would more or less automatically become entitled to some supplement from some other source, which would enable us. the rest of the community, to feel honestly we had succeeded in abolishing destitute poverty in our community, certainly at least among the aged.

I do not believe there is a Deputy on any side of the House who would not be prepared to face whatever sacrifice was involved for the express purpose of effectively abolishing destitute poverty in our society. I think it is true that the vast majority of Deputies would agree that ought to be a first charge on our resources. The machinery to give effect to that is something on which expert opinion would have to be taken. I believe it has been pretty effectively done in Great Britain, where they have the National Assistance over and above the old age pension. If your circumstances are such that manifestly the social services are not providing enough, you are entitled to go to the National Assistance and get from that source whatever sum is requisite to ensure you do not know destitution, cold, hunger or the extremity of poverty.

I should be glad to hear from the Minister if we could not evolve some similar provision here. I know that the local authority is supposed, through home assistance, to bridge whatever gap may exist between what the social services provide and what a minimum standard of comfort requires, but I have the uncomfortable feelings it does not do that. If it does not, I suggest to the Minister we ought to try to consolidate those services into something more approximating to National Assistance, which would enable us all to have a clear conscience in regard to this matter.

There are a few details on which I should like to ask the Minister for further elucidation. He points out that under the new regulations it is now permissible to earn 10/- a day without affecting entitlement to unemployment benefit. I had a case recently drawn to my attention where a woman, who spent two days of the week acting as companion to an old lady not able to look after herself, has been off the benefit for weeks, if not months. I took the matter up with the Department and was told her case was being investigated. Frankly, I had not adverted to the fact she was entitled to earn 10/- a day without interfering with her right to unemployment benefit. Can the Minister tell me does that also apply to disability benefit?

She cannot work, but if she has a shop——

If she worked, that would indicate——

That she is not entitled to disability benefit.

I see the point. But if she had a shop, that would be different. There is that distinction between disability benefit and unemployment benefit. The latter is for a person who is perfectly fit and well, and who is looking for a job, while disability is long-term benefit for a person who has been ill.

Not necessarily longterm. The term can be either long or short. The benefit is for a person who is unfit for work.

I see the distinction. I wonder has the regulation to which the Minister referred, raising the permitted daily earnings to 10/-, been sufficiently publicised. I often think a good many of these regulations are made and nobody ever hears about them. I suppose people get to know about them when the necessity arises.

It is a regulation that does not come into operation very often.

I suppose not. Still, it would be well to publicise it. Mark you, in rural Ireland many a person could supplement his or her employment benefit by doing chores pending the procurement of permanent employment and it would be an advantage if people knew about that regulation, because I imagine a good many people in rural Ireland in receipt of unemployment benefit do not seek any supplementary work for fear they would be put off what is commonly known as the dole. Now this speaks of unemployment benefit. Would I be right in saying that, if you are in receipt of unemployment assistance, you would not be entitled to this?

It must be benefit in respect of stamp money. Mark you, these things are as clear as crystal to the Minister's mind because he is dealing with them every day but, in rural Ireland, the distinction between benefit and assistance is not as clear to the average person as it would be to someone who is dealing with these things every day.

There is a strange detail to which I wish now to draw the Minister's attention. I had a case which was considered at length in his Department. It is an anomaly in the present code which, I think, requires review. It is common practice in rural Ireland for a widow to get work cleaning. She will work for me on Monday, for A on Tuesday, for B on Wednesday, for C on Thursday and for E on Friday. Under the existing law whoever employs the woman on Monday is liable to stamp her card and that is fully understood. Suppose a woman in those circumstances works on Monday in the Garda barracks cleaning and on Tuesday works in a solicitor's office cleaning and on Wednesday works in a neighbour's house and on Thursday for somebody else, that system can go along quite comfortably and did, in the case I had to inquire about, for a number of years.

Then somebody suddenly adverted to the fact that the Garda were exempt from the social welfare code and it was discovered that it was not the people who employed the lady on Monday but the person who employed the lady on Tuesday who was liable to stamp her card. He was called upon to cough up something like £135. Everybody in the area assumed that the general rule applied and that whoever she worked for on Monday would stamp her card but, because she worked in the Garda barracks on Monday, she was in the unique position of placing the liability for the stamping of her card on her Tuesday employer. That seems to me so fantastic an injustice that something ought to be done to remedy it. The person with whom I was concerned, being a very conscientious person, drew his cheque and paid the very substantial sum.

It was lucky he was able to.

It was. He paid that substantial sum and I think it was a grave injustice. The question of stamping the card had never arisen because everybody proceeded on the assumption that her employer on Monday had discharged that obligation. I wonder if we ever meant in our legislation to declare that not only were the members of the Garda Síochána exempt from the provisions of the social welfare code but that a woman cleaning out a barracks was also exempt, because I do not think we did mean that. Perhaps that is a detail the Minister would look into and see if any remedial measures can be taken.

I, on behalf of this Party, welcome any increase we are in a position to give in relation to social welfare benefits. I should be interested to hear from the Minister—he might be able to tell us—how many children qualify under the new regulation which entitles a non-contributory old age pensioner, who has dependent children, to get an increase in his pension? It would be a very interesting statistic to have. Have they to be under 16 years of age? It would be an interesting statistic to determine how many people over 70 years of age can produce a number of children under 16.

Grandchildren.

Do grandchildren come into it?

In very exceptional circumstances, a grandchild would come in. The children would probably have been born before the father was 70.

Not necessarily.

Presumably. However, let us not be too precise about this, but it would be an interesting statistic. It is a remarkable fact that there should be any considerable number of children or a number of people who would qualify for this benefit. It is a very good thing the benefit is there for those who qualify but I should be interested to know actually how many are so qualified. As I say, we are glad when there is an increase in social welfare payments but our pleasure is substantially qualified by the knowledge, from which many of us, I am afraid, turn our heads away, that all the time the rising cost of living is eating away the benefits which this House provides for the poor and the old. What we give with one hand we take away with the other.

I suggest to the House that we have now reached a stage in our development when, if we are not to contemplate a society in which the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer, we ought to turn our minds to the matter of putting a floor under the standard of living of the least fortunate among us. I know of no way of doing that effectively except something along the lines of national assistance which would entitle anybody who in fact, whatever his attendant circumstances may be, has fallen below the minimum standard that we consider to be consistent with human dignity to have the right to say: "This is all I have" and it is your duty to make up the difference between that and the minimum standard which the State has set as being a tolerable one for any single person living alone and without an alternative source of income. I do not think home assistance is effectively discharging that duty and there should be a more certain and accessible machinery available to the poor which would give them what we think they ought to have and give us that peace of conscience to enjoy whatever we ourselves have in the certain knowledge that none of our neighbours is hungry and cold.

There is one other matter to which I should like to draw the Minister's attention. In this day and age, I do not think we can salve our consciences simply by providing weekly payments. It is a good thing to recognise hardship and poverty and to provide, insofar as our resources will permit in the case of every individual that he will be provided with sufficient to keep him fed, to keep him warm and to provide him with a reasonably comfortable home to live in, but human experience teaches us that old age carries with it other afflictions. We cannot hope to arrest the march of time and we cannot hope to relieve everybody from the inevitable decline of old age, but there are some things we can do and the fact that we are unable to relieve some of the afflictions common to humanity ought to make us all the more vigilant to remedy and relieve those which are susceptible to relief.

One of the great difficulties of old people, particularly old people living alone, is loneliness, and a second is the inability often to get out and get the food and fuel they require. Occasionally I receive letters from old people in Dublin saying that the place where they get their turf or fuel has no messenger and they are not able to go for it any more. You hear constantly from the brothers of the St. Vincent de Paul Society of the desperate loneliness of some of the people living alone and frequently you hear of cases of old people struggling valiantly to keep their room and avoid going into an institution. Yet, they are faced with the deplorable fact that the room is getting dirtier, and their persons are getting dirtier, that they are sick and there is no care or solicitude for them and nobody to care for them. Neighbours, of course, are very good and I have often been struck by the charity and kindness of neighbours who will go in and do a turn whenever it is possible for them to do so. There is a system in some countries of home help under which a visitor goes around and helps these old people. This visitation not only helps the old people's physical infirmities but it is looked forward to as a break in the loneliness of being alone.

I remember when we had the Jubilee nurses in the country and the nurse's round was eagerly looked forward to by old people who found it increasingly difficult to go out. I do not think the Jubilee nurses ever functioned in the cities but I am sorry to say that in rural Ireland the Jubilee nurses are fading out. I imagine that this is because it is becoming too expensive to provide them and that it is difficult to find the personnel prepared to undertake that work. I should like to think that we could work out a scheme whereunder the equivalent of Jubilee nurses would be available to help old people living alone and who need that kind of visitation of a quasinursing kind in their own rooms. It would be infinitely preferable to enable them to carry on in their own homes, however humble they may be, by the provision of such a service than to be constrained to receive them into a county home, or whatever the equivalent of a county home is in the cities.

I would ask the Minister whether he would not consider that such a departure would be justified under the social welfare code. One of the troubles about this is that when you make a suggestion of this kind, the Minister for Social Welfare is inclined to say that that is the function of the Minister for Health, and when you go to the Minister for Health, he says it is the function of the Minister for Social Welfare. Often I used to say to my colleague, the Minister for Social Welfare: "If I were Minister for Social Welfare, I would not rest quiet in the bed until I had gone out and found those who were poor and cold and lonely and hungry." I do not think it is enough for the Minister for Social Welfare to say: "There are the services, and if the people need them, why do they not come and look for them?" I feel that the Minister for Social Welfare has an obligation, inherent in his office, to go out and find the poor and if there are old people who, as they grow older, become a bit stupid and do not know how to go about availing of the social services, there ought to be some machinery available to the Minister to go and find them and to see that what needs to be done is done. We are often in grave danger of falling into the illusion that once we have provided the services, it is up to the people to come and look for them.

I have often been struck—if I may draw an analogy—by an experience I had when I was once sailing in the South Seas. I arrived on one island which was administered by one Colonial power and the public health services there were a joy to witness. Every servant employed in that service used to be out looking for people in the jungle suffering from tropical diseases in order to provide for them. I sailed from that island to another one which was under the Colonial jurisdiction of another power and there you saw, as you walked the jungle paths, people suffering from every tropical disease in the encyclopedia and I remember saying to the chief medical officer of the second island: "Why do you not take measures as effective as those operated on the island I have just been on to control these diseases?" He replied: "The services are there and if they do not want to come in and get them, I do not give a damn. I am not going out to look for them."

