Deputy Crotty's reference to the fact that, under the workmen's compensation code, a worker earning £14, £15 or £16 per week is entitled to a maximum of only £4 10s. per week underlines the anachronisms with which the social welfare code abounds. It was, I think, in 1955 that the figure of £4 10s. was fixed. It baffles comprehension why, between 1955 and 1965, no one in the Minister's Department saw any need for a revision of the figure. If the Minister and his Department were in touch with the people to whom they are under an obligation they would know that there is a great deal of suffering today because of their failure to revise the figure of £4 10s. Why revision should stop at 1955 and the figure should remain static ever since is something I should like the Minister to explain to the House.
Is it any wonder that I and others are not at all satisfied that the social welfare code is being administered properly? Deputy Crotty has already drawn attention to the delays which occur in the payment of social welfare benefits. I should like to draw the Minister's attention to the conduct of some of the medical referees appointed by the Minister. I know one who greeted an old lady on one occasion: "You are lasting a long time, aren't you?" That may be a good joke coming from equal to equal, but coming from an officer of the Minister's Department to one of these, our least brethren, it is absolutely unpardonable. If it were an isolated incident I might overlook it, but I know the attitude adopted by many of the Minister's officials towards these people. The social welfare code should be administered in a spirit of charity, in the real sense of that word, and in the realisation that the people looking for something are in real difficulty. They are looking for understanding and help. But they do not get it.
I do not entirely blame the Minister's officials because the printed regulations are very clear. Rule 3 lays it down that a claimant shall not be absent from his place of residence without leaving word of where he may be found. I do not know of any other Christian society which imposes upon a human being the responsibility of leaving at his house a minute to minute description of where he may be found simply because he has the misfortune to have recourse to social welfare. The Minister may say that this is merely a headline but the Minister and his officials know as well as I do that, if I make representations on behalf of somebody, I will be told he is not entitled to benefit because he did not obey the rules; he was absent from his place of residence and did not leave word of where he might be found.
I would ask the Minister to remove these petty annoyances. Indeed, they are more than petty; they are unchristian and anachronistic and unfitted to the system under which we live nowadays. I do not think the Minister could subscribe to the suggestion that because somebody has the misfortune to have recourse to his Department, he cannot go outside his house without letting the Minister's officials know exactly where he is going to be all through the day, that he will have to say: "I will be in Paddy Murphy's public house at 12 o'clock and I will be in the toilet at 12.15 and at 12.30, I will be over in Johnny Murphy's house and at 12.45 I will go up to say a few prayers in the church." Is that what the Minister requires of people? It may be true that these regulations need not be enforced but they can be enforced. What I object to is the letter of a rule such as that being imposed on people, a rule which is absolutely unsustainable.
I cannot understand why in the city of Cork, due to some reason that I cannot comprehend and which nobody in the city of Cork can comprehend, what used be national health payments must come up to Dublin first and then back to Cork. The cheques must come down from Dublin and go to the local employment exchange from which they are sent out by some special courier in the employment exchange. Time and again, it has been suggested to the Minister that the simple thing to do—and I trust that he will not object if we suggest a simple thing—would be, in a place like the city of Cork where there are so many workers and so many in receipt of what used be national health, to set up a depot where the claims would be dealt with and cheques issued. That suggestion has been made here year after year and has been repulsed year after year, much to the detriment of the people I represent. I expect that the same situation exists in Waterford and Limerick. I should like the Minister to give this House and the people of Cork city, Limerick city and of Waterford city a cogent reason why that cannot be done. It is all very well for people sitting here to say: "Well, these people will be out of benefit for only four or five days." Often they are out of benefit for more than a week.
I should like the Minister's advisers to realise what that means to somebody who has nothing, who has no credit—which most of us will not have shortly, judging by the way things are going. These depressed classes, the least of our brethren, about whom I am speaking, are waiting for something with which to buy bread and butter, tea and sugar, for their families while somebody in Cork city is writing to somebody in Dublin to say: "Would you ever send down a cheque for this person in Cork?" The person has to wait for that letter to go up to Dublin and then wait for the cheque to be delivered in Cork, and then wait for somebody to get up on his bicycle to go out to a working suburb in Cork and deliver the letter.
I trust I will not have to say this again next year. I am not discouraged by the fact that I have been saying it year after year. I might as well be a dumb mouth speaking to deaf ears. However, the time has come for something to be done about these things. It seems that we can modernise every section of our administration and government, except this most important section. I would appeal to the Minister to give serious thought to this problem. I would appeal to him not to look upon it in a self-satisfied sort of way and to say: "These are small things." They are small things for the Minister and they are small things for me, but they are large things for the man who has a wife and six or seven children waiting for the cheque to come from Dublin. I know, and many Deputies who come from centres of population know, of the untold suffering imposed on people as a result of this cumbrous procedure. I would ask the Minister, if he does not intend to change this cumbrous procedure, to tell the House why not and to tell the House why it is better that all these things must go to Dublin and then back to Cork, and go to Dublin and then back to Limerick, and go to Dublin and then back to Waterford, while hungry people are waiting for the cheques.
I have dealt with most of the points with which I intended to deal, but there is one further point. Deputy Crotty spoke about proposed legislation in regard to workmen's compensation. I should like those who think it better to cancel the workmen's compensation code and introduce a Bill whereby this Department, which thinks so little of these people in Cork, Limerick and Waterford, will deal in private, mark you, with the problems of these people who, at the moment, can go into public court and be professionally represented, and who think that that is good legislation, to consider the shortcomings of the legislation we have at the moment in relation to dealing with these problems. I should like them to consider whether it is better that the workman who suffers a disability should have recourse to the courts or have to deal in private with judges appointed by the Minister under various guises such as appeals officers. It is one of the most serious aspects of social welfare which is being overlooked in this House by various people who should be interested in our working classes.