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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 6 Jul 1965

Vol. 217 No. 4

Amendment to Standing Order 30. - Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1965: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "Go léitear an Bille an Tarna hUair".

There are two matters to which I would like to refer very briefly. The first is the case of a recipient of certain social welfare benefits. I have one case in mind which has come to my knowledge of a woman who became a widow and was entitled to, and was granted, a widow's pension in the normal way. She then became blind and was, I think, very correctly entitled to a blind pension as well. When she came to qualify for the old age pension, instead of getting an increase or even continuing to get what she had got, she was reduced by 15/- per week. I know that this case is an exceptional one in the social welfare code, and one does not normally qualify for two different classes of benefit, but it is very reasonable that a blind widow should be treated more generously than a widow who is in full possession of her faculties. She might not be able to contribute to her own upkeep. I would ask the Minister to investigate that type of case and see whether he could make some amendment of the regulations so that a widow in that position will not suffer when she reaches qualification age for old age pension.

Another case which has come to my mind, and which I believe is not unique at all, is that of a person who is not normally insurable, a self-employed worker, who is injured and disabled. I have come across the case of one of my constituents who was self-employed as a carrier. He fell from his vehicle and suffered injuries when the vehicle went over him, as a result of which, after a long period in hospital, both legs had to be amputated. This man is now completely disabled and is not entitled to any pension whatsoever because he was not insured. No third party could be held responsible because no third party was involved. Here again I hope the Minister could find some way in which people in that category could be assisted.

This man is at present being supported by his two sons, one of whom is in permanent employment and the other in temporary employment. Their main trouble is to find someone who can look after their father during their working day. They can and do look after him very loyally in the evening, and they set him up in his chair in the morning before they go to work, but from the time they leave the house until they come back, they are entirely dependent on their neighbours and various charitable workers who may drop in from time to time and see that this entirely helpless man is being looked after. Quite apart from that, he does need attention during the day and his two sons are unable to finance that out of their own means. They can look after his normal living expenses. If the Minister could look into that case, I would be very grateful. I can quite see that we do not want to encourage people not to become voluntary contributors, but cases like that do arise within the community and I think it would be the will of the community generally that some effort should be made to alleviate their position.

The old age pensioners have got some increase in their pensions this year and this has been welcomed by everyone. I think nobody who pays taxes objects to paying for this increase. It must be remembered, however, that they are still very badly off and that the means test for non-contributory pensioners is very rigid and severe. A non-contributory pensioner begins to have his pension reduced under the means test if he or she has another income of about £1 per week, and by the time an income of a little over £2 has been proved, the best part of the pension has been removed altogether.

I also think that in assessing the means derived from a small farm, the Department officers are often very severe, because when people are old, they cannot extract as much profit from their few head of stock as when they are fit and energetic, and very often they have to pay somebody or give them gratuities to get things done which they are no longer able to do themselves.

If they have a little money, the supposed income therefrom is also assessed at a very high rate, and if they have more than £375 in their possession, the income from this is calculated at ten per cent to disqualify them from a pension. These poor people hang on to their few pounds because with a future of decreasing mobility and failing health before them, the savings they have are their only sheet anchor.

It is perhaps symptomatic of the Minister's approach to this that the 10/- given goes only to those with less than £26. If they have more, they get only 5/-. They also have to wait for long and weary months to get it. I do not want to appear critical of the Minister, but the crying need moves me to make these points.

There is, however, a lot more that can be done for old people than giving them a pension. When old persons need hospitalisation for the first time, I feel that they should go for some weeks to a proper geriatric unit where a decision can be made as to whether or not they will be again physically able to go out into the world. While this was taking place and they were getting all the medical treatment they required, an almoner could go out to their homes and report on whether their home circumstances would allow their return, if their state of health did. Then, and only then, should a decision be made as to whether they should go to the county home or not.

There has been no increase in children's allowances this year. As the prices of foodstuffs and clothes increase, it becomes daily more difficult for housewives to rear their children as they would wish. I feel that there should have been some provision for this, and if it were not possible for every child, surely those with large families should have got some increases.

While home assistance is disbursed by the local authorities, no money comes from the Department of Social Welfare or the Department of Health to supplement what can be given from the rates. The Minister for Social Welfare might think of introducing some scheme whereby home assistance would be met from his Department, thus relieving the rates and giving the poor person a far better chance of getting some realistic help.