That struck me as the fundamental difference between a well-run conscientious service and a service which was perhaps wealthier but badly administered. The officers of one were solicitous for the people to come in for care and the others did not give a damn; they were prepared to provide the services and if the people did not come looking for them through ignorance or lack of knowledge, they let them rot.

I do not want to suggest that any Minister for Social Welfare in this country is callous or indifferent to the welfare of his neighbours but I think we are a little inclined to sit back and say: "The services are there; let the people come and get them if they want them." We have an obligation substantially heavier than that. We should go out and look for the destitute poor and if such exist we have an obligation to find them and to find out why there are destitute poor in our society. Theoretically, there ought to be nobody—theoretically, after they have got the pension and whatever home assistance that will ensure them against that kind of thing—but we all know in practice such cases exist. If the present machinery is not sufficient, I suggest to the Minister that he has an obligation to provide alternative machinery that will work effectively.

I suggest to him that so long as there is somebody poor and destitute, cold and hungry, and without a decent room to live in, he should not rest easy. The problem is primarily his and whatever needs to be done it is his responsibility to see that it is done. Until he can faithfully report to Dáil Éireann that that is being done, then the Minister for Social Welfare is failing in his duty. I should be glad to hear what he has to say on that aspect of the Vote to which we now give our consent.

As in previous years, I should like to preface my remarks by complimenting the Minister on the courtesy which he and his officials have extended to me on the very numerous occasions on which I have had reason to make inquiries of or representations to them. It is a pleasure to deal with public officials who handle cases in such a courteous way. It is rather a pity that the same thing does not apply to all the services of State. In Social Welfare, it is really true that they take a personal interest in any matter brought to their notice and try to have it cleared up as quickly and as favourably as possible. On one or two occasions I have found it necessary to approach the Minister or his secretaries and I found that the same courtesy was extended to me and I should like to place on record my appreciation of this. Having said that, I want to point out that while I am very satisfied with the way the Minister and his officials have been carrying on the work of the Department, I am not satisfied with the system under which they work.

One of the things to which the Minister referred was the increase in earnings allowed to a man signing for unemployment benefit from 6/6 to 10/- per day. Just think for a minute. The single man who now is earning 10/per day can draw his unemployment benefit of £2/2/6. The married man with 13 children who is earning 10/-per day can sign and draw his benefit but if he has 10/3 per day, he is not allowed to draw unemployment benefit. I thought that when the Minister was altering the system he would take family commitments into account. It is not unreasonable to suggest to him that this is an anomaly which should be rectified as quickly as possible.

I had occasion during the year to bring to the notice of the Department the case of somebody who had 13 children. Because it was estimated that they were earning more than 6/8 per day, which was the amount allowed, the fact that he had to keep his wife and 13 children did not enter into it at all; he could not qualify for benefit. He had the necessary number of stamps, and so on, but that was that. I would ask the Minister to have another look at this. I believe that, eventually, somebody must alter this regulation and the only sensible way to alter it is according to the family commitments.

I should also like to refer to the situation which at the present time is affecting an awful lot of people, that is, the arrangement by which farmers with reasonably-sized or small farms are working, for instance, at building here in Dublin. If he could live on his farm, no man in his sober senses would get up at 5.30 in the morning to get a car to Dublin to earn a week's wages. Therefore, it must be accepted that those people need the work and money as otherwise they would not be working. They stamp cards in the normal way and yet, when they apply for benefit, they are told that their income was 6/8 up to now and that therefore they cannot qualify. If they cannot qualify, I do not think they should be asked to pay insurance stamps at all. You cannot have it both ways. It is unreasonable that these people should be asked to pay for benefits which they cannot, by any stretch of imagination, qualify for.

Another anomaly which I think the Minister has possibly overlooked and which I should like him to have a look at concerns the situation where, if a man reaches 70 years of age and qualifies for a contributory old age pension, no matter if his wife is only 17, she also qualifies for her share of the pension, and that is quite in order However, if the man is only 65 years of age and is working, say, as a farm worker, and his wife is 70 years of age, neither of them can qualify for anything until the man reaches 70 because his wages will debar his wife from getting the non-contributory old age pension. However, when they reach 70, even if he continues in employment, both qualify. That is an anomaly which the Minister might possibly consider rectifying. It is a hardship on certain people particularly when they can point to their neighbours who are, perhaps, not as old but who are getting the benefit of the full pension while they, over 70, do not get any pension or assistance at all.

I have already congratulated the Minister on bringing in the regulation which permits the children of old age pensioners to receive an allowance. Deputy Dillon asked how many children were involved. I think he will be very surprised when he gets the reply. It is amazing how many children, as the amount of money in the Estimate shows, are eligible for this payment. But, while provision is made for the children, no provision is made for the wife. Take the old age pensioner who is 70 and who applies for and is granted a non-contributory old age pension. His children qualify for children's allowances. If his wife is not 70 years of age, she does not get anything at all. This is something which the Minister might have a look at to see if he can help. The non-contributory old age pensioner's wife has to live, too. The amount which he gets, by no stretch of imagination, could be accounted enough to keep a man and his wife.

I would ask in particular that the Minister should consider this matter because in many cases one finds a non-contributory old age pensioner, a man, with a wife who may be ailing and in failing health of 65, 66 and up to 70 years. It is pitiable to see how these two old people try to keep a home on 37/6d. a week. The Minister may say that that is not his responsibility or his fault but I say that it is the fault of the regulations and that something should be done about it.

I also think that an effort will have to be made in the very near future to do something about the non-contributory old age pension itself. A sum of 37/6d. per week is a shockingly low sum to offer to anybody on which to live. Deputy Dillon referred to the hardship inflicted on people living in rooms in the cities and towns. I am afraid the same thing is true, and maybe more so, in the country districts where one finds old people living in areas far apart from the centres of population and trying to exist on such a small sum. The Minister should do something substantially to increase it and I would urge that he makes every effort in that direction. If old people go into an institution, as many of them have to do, it costs more than twice that sum to keep them there.

There may be more reasons than one for it. I have been given the reason that the standards in these institutions have been so raised that old people are more comfortable very often than they would be in the bosom of their family. That may well be, but I still think it is just too bad if old people, particularly those who have reared families, find themselves in the position where nobody wants them, where the State will not give them enough to live on and there is nothing left for them but to go into the county home, nowadays probably known by a nicer name. I can cite the case of an old man and woman who had lived together for 50 years. They were brought to the gates of the county home, the man went to the men's side, the woman to the women's side, and they never saw each other again and on a later occasion the old man saw his wife's coffin passing by.

This could be avoided if the State would give something extra, though only a little. I agree it costs money but the number of people drawing non-contributory old age pensions is dropping as the number of contributory beneficiaries rises. In this connection I should like to pay a tribute to the St. Vincent de Paul Society who in the country districts and in the towns—I cannot speak for the cities—are doing an excellent job in supplementing out of their meagre funds the incomes of such people. It makes it possible for them to exist. This is one of the things about which the Government and the Minister could do a lot more. It is something on which they have so far fallen down.

Reference was made to the dole. Some people do not know the difference between the dole or unemployment assistance and unemployment benefit. I should like it to go on record that people drawing unemployment benefit are drawing from their stamps. They are drawing by right. Dole is a form of assistance as is the non-contributory old age pension which does not require qualification by stamps. I think it necessary to make that clear.

Still on the question of unemployment assistance, it is terribly small and puts people who are unable to find a job into great hardship if they have drawn their 26 weeks entitlement and find themselves back on the dole. The State should make an effort to improve the amount. Another angle of it is worth remembering. While the dole is there for those who are able to work or to look for work, if the same people fall ill, there is no corresponding benefit. If it appears as if they will be permanently ill, the local authority can give them a disabled person's allowance, provided there is no hope of finding employment for them in the State, but if they have not got the necessary number of stamps and if they fall ill, they are in the position that they, and perhaps wives and families, are dependent on local authority home assistance if they wish to apply for it.

This is rather a serious matter. It should be our duty to see to it that we do not leave any section of the community completely destitute. I suggest that the section I have just mentioned are completely destitute or can be completely destitute because the State is not prepared to do anything for them. Of course the same situation arises in regard to non-contributory old age pensions and to blind pensions. It may seem extraordinary, but it is not unusual to find a blind man getting married—some women who did not have any hope of getting married will undertake the very onerous task of looking after that blind person. Whether blind people are married or not, there is no provision by which their income can be increased and they must fall back on home assistance.

The Minister has made quite a number of changes in the regulations since his appointment and this is another thing which cries out for his attention. Very often those people come to public representatives like myself and point out they are looking after blind people and in fact trying to live on a blind pension which is very small for one, not to mention two or more. A little assistance from the Minister would rectify it.

Something happened last year to highlight a system which is entirely wrong. During the building strike, those who had been working in the building trade and who were, or who might have been, as a result of the strike out of work, were disqualified from drawing unemployment benefit. Some of those people had 15 and 20 years unbroken service, with a stamp for every week they had worked. Yet when they needed benefit and applied for it they were told: "This is the result of a trade dispute. It is out".

I should like to explain something at this point. A man who is signing at an employment exchange and is offered a job need not accept it if, (a), it is one which he could not be expected to do or, (b), if the distance which he would have to travel would be unreasonable. Usually the appeals officers are prepared to accept that if a man is asked to travel more than four or five miles from his home, it would be unreasonable to insist that he accept a job. Yet last autumn we had hundreds of people travelling 30 and 40 miles and in some cases 50 miles from the country to the city in cars to work. Because there was a trade dispute, they were deprived of unemployment benefit. All they had to do in the first instance was stop at home, refuse to look for work in the city and they could draw unemployment benefit for six months.

But they did not do that. They continued to travel long journeys at grave inconvenience because, like most people in this country, they preferred to work than be idle. They were told they were ineligible for benefits because there was a trade dispute on. I am sure that many such people obtained temporary employment and that when it ceased they went back to the employment exchange and somebody decided—I should like the Minister to go very deeply into this—that they would not be paid, that even though they had lived at Enfield in County Meath, had been driving to Dublin to work as building labourers, had been employed as temporary postmen in Kinnegad, they were still builders' labourers in Dublin. That interpretation was far too strict and looked suspiciously like an attempt to ensure that the man concerned did not get benefit.

It is true that as a result of that strike a number of those people did not resume their employment in Dublin. Many of them looked nearer home and succeeded in getting something in which there was not the same hardship or, may I point out, the same money involved. But the man employed as a result of being sent out by the exchange was not considered to have broken his service and was considered to be still on strike. It is all rather peculiar.

People might wonder that I, as a trade union official, should be asking these questions. It may be said that if people were in good standing with their trade union, they would have received strike pay. Despite the fact that that is so, we all know that when the strike took place, there was a great number of these people who were not members of a trade union and who, for one reason or another, were not entitled to anything. They were put on starvation level. Let us not forget that. I also understand an attempt was made to rule that these people were not even entitled to home assistance. The Minister has nothing to do with that particular ruling, but the ruling he gave earlier was used in connection with it. It looked as if we were back in 1913 when an effort was made to starve the strikers into going back to work.

That is something I resent and something that everybody who understands the situation should resent. The Minister, through inadvertence or otherwise, should not become involved in deciding an issue like that again. It should not be considered that people coming from a long distance outside an area where a strike is taking place are in the same category as those living beside the job. There is nothing unreasonable about that and I should like the Minister to comment on it.

There is another thing at which I think the Minister should look, that is, the question of how increases in benefits under his Department affect benefits under other Departments, or vice versa. We know of the famous, or infamous, case of the Garda widows who because of a slight increase given by one Department, found themselves losing as much as 21/- a week because they had got this increase of 2/6d. It is a question of going outside the limit of what is allowed under one heading, and I think this sort of thing could be straightened out between Departments.

The Garda widows' pensions were slightly adjusted but there is still the situation where these people are at a financial loss, and I do not know whether the Minister is aware of it, because the State was generous enough in one Department to give them a slight increase.

Last year a rather peculiar thing happened. In the Budget an increase of 2/6d. was given to people on the assistance rates and the previous year the same thing happened. If my memory serves me correctly, the increase in the assistance rates in the previous year was with effect from November to compensate for the increases as a result of the turnover tax. When the increase of 2/6d. took place, I asked the Taoiseach whether, as the assistance people were getting 2/6d., he did not think that consideration should be given to the people on the benefit rates. He was very fair about it and said: "Oh yes; if the assistance people get 2/6d., I think the benefit people should get twice that amount." That was the year before last, but, when the Budget came in last year, the assistance people got 2/6d. and, for some strange reason, the Taoiseach's rhetoric seemed to go awry because the 2/6d. to the assistance people meant nothing to the benefit people. I do not know how that came about but no doubt he will have an explanation for it at a later date if he is asked a question.

I think an increase should have been given to people on the benefit rates last year because the cost of living increased. The cost of living this year is so much higher that I wonder what the Minister will do; how he will get around it and compensate for the increases in the necessaries of life, because that it the really serious problem?

I mentioned on a number of occasions here that I consider the introduction of the contributory old age pension was possibly the best thing that could have been done for the social welfare people, but I should like to appeal again to the Minister to deal with what is now a dwindling problem. Those who, while employed continuously for as long as 30 years without losing stamps, did not qualify because of the fact they did not have the necessary number of stamps in the crucial period were declared ineligible. I admit the Minister did increase the period from 15 to 20 years before these people reached the age of 70. The number is dwindling now but there are still a relatively small number of people who have a grievance because of the fact that they had stamped cards for a long number of years and then found that, because the Minister arbitrarily said they must have those stamps within a certain period, they are not entitled to benefit.

The Act stated they would have it for their entire insured life but the Minister said it would be in the 20 years, as it is now. The Minister should have a look at that because every year he will be including some of those people who were hardworking and who, for one reason or another, went out of insurance.

I notice reference made to the fact that share fishermen will be able to qualify. As far as unemployment assistance is concerned, the fact that they can get £80 off does not matter much. As the Minister probably knows a fisherman, on a good day, could possibly pick up £80. They can be allowed to earn £80 and, if they do not earn it, they can go on unemployment assistance. That means nothing and the Minister will find there is no case where a man has applied for unemployment assistance because of the new regulations.

It applies in areas with which the Deputy is not familiar. It does not apply in the Deputy's area but it does in many other areas.

I should like to hear of the areas where somebody fishing earns only £80 a year.

He could earn more and qualify for reduced rates of unemployment assistance.

Does the Minister not realise that if the rates of unemployment assistance are reduced, these people might as well not get it, not have the name of getting it? Let us be fair. The amount of unemployment assistance is so small that if a recipient gets anything less than the maximum rates, he would be better off without it altogether. However, unemployment assistance may help—and I say "may help"—because, in my own area, the men can fish only from 12th February till 12th August. They would not qualify in that period but, if they can get a few months work from a builder, say, it may bring them into benefit. That is something, if it is an improvement at all, which we all would be glad to see in operation.

Yesterday the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs pointed out that he had, in fact, taken into consideration the amount he would get from the various Departments because they were paying now for their own postal services. He said he had taken that into account and he was not showing it this year; it was not an increase. However, I know the Minister has a substantial increase in postal charges which must be paid back. It would be interesting to know, if he is paying that, why it did not appear in the Estimate passed yesterday.

I shall not delay the House but, as previous speakers have said, we accept the Estimate. It is true, as Deputy Tully rightly said, that the deciding officers in the Department are always courteous and very efficient. They certainly do their work well and, in the circumstances under which they work, speedily. There are certain delays which, I think, the Minister should make some effort to get over and to expedite decisions on. Were it not for the various charitable organisations, the St. Vincent de Paul Society, Social Service Conferences, the Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers Society and the Little Sisters of the Poor a great number of our people would be even worse off than they are. Everybody must be grateful to these workers for the charitable effort they put in on behalf of our most distressed people.

Regarding the question of the old age pension our chief complaint is that there is a difference in the standards applied by pension officers in one area and those in another. In certain areas the pension officer raises the question of where the old age pension has been granted. The pension is held up, the book is recalled and the pensioner has to wait until the old age pension committee meets. When it meets it either refuses or disallows the question raised. A considerable time elapses before the case is decided and the old person, in a great number of cases, is expected to live on the air during all that period. That happens in a very large number of the cases where the committee disallows the question and the pension officer appeals against the decision. When it goes to the deciding officers in the Department of Social Welfare the pension is granted but there is a time lag during which the old age pensioner, in some instances, is on very short grass. There should be some means of getting over such a difficulty.

Deputy Tully raised the question about people getting married at certain ages and people marrying blind pensioners, some of them girls. There are certain cases where a girl who has a blind pension marries. A very difficult case came to my notice recently where a girl married a person who was never very stable. He did a certain amount of work and had his cards stamped at home while he was working. He then went to England. His health broke down and he is on and off work. She had a blind pension. Nothing happened while the husband was at home because his earnings were easily ascertained and it did not affect the situation at all. He earned practically nothing.

When he went away he was assessed on the full earnings of a capable labourer in England. She was assessed on that means. The fact of the matter is that she receives £1 one week, maybe £1 six weeks afterwards; other weeks she receives £1 and sometimes ten days afterwards another £1. At no stage has the pension reached the average of £1 a week, £52 a year. When the pension is cut off arbitrarily the only means she has to exist on is the £1 he sends her. This is a particular case and I do not want to deal with it any further. I know it is not easy. There should not have been any difficulty because the pension was already granted.

There is difficulty in relation to unemployment benefit and assistance. I know of cases, not only in Longford and Westmeath, but elsewhere, in which the assistance is cut off arbitrarily and the recipient is left for a considerable time without getting any benefit. I know of a case where a certificate was sent in, the doctor certifying that because of a heart condition, the recipient was unable to work. The benefit was withdrawn. It was paid to him in 1962 and 1963. He was cut off then and he is cut off ever since. He declares he is in a very bad way. I do not know exactly how these cases are decided. One says he is fit for work and another says he is not. There are difficulties which are hard to get over.

There should be some reorganisation of a county home system which ordains that old people should be segregated. Some of them never meet again, perhaps, until they meet in heaven. I was struck by the system operating in a certain part of England where a small flat was provided for the old pair. The local authority sent a person to cook the mid-day meal for them, to clean the little room and do whatever washing was required. I feel that was a great service. It was certainly very striking. I was not able to ascertain exactly how it was worked but it was operated under the social welfare system.

With regard to the question of the children of old age pensioners, it is easy enough where they have children. There are cases which it is very hard to understand. Perhaps the son or the daughter of the old age pensioners died and their children are left with the old pair. In some cases the assistance is paid, and in some cases it is not. At least it is argued that in some cases it is paid, and in some it is not. I am not able to establish that fact. It is claimed that it is paid in some instances, and not in others. I do not know how true that may be, because it is very hard to establish.

I should like to know exactly what this figure means. It is stated that the highest rate for contributory pensions is 169/6d., and for non-contributory pensions 97/6d. What does this figure of 97/6 represent?

It refers to ten children.

That is fair enough going. I believe it is possible. It is not clear how this 97/6 was arrived at. Reading this, it would look as if it were possible to get 97/6 for the non-contributory old age pension.

So it is.

The Minister did not say so in his speech.

I thought it was clear. It says, as a result of the children's allowances being introduced.

I will read it again.

It is clear now, anyway.

It is important that these things should be as clear as they can possibly be made. I agree that a large number of people depend on others to tell them to what they are entitled. No one looks after them and says: "You are entitled to it." I remember when I was a youngster, the pension officer told an old man: "You are entitled to 5/- a week." The old fellow said: "Do you think I will take any of your British money? I will not." That situation does not obtain now. So far as I can see they will take it from any source, in a large number of cases. That pride is gone, except in the case of going into the county home, and in the case of public assistance from the local authority. People have their pride, and they regard going into the county home or taking public assistance as a slur. The old payments by the boards of guardians were simply to keep them off the starvation line.

The cost of living for these old people has increased so much that it is worth the additional burden to assist them to meet the hardships they now have to undergo at the end of their lives. While I thank the deciding officers and the people in the Department, I think some directive should be sent to the pensions officers to go slowly upon the reports they get, to make a full investigation before they withdraw a pension, and if they do withdraw it, to make it a special case to be decided at the earliest possible moment after the investigation has started and the pension is withdrawn.

I fully realise the difficulties with which the Minister's staffs have to deal in the various employment exchanges and other places of that nature throughout the country. In general, those staffs are most understanding and helpful towards those with whom they have to deal. In recruiting staff for this section of his Department, the Minister should take into consideration that, in my view and in the view of many others who are interested in social matters, the work of the officials of the Department who are dealing with the type of person who looks for relief is a vocation rather than employment. They require infinite patience and they must not be made cynical by what I call the unhappy experiences which they meet from time to time. They should remember they are dealing with the most helpless and, in many cases, the most hopeless sections of our community. In my view, it is impossible for a person who comes into the Civil Service without any preconceived notion of social service, to deal with this problem as adequately as it should be dealt with.