The single man in the rural area has just been cut off unemployment assistance for the summer months. I know that there are very few people who have no stamps to get unemployment benefit and are on home assistance in the rural areas, but there are the few.

I do hope that the Minister will press on the Government by next year to give him more funds to help the needy. Surely it is the duty of everyone to help one's neighbour who is less fortunate. I wish him well in his task in this regard.

We all recognise the change in the approach this particular year to those under the social welfare code. Some people say that general elections are bad things for the country, but for one section of people anyway, the underprivileged, the recent general election has borne much fruit. We are glad to say that Fianna Fáil have adopted part of the Fine Gael policy which was announced at the time of the general election.

We all welcome the increases given to the various classes of persons who are unable to provide for themselves. It is accepted generally in the country that it was as a result of the Fine Gael policy announced before the election that these increases took place. Up to this a miserable half crown was given each year, not even enough to meet the cost of living. However, why should Fianna Fáil bring in a stricter means test this year? Why should all the non-contributory pensioners not get their 10/- for which they have to wait long enough, until August? If a person has the small sum of 11/- a week from any other source he gets only half the increase. Up to this the non-contributory pensioner living on his own got home assistance to the extent of at least 10/- a week and there was a very strict examination before it was given.

As Deputy Mrs. Burke pointed out, this is the one service given by the county council which is not contributed to from central funds. Roads, housing, disablement benefit, all other services given by the county council, get a contribution from central funds. I appeal to the Minister not to have this test imposed on old people in respect of the extra 10/-. I hope that when they do receive this increase, the old age pensioners will not have to suffer a reduction in their home assistance allowance. Imagine any person living on his own, who has to pay rent, provide fuel and the other necessaries of life, trying to support himself on the very small amount of 47/6 per week.

I am glad that the Minister has brought in sections 8 to 10 in this Social Welfare Bill which will enable people in the congested areas to work their land to the fullest capacity and to the extent of their ability, and that there will not be a strict inspection of every family and of every beast on the land for the purpose of a means test in relation to home assistance. My constituency is not in the congested districts and consequently is not affected in this regard, but even if it were, there are very few of this type of people in the constituency, small farmers who would be drawing unemployment assistance. However, there is another category there, the ordinary worker who undertakes task work such as thinning beet and turnips. When the end of the year comes, the amount he has earned in that task work is totalled and is assessed as means for the purpose of home assistance. It is a great hardship that a married man who takes on task work in my area, which is a tillage county, for eight or ten weeks during the spring or autumn, as the case may be, should have his earnings taken into account when he applies for unemployment assistance and have his benefit reduced by three, four or five shillings per week. The Government and this House should encourage people to work, not discourage them. I would ask the Minister to look into this matter. He has already brought in other sections affecting the west and the congested districts and he should introduce a provision in order to ensure that these workers' earnings for this task work will not be assessed as means when they are claiming unemployment assistance in the following year.

There is a great temptation for people who sign for unemployment assistance to go out and work after signing in the morning. I would ask the Minister not to put them in the position of being tempted to break regulations in this respect. He should encourage these people to go out to work. Labour is very scarce in the country—we know the extent of emigration that has taken place since Fianna Fáil took office in 1957—and farmers would be very pleased to have this labour available. This would be an encouragement to people to stay in the country and I would ask the Minister to introduce a provision to relieve the situation.

Another matter which has been brought to my notice several times is that when a person falls ill, he has to forgo the first three days of his sickness benefit. When the head of a family or a single man becomes sick, he requires more assistance than when he is working. I know that if a man falls ill again within 13 weeks of his previous illness, he will not have the first three days excluded, but it is a serious handicap for people to be denied sickness benefit for these three days. I would ask the Minister again, now that the efforts of the Fine Gael Party have resulted in a more liberal approach to the social welfare code, to reconsider this matter. A person should be entitled to draw national health benefit from the day he falls sick and submits his first certificate and not be penalised for the first three days.

There is another point to which I wish to draw the Minister's attention in relation to workmen's compensation. The maximum amount a person can draw is £4 10s. per week. This matter has been raised here on several occasions, always accompanied by a request that the £4 10s be increased. In the old days, when workmen's compensation was £2 10s. per week, a person was entitled to draw up to 75 per cent of the wages he earned in the previous 12 months. Now £4 10s. today could not be 75 per cent of wages earned in the previous 12 months. I know the Minister will say he intends to have a comprehensive scheme of workmen's compensation. In the meantime, I think the Minister should increase the amount of the allowance.