In my constituency I know cases of people who looked for assistance of some description from the local office of the Department, and who came away bemused and, in many cases, more hopeless than they were when they went in. I am not saying that is the fault of the officers. Very special training should be given to people who deal with such matters as sickness benefit, disability benefit, and unemployment benefit. What many young men who become unemployed need is a boost to their morale; otherwise they become not only unemployed but unemployable. We should have a proper type of service to deal with these young men, and indeed, young women. There are many chronic cases drawing the dole, or some form of social benefit, or charity from a charitable organisation who could have been rehabilitated when they were younger, and could have become decent hardworking members of the community. Therefore, I would ask the Minister when recruiting staff to advert to the qualifications which I think are particularly necessary.

Deputy Tully dealt with the various regulations which the Minister has made from time to time to try to broaden the services to meet modern needs. Many regulations are absolutely destructive of the dignity of the individual. There is one regulation about which I shall inform the Minister and his Department. Briefly it says that if someone is drawing sickness benefit, he must not leave his home without leaving details of where he has gone, and where he is to be found. A criminal on parole would not be required to give such stringent undertakings. It is destructive of the dignity of the individual to require him to submit to this extraordinary regulation imposed by the Department. I fully realise the Department deals not only with deserving cases but with many cases which are not what they appear to be but regulations of that nature should be drafted with a view to reasonably safeguarding the expenditure of public funds but, above all, with a view to maintaining the human dignity of these unfortunate people who must resort to employment exchanges and various other offices of the Department.

I wish to refer briefly to the matter of delays in payments of various types in my constituency, mainly payments of what was known as national health benefit. I am sure the case is the same in other large towns and cities. As I understand it, the system is that these cases cannot be finally disposed of at the Cork exchange for instance. I do not know what the situation is in Limerick, Waterford and other places but I imagine it is the same. I think I am not mistaken when I say that the cheques for what was known as national health must come from Dublin and the cheque must be brought to the local exchange and distributed personally by officers of the Department.

I have known many cases of delay resulting from this system. In fact, from time to time I questioned the Minister on the matter and he admitted that there have been unnecessary delays. Such delays involve immense hardship and no matter what the expense, in my view, the Minister should ensure that every case is dealt with as expeditiously as possible and I do not say that in any limited sense. The Department should always bear in mind what we public representatives acting for these people must always remember, that the few pounds they get each week is absolutely necessary to them and one week's delay can leave them suffering untold hardship while local charitable organisations are dealing with their cases.

I have known cases where untold hardship was the result of delays of that nature and I cannot understand why the services cannot be decentralised, why places such as Cork, where large numbers of cases arise, cannot be decentralised and allowed to look after their own payments and investigations. The Minister might say such decentralisation would cost money. I do not doubt that but for the reasons I have already stated, that hardship must be averted and that these people must be protected against unnecessary interdepartmental delays, any money spent in that regard would be well spent. I appeal to the Minister to investigate such an approach to the problem.

Deputy Tully dealt with cases of old married couples who are literally parted at the county home gate never to meet again until they meet in Heaven. It is a very sad reflection on the approach of a Christian people towards that kind of problem that old couples should be denied the comfort they have been to each other throughout their lives, at such a stage. I recall, visiting in London with the Chairman of London County Council, some old people's homes. Not alone were the couples living happily together in little flats in these homes but old people coming in there, men and women, found romance budding at a late stage in their lives. I was told by the person in charge they encouraged that and it had resulted in many late marriages and many people settling down.

I am not suggesting the Department should start a bureau for late marriages but they should cater for old men and women who have nothing but the mutual comfort and happiness they have given each other during their lives and which is now taken from them by officialdom. That is one respect in which I think our social welfare services lag so much behind those of other countries which have no pretensions to the same degree of Christianity as we profess here. It is important that, so far as possible we should bring our social services into line in these matters.

In a discussion with representatives from Northern Ireland in which I was engaged not so long ago one matter to which these people constantly referred was the complete disparity between our social services and theirs, not just disparity of rates but disparity in the ordinary Christian approach to a problem which is eminently Christian and calls for a Christian approach. The Minister could well look after these matters. He could well appoint some type of welfare officers who would be not simply machines for doing out money and giving forms to people to fill in but who would be human beings interested in the human problems of these least brethren of ours.

The Minister should be aware—I am sure he is—and the Department should be aware of this, but I fear that sometimes people who are a long time in the public service are inclined to become a little cynical about these matters. They should be aware that many of these people have no idea of what is happening around them. They find it hard to read and harder to write. They are afraid that, when they are approached by officers of the Department, no matter how well-meaning these officers are, they are being approached in a spirit of suspicion and even hostility. That is why I call for these very special qualifications for members of the Department's staff dealing with the public. They should be welfare officers in name and in spirit. They should be there to give comfort and advice and assistance to these people in every possible way.

If any error is to be made in these matters, it should be made on the side of charity and of the unfortunate person applying for assistance. If there is any doubt as to whether assistance should be paid, in my view, unless it is a doubt approaching certainty, payments should be made because you have cases of payments being legitimately held up pending investigation by the Department and eventually the investigation proves the people were entitled to what they originally claimed but in the meantime much hardship was caused to them and their families. For these reasons, I appeal to the Minister for an entirely new approach to our social welfare problems in the matters to which I have referred.

It is understandable that the Opposition should always look for more. There is no harm in that but I believe if they became the Government they would close up like an oyster because then the question of money would arise and, in addition to having to get the money for this purpose the Government, of course, would have to get money for every other purpose. That is where the trouble would begin.

I am in favour of increased social welfare benefits. I expressed the view on former occasions that a non-contributory old age pensioner should get at least one-fourth of what an urban worker would earn, that is about 50/- a week, and that a contributory pensioner should get at least one-third. I hope that that would be the aim of the Government. It is not something that can be done offhand because it would involve additional expenditure of £6 million to £8 million and that, in addition to everything else, would probably precipitate a crisis such as we had three years ago when we tried to get £11 million for the purpose of paying £4 million in social welfare, paying for the eighth round and for housing, education and other worthy objects. The Government were thrown out of the House for looking for £11 million for these purposes. It is not easy but the aim should be to raise the standard of social welfare payments.

Comparisons are made here which are not true comparisons. The position here is compared with the position in Britain but there is no reference to the fact that in Britain the workers have to pay weekly insurance at the rate of 7/-in the case of females and 9/- in the case of males, and after the Budget to be introduced next month, the rates will be increased to about 9/- for females and 11/- for males.

If our Minister for Social Welfare had the benefit of that form of contribution from the workers, he could give another 10/- or 15/- per head to beneficiaries here but if he were to increase the contributions, there would be another row. Let us be fair. It is not sufficiently emphasised that the £4 a week old age pension in the North and in England is a contributory pension. It is not fair to compare our non-contributory pension with the contributory pension applicable in England. A more realistic comparison would be to compare the non-contributory pension here with the non-contributory pension in the North. I understand that the non-contributory pension in the North is about 50/-. The contributory pension here is 50/-as compared with the proposed £4 in the North. That is a true analysis of the position.

It is all very well for people to make statements when they are out of office and when they are in office to close up like an oyster. The best time for an old age pensioner was in 1922-23 when the pension was 10/- a week because a worker's wage then was about 50/-; it could be said that an old age pensioner had one-fifth of an urban worker's wage. It was not the State that gave it; it was the British. We took over from Britain. Our first act was, in 1924, to reduce that 10/- to 9/- and there was no increase for 17 years. We have nothing to be proud of. In 1937, the old age pension was still only 10/-when an urban worker's wage was about £5 a week. So, in 1937, the pension was only about one-tenth of a worker's wage as against one-fifth in 1922. At least, it is now back to about one-fifth again.

These are the facts. I have studied the statistics in relation to this matter. I am hoping the Minister can do better. I realise that there is an additional £1 for social welfare. I do not know the amount yet but I am expecting an increase.

I suppose the Minister has to worry about the Minister for Finance, who has other commitments. We are told that an additional £15 million to £20 million is required this year. The demands by the Minister for Social Welfare represent only one of the many demands and I suppose the provision is the best the Minister for Finance can make available, but, as has been said, in an expanding economy, we will be able to do better. I am asking the Minister to continue to do better. He should aim at the position of which a contributory pension would be one-third and a non-contributory pension would be one-fourth of the urban worker's wage.

The Minister is responsible for one-half the cost of school meals. I understand that half the schools in Dublin do not provide school meals and that that is the fault of the manager, that he will not apply. It is a shame that children in one school can get milk and a bun, while in adjacent schools the children will get none just because the manager is too proud to ask. It is not that the children are in any way different in social status. Largely, they are the same.

After 30 years of Fianna Fáil, we hear the cry "Save the Gaeltacht". It is a sad day that after all this talk of economic expansion, there should be no room in our county homes, that there is so much emigration, that so many native Irish speakers should be brushing up their knowledge of the English language in order to fit themselves for the English-speaking labour market.

The Minister wears the Fáinne. He is an Irish speaker. Does he suggest that it is right and proper that young native speakers should be turned down for the Garda because they have not sufficient English? Of course, the Minister will deny his responsibility in this. The Minister may plead that it is not his headache. I should like to know what they are doing to help these people to fit themselves for employment.

We in the Gaeltacht have been cursed by the system of welfareism. It robs a man of his incentive. It breeds dishonesty and despair. It is time the system was reviewed as it affects people in the west. I do not see why a man should be deprived of his incentive to work. Where the land valuation are the lowest in Europe, as they are on the west coast, men should be encouraged to work and greater allowances should be made in this system of social welfare. They should be allowed to earn more, to build up a home, to play their part in the economic expansion. The system at present operating breeds dishonesty and is unfair.

There is one aspect of the system which has done untold harm. It is the creation of bad feeling between neighbours because an investigation officer may inform an applicant that a report or letter has come in, the inference being that it has come from a neighbour, with a view to getting information about that neighbour. It is a despicable system, that if a man earns just a few shillings, his welfare benefit is cut. It breeds bad feeling among people and this method of investigation should be stamped out once and for all. For long enough in this country we had neighbour against neighbour without its being officially made so.

Speaking on the vote for the Gaeltacht here last year—the Minister may say he is not responsible but, nevertheless, it affects the Department—my colleague, Deputy Geoghegan, stated that the people of Connemara were thriving, that they were never better off. It is rather significant that since Deputy Geoghegan made that statement, there have been wholesale reductions in social welfare benefits, in old age pensions; even medical cards have been reduced in number. If Deputy Geoghegan is responsible for that or if the Minister has taken so much note of what he says, I hope the people who have been hit will also take note.

Like other Deputies, I think it is time the old, the blind and the disabled got increased benefits to meet the increase in taxation that hits them the hardest. The Minister may ask, as Deputy Sherwin asked a moment ago —he is on the defensive now—where is the money to come from? Can the Minister tell us where the money came from overnight, £3 million, to buy the B. & I? The Minister may say he is not responsible but the Minister is a member of the Government responsible. If another jet plane is wanted tomorrow, there will be another few million found overnight but, of course, the Government cannot afford to meet the needs of the poorer section of our people.

This Department is costing us £35½ million this year but I should like to know—one would have to digest the Book of Estimates to find out—and the people would like to know how much of this is eaten up in administration and overheads and how much of it reaches the poorer section of the people. The total amount of money required this year is over £220 million and it is the unfortunate poor people who feel the burden the most.

I wish to draw the attention of the Minister to the problem relating to old people. There are many old people living alone in different parts of the country. At various times the Minister has given small increases in the old age pension to offset the rise in the cost of living. That has not been enough because the cost of living has soared far beyond the amount of these increases. I would ask the Minister to investigate how many old people are living alone, independently, struggling along and actually in a state of starvation through their independence.

I suggest to the Minister that, since we subsidise butter and sell it cheaper in Great Britain than we do at home, on the weekly cheque of the old age pensioner there should be a stamp to entitle him to go into a grocer's shop and buy, say, for 2/- a lb. of creamery butter, and the Minister could cover the cost through some arrangement with his colleague, the Minister for Agriculture. It may be said that this could be abused and that people would sell the stamp. I do not believe any of these people would sell the stamp that would entitle them to a lb. of creamery butter at a cheaper rate. That is something which would bear examination and that would have the approval of everybody in the House and throughout the country. An allowance might also be made in respect of bread, tea and sugar, and the shopkeeper could cash the stamps and recoup the loss on selling these commodities at a reduced rate to old people for whom they are the staple diet.

I would also suggest that groups of people should be encouraged to visit old people because the loneliness of these people must be frightful. Groups of people should be exhorted by the Minister to visit them occasionally, even if only to tidy up their homes. I know I am pushing an open door when I speak to the Minister and that it is only a matter of bringing these points to his notice for examination.

On the question of school meals, there are some schools where the managers or the teachers will not handle the bottles of milk or buns. That is a deplorable state of affairs. You may have someone saying: "Oh, the Minister should pay someone to look after these creates of milk and these buns". I do not think that kind of expense should be put on the Minister and his Department at all. In a class of 30, 40 or even 50 children, it is always quite easy to get two or three orderly men to distribute the bottles of milk, the bread and butter, or the bun. The same applies in the case of the girls; there are always what I call the "boss women". I saw three such "boss women" distributing the milk and taking a great pride in it. We must come down to fundamentals. It is a good thing that the child, irrespective of social position and parents' income, should get one third of a pint of milk and a bun of bread and butter during school hours. I would appeal to the Minister to exhort those schools that are not now distributing milk to the children to do so.

My main interest in this Estimate is the old age pensioners and the other pensioners. I ask the Minister to have his officials examine the position and try to make it possible to make available to these people a ration of one pound of butter, bread, tea and sugar on their pension books.

Mr. Browne

I shall refrain from discussing social welfare in all its aspects because that would only lead to a very protracted debate. There are, however, a few comments I should like to make. I shall preface my remarks by saying that I am sure the Minister himself would advocate everything said on this side of the House if he were free to advocate what he personally would like himself. If he were removed from Ministerial responsibility, I am sure he would like to see all old age pensioners getting £3 or £3 10/- a week at 65 years of age instead of 70 and with no means test. I appreciate that he has a problem in his purely Ministerial capacity and I do not think Deputy Sherwin was very honest really in the way he put the case today; he tried to explain what the Minister's frame of mind might be in this respect.

As I see the position, the Minister has to fight the Cabinet of which he is a member in the knowledge that there is a cross-section of views and opinions in that Cabinet and the strength of the case of a particular Minister and his Department will be the strength of the case the particular Minister can make. We all have in our own spheres in life to fight for our share of the loaf and likewise the Minister has to fight for his share of the national loaf. In my opinion, social welfare is not getting a fair share of the national expenditure vis-á-vis other Departments. We should keep before us the fact that in social welfare we are dealing with people who cannot do much for themselves, old people who have in youth and middle age served the country well. These old people are entitled to the greatest consideration younger generations can give them. We should bear in mind in this connection that we will ourselves be old some day depending on the younger generations which will take their place here and elsewhere in the community to ensure, when human frailty will no longer permit us to eke out an existence for ourselves, that we at least have sufficient.

I come from one of the poorest counties in Ireland—Mayo, God help it and God bless it. More than half my work as a public representative is taken up with the Department of Social Welfare, bar getting a few migrants to Meath. Most of my work as a public representative is in relation to social welfare benefits—old age pensions, widows' and orphans' pensions, unemployment assistance, the dole, stamps and so on. For that reason I have a fair knowledge of the problems affecting both the applicant and the pension officer.

I remember having a rather hefty argument with a pension officer on one occasion in regard to an applicant for whom I was seeking justice. I remember the pension officer did not quite see eye to eye with me. I was prepared to accept that. He said: "Mr. Browne, you seem to forget that I am not here as a pension officer to deprive anybody of a pension. I am here to qualify persons for pensions. That is my function. You seem to have the impression that I am here just to keep people from getting pensions." While I appreciated his point of view, naturally I still believe that these people are unjustly either reduced in their social welfare or else rejected altogether and deprived of facilities to which I think they are entitled. I must accept the evidence submitted to me by the applicant. I do not say I accept unquestioningly everything I am told, just as a solicitor does not accept everything he is told by a client. But, living in the locality in which I do, and carrying on the kind of business I have, I have a fair idea of the personal circumstances of the people who approach me.

Does the Minister accept that a man or woman today with an income of £3 or £3 10s. per week is not entitled to full pension, be it old age or widow's pension? That is the position at the moment and I think it is time we woke up to the fact that people cannot eke out an existence on an income of £5 per week. Deputy Sherwin quite rightly said that old age pensioners have received increases over the years, but there has really been no real alleviation of the means test. It is with the means test I find the major fault.

The work of a Deputy—and this will be borne out, I think, by my two colleagues in North Mayo—is most difficult where social welfare is concerned. Ours is a poor county and there are many things for which people should qualify. I am glad the Minister has reduced the means test in relation to the dole or unemployment assistance. I commend him for that. We must be always thankful to Ministers when they assist us. However, I do not think it goes far enough. I cannot understand how a Government can encourage a man to be lazy by giving him £3 10s. a week to do nothing. We seem to be naturally lazy without encouragement—at least I can apply that to myself. But when we encourage laziness by financial aid, I think it spreads the epidemic more than is necessary.

For a mirred man with a family who is out of work, £3 10s. a week does not solve the financial problem. Strain, personal hardship and even unpleasantness in the home is created when not sufficient money is coming in. In my constituency there are many applications to the Board of Works asking that roads be done. Every day I get replies from the Board of Works saying they have not sufficient funds to include this or that road this year.

The Deputy knows we are discussing the administration of the social services and not the relief of unemployment in a particular area?

Mr. Browne

Labour for the minor employment schemes is recruited from the employment exchanges.

There is a code of legislation, social welfare, and the Minister is charged with the administration of that code. Whether his administration is good or bad is for Deputies to say.

Mr. Browne

That is exactly what I was doing, Sir. I was saying it was bad and I was explaining why.

As long as the Deputy was saying that, he was in order; but now he is proceeding to tell us about work that could be carried out. That does not fall for discussion on this Vote.

Mr. Browne

I respect your rulings at all times, Sir, and I will have to accept this one. It is time serious consideration was given to the allocation of an old age pension at 65. I find in my constituency that the old people hold on to their farms or businesses until they are 70, when they will have the security of the pension. When applicants come to me, who have been found by the investigating officer to be holding on to their farm or business, I tell them quite frankly that I will give them no encouragement because they deserve no better treatment. When sons and daughters have to hold on until their fathers and mothers reach 70 years of age, the sons and daughters themselves are 50 before the farm or business can be passed on to them. Therefore, I think it is time the pension was given at 65. That is the pattern not only in England but in most west European countries. I know it would be costly, but it would be justified in the long run.

I am not satisfied that the non-contributory old age pensioner is getting a fair share of the national loaf. Deputy Sherwin said nearly £4 million out of the £11 million collected in turnover tax was spent on social services. I want to correct him there: nearly £14 million was collected in turnover tax. Even if £4 million of that were spent on social services, the turnover tax is only one aspect of taxation; and I feel social welfare recipients are not getting a fair proportion of the total tax collected.

I said at the outset that the problems of my constituency are mainly social welfare problems, and the other Deputies in the area can confirm that. Recently, I saw a protest by civil servants about decentralisation. They are entitled to make that protest. But it is not written into the constitution anywhere that a civil servant or a Department should be in any particular place. We in the west have been forgotten. I want to make a claim on behalf of the town of Ballina for some of the Government Departments in this overcrowded city of Dublin. The Department of Social Welfare should be in the county where its services are most required. Every application to the employment exchanges at Ballina, Belmullet, Swinford, Foxford and so on has to go up to Dublin and come back again. The deciding officers live in Dublin and have to come down.

I remember an "Open House" programme for television with some of my colleagues from the county. I heard a Fianna Fáil Senator, a former county engineer for my county, say in reply to a question that at one stage, in the absence of a county manager, a civil servant was sent down from the Department of Local Government to Mayo for two years. At the end of his stay, a dinner was given in his honour. In the course of his parting speech, he said that during the two years he spent amongst the people there he had learned more about local government than all his years in Dublin.

I object strongly to civil servants saying it would be a hardship on them to be shifted from Dublin. Secondary education and vocational education are available in our county. If they come down, the local authority will put up houses for them. In our small way we have every amenity to give them the same standard, educationally and socially, as they have in Dublin. In addition, we can assure them of a little bit of fresh air and a lot of other things lacking in this overcrowded city.