Recently I had a case of a farm labourer who was earning £8 per week. He had been out of work through injury in the course of his work for six or seven weeks and he could not understand why he should be compelled to go on drawing at the rate of £4 10s. per week. This maximum was introduced in 1956. It bears no relationship to the cost of living today and the general pattern of increases in wages. A substantial increase is warranted. The Minister should not wait until he introduces a Bill to increase the allowance of £4 10s. per week.

I have had several cases in the past year of sickness benefit claimants being told that they should apply for workmen's compensation. Apparently, if a man falls ill while at work he is sent a form to fill in. He states on that form that he fell ill at work and he is immediately told he should be drawing workmen's compensation. That can continue for as long as a month. One can imagine the position of a man with a family waiting for over a month for a decision as to whether he is entitled to social welfare benefit, sickness benefit or workmen's compensation. I have had several cases, as I say, and I have had to get in touch with the Minister's Department and prove to the Department that the man was ill. He had not met with an accident. He went home sick from work. The Minister should look into this and correct the present unsatisfactory position. Social welfare benefit should be paid immediately. If it should transpire that a recipient was really entitled to workmen's compensation then it is an easy matter to recoup the moneys spent from the insurance company.

The last point I want to raise is the position of the person drawing unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance. A neighbour with a grudge writes an anonymous letter saying that the man is at work. An inquiry is called for if a person is actually working and drawing assistance at the same time, but I know cases where men with families were cut off benefit immediately on receipt of an anonymous letter. That should not occur. Make inquiries and, if the allegations in the letter are substantiated, cut the man off, but do not cut him off immediately on receipt of the letter. It is wrong that a person should be denied his due share. I ask the Minister to look into these things and to consider again the giving of a 5/-increase to non-contributory pensioners with an income of £27 per year.

Mr. Barrett

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.

I can vividly recall the Minister, during the recent election campaign, saying that on the re-election of Fianna Fáil, all social welfare benefits would be increased. I am glad to say that he has fulfilled his promise and has increased social welfare benefits to a certain extent. I hope that if our economic expansion continues, he will be able to do so again next year. Despite the fact that these benefits have been increased, I have a grievance about the old age pensioners. The Minister could have given more to old age pensioners living alone, those who have nobody to look after them and who have to provide all their daily needs, the daily needs we all have, meals, clothing and so forth, out of the pension they get from the State. It would have been more acceptable to everybody if the Minister had granted more to these unfortunate people. Most of them are very feeble and the extra few shillings would not have mattered to the State but would have been very acceptable to these people.

While the present increases are very welcome to social welfare recipients. I should like the Minister to bear in mind that there is one section of those people which is very badly treated. No provision is made for people who are disabled or who are invalids, who have to fend for themselves. There is a scheme similar to home assistance called the disabled persons' maintenance allowance scheme, which is administered by the local authorities. It seems impossible to get this. I think the Minister should, in time to come, make some provision for these people. The only fall-back they have is the fact that some of the relations may claim them, accept them and take them into their homes to live. If they do not do so, it is a poor look-out for those people if they have to fend for themselves on the small assistance they get and on which. I feel, they are incapable of living. Until the Minister does something about this, we cannot fully be satisfied with our social welfare benefits.

I am not, as Deputy D. Costello and others on the Opposition benches have alleged, in any way complacent about our social welfare services. Unlike them, I think I have been giving continuous proof of that. In each year since I became Minister for Social Welfare, there have been substantial improvements, both in the rate of payment of all the social welfare schemes and in the actual coverage of the schemes themselves. But, while I am not complacent and while I, like other Deputies, can see many further improvements that can be made, I do say, with some degree of pride, that this Bill which has had, I think, a somewhat surprisingly hostile reception from the Opposition, marks a significant step forward in social welfare in this country. While there has not been any actual opposition to the Bill, as far as I could gather, there seems to be something in it that has upset Deputies in the Opposition benches, judging from the general trend of the speeches. I can hardly be blamed for thinking that it has been caused by the fact that this one single Bill does so much at once.