Having listened to Deputy Browne, I am not quite sure whether he advocates the abolition of the dole or an increase in the dole. If we had not the dole, we would have very few people on the western seaboard. Far from being regarded as free money given away without return, the dole, so far as the western seaboard is concerned, is an investment. I do not hold with a certain councillor in my area who said the people there do nothing but drink the money they get from the dole. That is not true. It is much better to give these people home assistance and other social welfare benefits and keep them in this country, where they will spend the money and keep the wheels of industry turning, rather than not give it to them and let them go to foreign countries.

After all, it is said of the people of the western seaboard areas that they get a lot of free money because they are paid a few pounds per year, but nobody grumbles about the big farmers of the midlands who can collect thousands of pounds under various schemes and grants simply because these are not called dole. If anybody is entitled to subventions from this or any other Government, it is the people living in congested areas on the western hillsides and along the western seacoast, where their forefathers were driven long ago by an alien usurper. I make no apology to anybody for these people claiming social welfare benefits.

It is rather peculiar to find that in the one Government one Minister advocates progress and calls on the people to improve the position within the country, while at the same time another Minister imposes regulations on the people which make improvement practically impossible. I want to congratulate the Minister on seeing through this joke at the eleventh hour, and taking away the means test imposed on small farmers of the western seaboard who had practically no means anyway. If he had not done this, our creameries would have had to close down and various other benefits enjoyed by these people could not have been availed of. Now he is allowing the people to progress.

I want to point out to the Minister that it is an extraordinary situation that a man in the town of Belmullet, or within a mile of it, must come in for five days of the week—he had to come in on six days until the five-day week was introduced in the Civil Service—to sign evidence of unemployment. Surely he would be better off doing anything at home rather than having to walk in and sign on? A man in Crossmolina has to come in on only one day; a man in Claremorris or Charlestown comes in five days; a man in Newport comes in one day; a man in Westport comes in five days. What kind of a set-up is that? It is absolutely ludicrous and makes a joke of it. I do not know if anybody has seen through this.

The further away a man is from supervision, the less often he has to come in. A man living six miles away does not have to come in at all or he comes in once. If he lives eight miles away, he can get the local postmaster or somebody else to sign for him, but the unfortunate man one mile or two miles away must come in and sign every day and waste his time. If he were only picking buachalláns off his farm, he would be better employed. I appeal to the Minister to change this and he is a big enough man to do it. If he wants to keep that system in the urban areas, I am not objecting. If he does change it, he will be doing a good day's work for the people concerned and even for his own Party. I am quite sure he will do it.

While the Minister has removed the means test, he has evidently overlooked the assessment of dole on the basis of valuation. The upper valuation of £4 was a figure arrived at a number of years ago and I am sure the Minister will agree that the world has changed a good deal since then and that £4 is now a completely unrealistic figure. It should be increased to £6, or more, if possible. There is no question that the £4 is a joke today. The Minister for Lands has told us that a viable farm must be 45 acres but I cannot imagine a farm of 45 acres having a valuation of less than £30. I am not suggesting that a man with a valuation of £30 should be able to draw unemployment assistance but I am suggesting that £4 is a completely unrealistic figure. There are many people with a rateable valuation on their land of £8 or £10 who are very badly off and should have their claims for unemployment assistance, during the period they cannot get employment, considered. As in the case of old age pensions, this matter should be dealt with on the basis of its real merits and not on a figure stuck into an Act of Parliament.

I know that the Minister will tell me they cannot get unemployment assistance for a particular period of the year but, where it can be shown that these people are in poor circumstances and where work is not available for them, their claim for assistance for the whole year, where they do not qualify for benefit, should be sympathetically considered. It is only fair to point out that most of these people go to England each year and send back tens of thousands of pounds and get no credit for it. They could remain in the State and live, if you like, as parasites on the State but they do not want to do that. They go to England and send back this money to maintain their families and their people at home and they receive no gratitude of any sort for it.

In fact, believe it or not—and this may not be easy to believe—they are victimised because of the fact that they leave the country. If they lived on Government assistance, they would be much better off in the long run. They could, as the years go by, draw all the various types of Government benefit but because they are not afraid of work and leave the country and try to help their people, the Government and the country, they are victimised. That is not fair; in fact it is grossly unfair. The Minister should do some re-thinking about this whole scheme of social welfare benefits. The regulations today are akin to what they were in 1935 but the world has undergone a complete change since then.

We are almost all middle-class people today and we expect middle-class amenities. Whether the State pays for them or we pay for them ourselves is immaterial: we are entitled to them and we must get them. The line between rich and poor has gone. The State has undertaken to help to maintain certain people and the State must shoulder its responsibilities. Even if it involves an extra expenditure of £3 million or £4 million, it should be undertaken so that our people will be kept here rather than allow them to leave the country. I am not criticising the present Minister: I want to make that clear. He is the best of the Ministers we have had in this line. However, a great many things require to be done and there are many anomalies in the social welfare code.

We find ourselves in very grave difficulties with regard to contributory old age pensions and I do not know whether the Minister can do anything about it. Some thousands of people are deprived of pensions simply because insurance records are not available. We all know how lax insurance agents were, say, 20 or 25 years ago and the picture would probably have been much worse, say, 40 years ago. The fact remains that because of lack of records on their part and the easy, happy-go-lucky way of our people at that time, some thousands of people are now deprived of contributory pension to which they are justly entitled. I expect that the Minister knows that and has come across scores of those cases.

There must be a record somewhere. Take people who worked, for example, for county councils or under the Special Employment Schemes Office or with the Land Commission or for other Local Government bodies or local authorities. They were paid for their work and surely there is a record of it somewhere. If they worked for any of the bodies I have mentioned, for example, it is to be assumed that they were in insurable employment. Up to comparatively recent years, we know that the insurance cards were obtained in the local post office and people did not worry very much about what they did with them. County councils often took a thousand cards bearing a name but no number out of an office and just stamped them. Other public bodies did the same.

Today, it is unfortunate that very many people are adversely affected by the fact that it cannot be proved that they were in insurable employment at a time when, in fact they were. The Minister should appeal to the officers of local authorities to try to produce the records in question so that those who are now being victimised by reason of the absence of records will obtain their rights. The Minister may be making a saving in social welfare payments by reason of the absence of these records but he should not allow that fact to influence him in any way and, indeed, I do not think he would. However, it is an unhappy affair. In many cases it is causing a great deal of trouble.

I know several people who must be entitled to contributory pensions but I have no way of obtaining the records to prove it and the only person who can alter this position is the Minister. I am aware that records need to be retained only for a limited period but I should like to go back over that limited period to see what information they yield. Some Departments are not particularly helpful in that respect. When I write and say that the Department of Social Welfare should have this information I am told that the Department of Social Welfare just has not that information. I am told that the Department of Social Welfare had no control over National Health Insurance up to comparatively recent times and that, unfortunately, the Department of Social Welfare just has not got the records of earlier times. I appeal now to the Minister to contact the other Departments and to ask them to see what records they have. After all, it must clearly be understood that if a man was employed by a local authority or a State Department and it can be shown that he was paid a wage, then it follows that he was insured for that period and that would count, even if his insurance records cannot be found.

Nobody has more sympathy with the old age pensioners than I have. I should like to see their pensions very substantially increased. Somebody referred to the turnover tax and said it has yielded more than was expected. I want to point out here and now that, properly collected, the turnover tax would probably yield almost double the amount at present collected because there is mass evasion. Half the country are getting away with murder.

Anybody who is in the position in which he or she should pay turnover tax should be compelled to do so. I am afraid that there is a grave lack of supervision in this respect. We want this tax to make it possible to pay better social welfare benefits. I have no apology to offer to the dodgers of the turnover tax. They should be made to pay it. If we could attract into the coffers of the State all the money which should come from the turnover tax, I do not think that there would be any serious trouble in substantially increasing pensions and social welfare benefits. Tax dodgers do not deserve any sympathy. We know they exist and that they are getting away with it.

The administration of the turnover tax does not arise now.

I understood that the turnover tax was introduced here, among other reasons, to increase social welfare benefits. That is the only reason I have mentioned it.

The Minister does not administer the collection.

I agree. Another point of very considerable importance concerning people in receipt of social welfare benefits is the extraordinary delay that can occur. It is quite common, for instance, for a man to apply for unemployment benefit and some pensions officer or investigating officer comes along and not liking the applicant's face, holds up his claim or even rejects it. This is happening all over the country. It is very common in the west. He rejects that claim. It comes up to the Department. It is turned down there and moves on to an appeal board. In hundreds of cases no decision is given for six, eight or ten months. That is grossly unfair. To my knowledge, a case that went before an appeals officer two months ago has not yet been decided. Surely that is utterly fantastic. I can give the Minister specific facts and figures. If the Minister has not sufficient appeals officers and general officials, he should appoint them immediately, remembering it is the poorer sections who are suffering by these delays.

There is another extraordinary anomaly in connection with disability allowances. A man gets a certificate from his local doctor and becomes entitled to disability benefit. After six, eight or ten weeks, he is brought up before somebody else who probably knows far less about it. This person looks at the man and says he is fit for work. I know two or three people who were told this by somebody calling himself a medical referee and they had to go straight into hospital for operations. If a man in my territory must have a second examination after that of the local doctor, surely the person to send him to is Surgeon Bresnihan in Castlebar, not to some gentleman who comes down to the west in his motor car and who is very piqued at having to do so? I submit that any person who has been declared unfit for work by his local doctor should not be declared fit again except after consultation with that doctor. If a second opinion is needed, it should not be that of somebody who has retired from some other medical racket in another part of the country.

I know what I am talking about but I wonder if the Minister is aware of what is happening. It is unfair, doubly so since it is aimed at the poorer section of the community. It has been levelled against us that our social welfare benefits are too low. They are, and I say that, hastening to make it clear that I do not think we are a people who place a premium on idleness, inefficiency or dodging the column. Where genuine cases of hardship occur, our payments are far too low. We can do all the handshaking we wish with the people across the Border; we can kiss them even, but we will never bring them in until we are prepared to provide social welfare benefits comparable with theirs. That may be expensive but we shall be benefiting a section of the community who need special consideration.

I know there are frauds and dodgers. That is inevitable in a democratic society. But that is no reason for refusing to give proper benefits to our social welfare classes. Nobody nowadays can live on 37/6d. a week, the amount we pay to our old age pensioners. If a person who has lived to the age of 70 years did nothing to benefit the nation between the ages of 14 and 70, surely he would be entitled at least to a subsistence allowance. Is not that the least the nation could do for him? I do not blame the Minister. I give him credit for what he has done. He has been criticised by former Ministers, though he has come along each year and endeavoured to increase the benefits. It is strange to hear him criticised by people who, when they were in power, increased the amount by only 2/6d. in six years.

On this matter I am not criticising the Minister in a destructive way. I honestly believe that if he came in here with a proposal to double the amount of the old age non-contributory pension there would not be a solitary voice against it. Of course, I do not say he should double the amount of the pension but he should bring it to a level more in keeping with the cost of living.

The Americans, the money gods as they have been called, have admitted that we in this country are the only people on earth who have not asked them for anything. If we were so badly off and if we were really desirous of improving the lot of the old age pensioners, we could get into this jackpot while the good is going. But that is not necessary. There is so much squandermania in the country that I cannot see why the money cannot be made available for this worthy cause. Dancehalls are full every night, bingo palaces are full nightly, every type of amusement has its adherents. If those people are prepared to fork out money for all these things, I see no reason why the Minister for Finance should not step in and tax them a little more. The ordinary man has to pay income tax, and that is used for increasing social welfare and other benefits.

But, today, we find that we have a new rich in the country and it looks as if, in the near future, according to members of one political Party whose next candidate will be one of the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, we will have a completely new set-up. These people have money and I appeal to the Minister to use his influence with his colleague, the Minister for Finance, to tax them because they have thousands and, in fact, millions to spend. In effect, that money is taken in by racketeering and I am asking the Minister to try to get all of these people taxed so that the money will become available for the improvement of the standards of social welfare in this country.

Our payments are too low. They may be regarded as reasonable in some quarters, but as one who travels extensively through the country, I am of the opinion they are far too low. I appeal to the Minister, no matter from what source he gets the money, to come before this House and ask for it so that the old age non-contributory pensions can be increased and so that a great deal of the anomalies in connection with the payment of unemployment assistance can be wiped out. As I said earlier, it is much more important for us to pay unemployment assistance and to keep our people in the country, rather than put them in the position, like hundreds of thousands of others, of having to leave. That is wrong and I think the Minister is big enough to change the present standards. I am perfectly sure that if he does, he will get the backing of the vast majority in this House.

I am not one of those who come in here and advocate the expenditure of money and then, when it is sought, oppose the raising of it. There are people in this House who follow that line but I am not one of them. When I say I want social welfare benefits increased and money obtained to increase these benefits, I am prepared at all costs, to back up the Minister and his Government in getting the necessary money.

This is one of the great Departments of State whose policy reflects more clearly than in any other way the concern society has for the disabled, and those in that society who require protection and support. It is, with the Department of Health and the Department of Education, one of the three great and important Departments which for the past half a century have been very seriously and wantonly neglected by successive Governments since the creation of the State. That to some extent clearly must have been due to the unfortunate plundering of the early 1920's with all the unhappy events that followed, but there must be some element of responsibility on the leaders of the country whose system of priorities in the allocation of national wealth appears to be so terribly distorted.

It seems to me that one of the really great scandals is that of our neglect in this Department, and in the Department of Education. In the Department of Social Welfare it seems to me particularly shameful, because I do not suppose at any period in the history of the world does one get any variation from a reasonable constant pattern of human behaviour in regard to the dependent groups at any time in war or peace. The strange thing is that here in Ireland in the past 50 years widows and their children, dependent old people and the unemployed through no fault of their own, have been treated with the most complete inhuman callousness, and cynical indifference to the suffering which must be caused them in their thousands because they happen to be citizens of the Republic of Ireland, fellow-citizens of ours.

That is the penalty which they have to pay. To me it is a shameful reality of life in our society, and the strange thing is it appears to worry very few people and even those few infrequently. One of the things which has always puzzled me is the concern of various people, authoritative groups and individuals in society, for matters which to me seem to be relatively unimportant —things such as censorship, contraception, dancing at the crossroads and one thing and another—while the great moral evils of society which treats its old people, its disabled persons, widows and their children, in the way we do, and have done since the State was founded exist. The strange silence on those great moral evils is something which has always fascinated me.

It seems to me that the attitude of our political leaders is the complete antithesis of the Christian beliefs we profess to have. I cannot believe that the society which we have created here in half a century, a society where old people, as I have said before, die of hunger and malnutrition—they must so die on 37/6d. a week—is on a par with those where dreadful crimes have been committed in the past 20 to 25 years in Europe. This has continued in a relatively prosperous society, a society in which it is remediable.

I said the other day, and the Minister can contradict me if I am wrong, that we should be prepared to take money from the wealthy, money which they spend on non-necessaries, luxuries and non-luxuries, in some form of taxation, basing the pattern of taxation on the pattern at present used in Italy which is comparable with us because it is relatively poor, with an income per head of the population the same as our own. If we were prepared to accept that particular taxation we could increase housing facilities, educational payments, health services payments and payments in regard to social security by 60 per cent.

I read that recently in a most authoritative article by Professor Louden Ryan in an economic research institute booklet. If it is true—I am certain it is—the Minister and his predecessors must answer the challenge that it is unnecessary that old people should go on like this, because it is within our resources to do this much for them. Most Deputies who speak on these matters say this is a poor country and the reason we starve our own people to death is that we cannot afford to feed them. They claim a certain amount of justification from that fact. If the money were available something great would be done for them.

The truth of the matter is that we have the money and we do not give it to these people. In recent years the policy has been to further increase the wealth made available to people who are already wealthy. No significant improvement has been made in the real standard of living of these dependent groups in line with the improvement made to similar sections in other countries. That is a completely scandalous thing.

We have the fortune, or, perhaps the misfortune to live in an island society. We had not the misfortune to be involved in the last war with its tremendous cost. One of the defects of an island society is that one tends to look inwards, to continue to grow in self esteem and to resent criticism. How welcome is the fellow who pats us on the back and says we are great and how unwelcome is the unfortunate who asks us why we are starving our people to death and why the widow and poor person with children get so little. We refuse to face the legitimate criticism to which we leave ourselves open. If we lived in an open society in which criticism was tolerated and permitted the situation would be different. That time is coming very rapidly.

It is coming very rapidly on two fronts. It is coming, firstly, in regard to the North, and secondly in regard to the EEC. The days of humbugging ourselves are gone. It is simple enough particularly if you can silence the Opposition, as it can be done. Those days are coming rapidly to an end. We will have to face reality and see the position in the North and in the EEC. Most of the people there have been anathemised for not being half as Christian as we are. That is the way we have looked on the people of the North and the people of Europe because they did not share the good fortune of membership of the church to which we belong. These people were considered backward because they did not develop to anything like the extent we have in our christian ideals, that they did not look after the old, the disabled and those who needed assistance.

One of the dangers of living in a closed society like ours is that we eventually began to believe the fairy stories we were putting out about ourselves, the PRO hand-outs. We came to believe all this was true. We came to believe that we were, in fact, a very special island people with a tremendous spiritual heritage which had to be passed on to other people; that our role was to re-Christianise Europe and the North. Our role was to diffuse the human relations exemplified in our living here through pagan Belgium, irreligious, semi-social Germany and the black North. It was our duty to tell these people about Christianity and what a wonderful way of life it can be.

Of course, when we try to do that we find, in fact, those other people are far superior to us in their way of living. They have a much greater concern for the orphan, the widow, the old people and those who are not well off. We find that in Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and the North there are far greater social benefits than there are here. The best we can hope for is that the way of life of the people in these countries will be the way of life which our unfortunate old people, our sick people, widows and orphans and our unemployed will enjoy in the years ahead. We have nothing to export except human beings that we do not want any more, that we will not feed any more and whose children we starve. These people have been our main export for 15 years. We have exported one million of them.

Nobody would mind this if one had not this extraordinary arrogant sense of self-approbation which we, as a nation, have, this smug self-satisfaction. In recent years we have had a surfeit of ebullient PRO hand-outs about our tremendous expansion, our prosperity and our increase in social welfare benefits. All the journalists have been taken on tours ending up with the appalling and disgusting gorging at Bunratty Castle, or some place like that, in order that they would go back and write their rubbishy reports about this fake island in the west in which all is so wonderful, so happy, and so satisfactory for everyone in it.

The Taoiseach mentioned in 1963 that the economic system was being strengthened so that all the people could be better off and have higher living standards. That was in 1963, and this is 1965. I do not have the slightest hesitation in saying that there has been no significant advance in any aspect of the social conditions of the people who were not hunted to the emigrant ship since 1963. The position of the old is exactly the same. There may have been increases pro rata with cost of living increases—they probably were not even pro rata—but there was no significant increase in relation to any of these dependent classes.

If there has been any expansion in the wealth of this community—and there has been, of course: recently we saw increases in profits from £9 million to £23 million—if there has been any increase in wealth in this community as a result of anyone's activities, then it has gone to fill the overfilled pockets of the already wealthy minority in our society who certainly live in an island paradise. The Government have taken good steps to ensure that there has been no significant re-distribution of the real wealth of the country in the form of these social benefits.

I was astonished at the nonsense that was talked about the Taoiseach's courageous decision to go North and talk to the people in the North. Surely we have not the appalling arrogance to believe the Unionists certainly, and the Nationalists I believe equally certainly, would agree to accept the status of second-class citizens which one must accept if one is a dependent citizen in our society, were Ireland re-united and our social services maintained at their present level.

If there had ever been any genuine sincerity on the part of any of our political leaders since this State was formed in regard to the re-unification of this country, clearly the first step towards union was the removal of the marked discrepancy between the social services here and the social services in the North, instead of whinging about gerrymandering in Tyrone, Fermanagh and Derry. Why, when looking into their own hearts, did they not also look over their shoulders at the aged person, the widow, the children, the disabled, the unemployed, the hungry, the universally hungry group, in our own society? Those were the problems that should have been tackled. Instead, year after year, we were treated to statistical analyses of the electoral system in the North of Ireland, and homilies on the advantage of speaking the Irish language in a united Ireland. The unrealism !

The Deputy seems to be travelling wide of the Estimate. Occasional references to the unemployed and other classes do not make his contribution relevant to the Estimate for the Department of Social Welfare.

I am talking about general policy in regard to social welfare in our society.

What the Minister is responsible for is relevant. He is not responsible for gerrymandering or the question of Partition.