I mentioned in my opening statement that the increase in gross expenditure, in a full financial year, in the income maintenance services administered by my Department, as provided for in this Bill, is £9.53 million. I mentioned that this represents an increase of 19.3 per cent in the gross expenditure on social welfare, exclusive of administrative costs. Not one of the Deputies opposite thought it worth while to refer to that. I think this increase of almost 20 per cent, taken in conjunction with the fact that there have been substantial increases in the rates of payment and in the gross expenditure in every year for a number of years past, is not something to be brushed aside as a mere bagatelle, as something of no importance, while there were irresponsible suggestions that there should be what are described as further small improvements, but which would obviously add considerably to the total cost. I think we can congratulate ourselves, without being too complacent, on having made an advance in a single year of almost 20 per cent in the gross expenditure on social welfare.

Unlike the vague generalities of the other Parties and the mere listing of desirable things to be done without any reference to the practicability of the community financing them, our undertaking with regard to social welfare was clear and explicit. It was accepted by the people because it was so obviously a logical development of the policy we have been pursuing over the years and a logical development of our proven interest in the improvement of social welfare.

We stated that it was our intention to devote an increased proportion of the rising national resources to social welfare. This Bill is, as the people rightly expected, an immediate implementation of that undertaking. I mentioned that the Bill provides for an increase of 19.3 per cent in the gross expenditure on social welfare in this year. Over the past ten years, the gross expenditure on social welfare varied from five to 5.5 per cent of the gross national product and at the new annual rate of spending provided for in this Bill, assuming that the gross national product expands to £1,016 million as has been forecast, the gross expenditure on social welfare will be at the rate of 6.1 per cent of the gross national product. That is a significant advance, no matter what Deputies opposite may say. It shows that we are implementing our explicit undertaking, both in the letter and in the spirit.

This devoting of an increasing proportion of the rising national resources to social welfare continues to be our guiding principle. If the economy continues to expand as it is expected to expand in accordance with the targets of the Second Programme for Economic Expansion, then we can expect further improvement in subsequent years. While I am not complacent about the state of our social welfare services at present, it is by this method, by relating our expenditure to the capacity of the community to provide the necessary money, that we shall eventually arrive at an acceptable social welfare code. How much of the money that will become available in the future will be spent on increases in the rates of payment under the existing scheme and how much will be devoted to the expansion of the social welfare code is something that will have to be decided from year to year in the light of circumstances obtaining.

I find no more difficulty than anybody else in this House in listing a number of expansions which it would be desirable to make in our social welfare code or new fringe benefits that could be introduced. There is no difficulty at all in these things. I could do, as Deputy D. Costello said he did, namely, just study what is provided in other countries and pick out the best: there is no difficulty in that.

You want the guts to tax, and if the Government are prepared to tax, they can give the domiciliary welfare services.

We are faced with the problem of providing the money. That is a very inconvenient detail for Deputy D. Costello, I quite appreciate, but it is essential and it is something that must be attended to. In this Bill, we are providing an increased rate of expenditure of £9.53 million. That means nothing whatever, I am quite well aware, to Deputy D. Costello, but it means a lot to the community. If we were to provide all these new things which we all know about, it would cost more and the money has to come from somewhere. It is because we have attended to this essential feature, because we have realised that there is a limit to the amount of money you can extract from the community if you want the economy to continue to expand, that we have been able in every year to provide substantial increases for social welfare.

While they were in office, the Coalition Government were able to provide improvements in some of the schemes in one year only in each of their two terms of office. That was because the Opposition do not pay any attention to this inconvenient detail of the expenditure that is involved. It is amusing, to a certain extent, to hear Deputy D. Costello claim that the Government are bankrupt of ideas in regard to social welfare and to hear Deputy James Tully, on the other hand, claim that the whole idea of developing social welfare originated with his Party, spread to Fine Gael and eventually and belatedly affected Fianna Fáil. I say it is amusing because it is so demonstrably absurd——

——and true. That is why the Minister does not like it.

It is completely untrue. It is purely a question of fact to say it is completely absurd. While I admit our social welfare services are capable of further improvements, and need to be further improved, and while I intend to improve them, it is a fact that we have income maintenance coverage, whether adequate or not, for all contingencies that are listed in the International Labour Convention on minimum standards of social security.

We have the second lowest percentage of national income in Europe.