I accept that—not in the North anyway. We adopted a strange attitude here up to relatively recently. There appears to be a change since the publication of Pope John's Encyclical Mater et Magistra. We adopted the old Victorian approach to the care of these people, that if we did help them, if we did care for them, we would destroy their initiative and undermine their morale. The inhumanity of that seemed to appeal to our leaders over the past 30, 40 or 50 years. It is strange that it should have done so because it stemmed from the British social philosophies of those times, which originated with the very wealthy aristocracy in Great Britain. It is strange that it should have found any home here in Ireland because all of us — our generation, and certainly our parents' generation — knew so much about real poverty, hardship, and the pain of poverty which is inseparable from it.

How could we adopt so callous an attitude? People seemed to take a certain amount of satisfaction in denying those dependent classes allowances and benefits which might take them above the subsistence level — the Plimsoll level of just existing in our society. Simply because a husband dies, the widow is penalised. She is a widow so we can walk on her and give her a pittance. She has to take it; she has no choice. She may have three or four children and she has to take it. She may try to go out to work if she can. She must leave her children if she goes out to work and she is penalised again by reason of the means test.

Old persons over 70 years get a pittance and they can all starve quietly together. There is no redress. The unemployed man is given a pittance in the hope that he will use it—as unfortunately those of us who would like to see a progressive Ireland have seen a million people use it—to pay his way to Liverpool. That was its only useful function, and that is its only useful function still. As is shown in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion there are 8,000 a year—at least 8,000 a year—booked to spend their unemployment money to buy a passage to England to be fed by the British. That is part of the scheduled arrangement for them because they cannot live on it. It is so designed that they will not. No self-respecting man could continue to live indefinitely on the unemployment money he gets. If he has children, no man can watch his wife and children go hungry, as they must do, on the pittance we give them. No, they are starved out—the Government think it is a clever device —and the British take them.

When somebody loses a husband or somebody grows old; when a child loses its father, none of these does so by choice. They do not wish to be widows, unemployed or old people. These are all acts of God but our attitude is to penalise them. The attitude in most of Central Europe, whether Socialist or otherwise, is far ahead of ours. Their attitude, if people do happen to fall into some kind of need is to give them help which is comparable with the income they enjoyed before this incident arose. That is surely a more human, more Christian —that much abused word—approach to the treatment of the dependent among us.

How can we go on with that attitude of accepting this subsistence level of payment to these dependent classes? One Deputy was concerned that there should not be payment to what he called layabouts and people of that kind. My attitude to that is that it is the old taunt that used to be thrown at the unemployed, that they were unemployed because they would not work. That myth has been exploded in Britain and elsewhere. It was said very much in the 'thirties in relation to the British unemployed. The fact is there is no unemployment in these countries now and no unemployed workers because they have been given jobs. This is one of the excuses we give to ourselves, that these people would not work anyway. Is there one per cent unemployed in Britain at present? In most European countries there is a shortage of labour. Here, we have an unemployment level of six to eight per cent because we are too incompetent and our social and economic policies are, and have been for the past 50 years, so defective that we take some smug delight or self-satisfaction in the assertion that the 60,000 to 100,000 unemployed we constantly carry would not work if we could give them work.

We penalise them. Even if there is such a thing as a layabout—that is to me a sick person who requires medical help—if he has children, or if there is an alcoholic—again a sick person— who has children and will not work, do we penalise the wife and children? What justification is there for giving these people so little money? The person who, it is alleged, will not work, is relatively little hurt. Why do we penalise the wife and children because of these outdated Victorian attitudes towards social welfare?

The Minister knows quite well that if he were given 37/6d. or £2 per week, whatever it is, to live on for the next 52 weeks, he would present a far different figure sitting in his chair and would probably have a far different approach to the figure he is still so complacent about, if he were back here in a year's time. How can we continue to have this extraordinary sense of callous indifference to such a big section of our society? How can we go on eating, drinking, racing, and enjoying ourselves as we do—I am not against any of these things—and still not feel some deep sense of shame at the condition of such a large section of our fellowcountrymen and their families? It seems to me an astonishing enigma because, as a people, we are as generous and as kindly as any other race but the facts are that where it comes to the treatment of this large dependent class within our society, we are far behind Britain which is far behind other European countries.

The Deputy has said this on more than one occasion. He is repeating himself.

I think the position regarding income is relevant. The income of the ordinary adult worker in Ireland is three-fifths of what it is in Britain. The statutory weekly earnings of the Irish agricultural worker are about half of the United Kingdom figure and the earnings of the married industrial worker are two-thirds of the British figure and they are all less than the European and Scandinavian figures, while prices here are between eight per cent and ten per cent higher.

This is all completely unnecessary. Even with the money which is available in our circumstances, it is possible to alter the whole system of taxation and increase benefits by at least 60 per cent. The difficulty is that we are not prepared to tax the wealthy in order to try to eliminate this anomaly in our society. The expenditure on social welfare here as a percentage of the gross national product places us sixth of seven countries. Ours is 7.5 per cent and the highest is Western Germany. Britain is one of the lowest and the Netherlands is next below us. We spend less on these people than Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. The money is there and the money quite deliberately, quite consciously, is not spent in this way.

The rates of benefit, unemployment assistance and disability payments are only a tiny proportion of the amount of money a person earns when well and fit and working. I do not know what the precise figure is at the moment but, in 1962, the rate was one-seventh of average earnings and for a married man with three children, it was two-sevenths. If it is very much higher now, perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us what it is.

One of the fallacies which have been current is the danger of undermining independence. The second one is that if one imposes high taxation, then one will destroy the incentive of the businessmen and industrialists. One of the odd things about that argument is that apparently it is quite permissible to tax and tax and tax again the ordinary worker in the form of indirect taxation; that does not appear to be a disincentive at all—to use the jargon of the economists—to effort or to increasing wealth by working very hard. That appears to be permissible. Apparently it is only in the case of the Rockefellers, the Moynes and the various other very wealthy people that, if they cannot make that extra one million easily or if they have to pay a big proportion of it back in taxation, then they will stop working. Of course, that is again another exploded fallacy.

The Minister for Social Welfare is not responsible for taxation and the question of taxation does not arise on this Estimate. That would be a matter for another debate, on another Estimate.

One of the cases consistently made by Ministers when talking on Health, Education or any of these "giving" Departments is: "That is all very well but where will you find the money?" I am telling the Minister where he will find the money.

The Minister is not responsible. The question of where the money is to be found does not relevantly arise on the Estimate for Social Welfare.

I am suggesting that social welfare benefits should be increased and because I am saying that, I think it is only fair to tell the Minister where he will get the money.

The Chair is pointing out that the Minister is not responsible for that particular facet. The Minister is responsible only for what is in the Estimate and there is no question of taxation in the Estimate.

There is a question of increasing the amount paid in the various allowances, surely?

Yes. The Deputy is entitled to refer to increases in the various allowances but he is not entitled to pursue the question of taxation.

He is entitled to suggest to the Minister that he can get the money in one of various ways. Is that not so?

I have pointed out to the Deputy that it is not the responsibility of the Minister for Social Welfare.

I accept that.

Then the Deputy should raise it when the matter is relevant. It is not relevant now.

It is not the Minister's responsibility to find the money in one form or the other but it is permissible for me to make suggestions as to how it could be found by the Minister.

No. The Deputy is not in order in doing so because it does not arise on the Estimate. I am not going to argue any further with the Deputy. I have pointed out the position and the Deputy must accept it. The question of taxation does not arise.

The question of paying for the services arises, does it not?

He could suggest to the Government that they give him more money. The Deputy could make that suggestion to the Minister.

The Deputy has been allowed to pursue the question of taxation long enough. I will not hear the Deputy any further on the matter.

It must be unpleasant hearing in your ears, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, as a member of the Government Party.

Yes, because it is irrelevant.

I have no doubt I should like to suggest one of the main ways in which money can be found for increasing these allowances. I would be completely irresponsible if I were to make suggestions that I could not back up by practical constructive suggestions as to how the Minister could act on them. I think the Leas-Cheann Comhairle is unfairly curtailing the discussion and, in fact, is making it into a futile display in which I merely criticised the Minister without helping him at all by constructive suggestions. I think I am within my rights in continuing to tell the Minister that the recent policy of the Government in relation to taxation, where they have found money for benefits of this kind by increasing indirect taxation rather than increasing direct taxation, has continued to impose an unnecessary, avoidable burden on the mass of the public and, in that way, reduced the penalty of taxation on people who are much better able to bear it.

I have made it very clear to the Deputy that the question of taxation is irrelevant and does not arise on the Estimate. If the Deputy cannot obey the ruling of the Chair, I will ask him to resume his seat.

Sir, the Government have over the years pursued a policy in which they have taken great care to see that the wealthy shall stay wealthy. That is permissible, is it, Sir?

Has the Minister for Social Welfare any responsibility? Does it arise on the Estimate or can the Deputy make it relevant?

It is a general statement of fact.

It may be a statement of fact but it is irrelevant on this Estimate.

It arises (1) from the points put forward here by the Minister that he does not intend significantly to increase the benefits available to the people he is concerned with and (2) under the general policy pursued by his Department of increasing insurance contributions in order to find the money for the benefits which he has to make available for these dependent classes. It arises on both those heads.

One of the ways in which, if they wished to improve the benefits available to the mass of the people at the expense of the wealthy minority, if they were so inclined, would be in regard to the question of children's allowances. Children's allowances are a particularly valuable form of payment to a family and, of course, they are particularly relevant in a society such as ours which has always advocated, up to relatively recently anyway, the necessity for large families. Of course, the problem facing the large family is that the larger the family the greater the outgoings. Unfortunately for the father of the large family in Ireland, his income is not related to the size of his family and, consequently, family allowances should be a very much more powerful and could be a very much more useful method of trying to help the father of the large family. It is a useful way of redistributing the wealth of, say, the unmarried man or the wealth of the married people who have not got a family or of the married people who have had a family and the family is grown up. In that way, it is a particularly valuable form of payment in a society such as ours and, of course, is particularly useful.

But, again, as in so many other aspects of social welfare payments, we are much better at promising than we are at putting our hands in our pockets and paying. We find that the benefits payable in children's allowances in Great Britain and, of course, becoming much more relevant, in the North of Ireland, are very much higher than they are here. The rates are, in fact, twice the rate in the Republic of Ireland. Cash family allowances are very much higher in Great Britain and in the North of Ireland. Quite clearly, the rate here should be very much increased.

In regard to the old age pension, not only is the rate very much lower than it is in England and the North of Ireland but it is paid very much later than in the North of Ireland or in Great Britain.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
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