I shall go on to that, if Deputy Costello will allow me. I do not remember interrupting him when he was speaking. Now that Deputy Costello is tied down to hard facts and cannot indulge in the vague generalities which he indulged in, he is becoming upset about it. The contingencies which are listed in this International Labour Convention on minimum standards of social security are sickness, unemployment, old age, employment injury, family, maternity, invalidity and survivors. We have an income maintenance coverage for every one of those contingencies on the insurance side and, where appropriate, on the assistance side.

It is a fact also every single development in this virtually comprehensive social welfare system was brought about by a Fianna Fáil Government. Still the Opposition, although there was no development in social welfare under the alternative Government, maintain that Fianna Fáil have been completely bereft of ideas in so far as social welfare is concerned. Not alone was there no development in social welfare under the Opposition Government but they failed even to keep the existing schemes that were provided by Fianna Fáil Governments in line with increases in the cost of living that took place during their term of office.

The Minister's Party did not change workmen's compensation in the past ten years. The Minister seems to have forgotten that there has been no increase in those payments.

I can deal with workmen's compensation now or later, as Deputy Tully desires. So far as workmen's compensation is concerned, it is a fact there was apparently some suggestion that something should be done about it during the last term of office of the Coalition Government.

A Commission was set up.

A Commission was set up which took six years to report and finally reported in a predictable manner in favour of continuation of the present scheme. We have taken the decision to do something about workmen's compensation.

The Government took three years to do anything.

The Minister accepted a minority report.

Order. The Minister, to conclude.

I did not accept the minority report.

The Minister said he did.

The Coalition, because of the very nature of the Government, were unable to do what should have been done in this very important matter. This Commission was set up.

It was increased to £4 10s., which still remains today, ten years later.

Just as we have put all these ideas of ours into practice in the past, just as we have provided all the social welfare services which we have at present, we will continue to expand it in the future according as the success of our economic policy makes it possible for us to do so. I gathered from the Opposition speeches that few, if any, of the Deputies opposite believe that we have reached the stage at which we can be content with the actual rates of payment under the existing schemes or, in other words, that we have not reached the stage where we can devote all the money that will become available in the future for the expansion of our social welfare system rather than for the improvement of rates, so that for some time to come, it seems likely to me that the pattern of social welfare improvement will be as it is in this Bill. There will have to be a selection of the desirable things to do to fit the amount of money that is available. The Bills then will be a combination of increases in the rates of payment under the different existing schemes combined with a gradual and probably a piecemeal expansion of the whole system.

In those circumstances, while, as I say, it is quite easy to draft out a list of the improvements it is possible to make, that would largely be an academic exercise, until such time as we know that the money necessary to implement such a programme will be available. However, Deputies need have no fear. The desirable lines of further improvement are being studied but as I say, in the meantime, the process of improving the existing schemes will gradually expand. This has been continued under this Government over the years and will continue in the years ahead.

I find it rather surprising that I should be called upon to defend the principle of paying social assistance on the basis of need. It seems to me to be perfectly obvious, when the amount of money available is limited, and when it can be extracted only by taxation from the people, that it is a fundamental principle that social assistance should be distributed according to the need of the applicant. This can be established only by a means test. The £10 million of increased transfer of income, which is being provided for between this Social Welfare Bill and the increases that have been provided in the disabled persons' maintenance allowances and the infectious diseases allowances is as much as the Government considered it possible to provide extra this year. As Deputies know, this involved extra taxation.

Therefore, since the amount available to me was limited, when I am asked to abandon the proposal to give a 10/- increase to a new means category of pensioner under £26 5s. Od. a year and 5/- increase to others, what I am being asked in effect to do is to give instead a flat rate increase of 7/6 to all non-contributory pensioners because these increases are as much as could be given out of the money available. A flat rate of 10/- to all old age pensioners would cost an additional sum of £650,000, which, of course, is completely unimportant to Deputy Tully and Deputy Costello, but which was something which was taken into consideration by the Government. That money was not available to me in this year. Even if it were it would be fairer to use it to give something extra still to those people who have nothing at all.

I would ask Deputies to consider exactly what their opposition to the extra provision for those with low incomes means. It means taking 2/6 extra from those people whose means are under £26 5s. Od. a year in order to give it to people who are better off. That is what the Opposition Deputies are asking me to do. A single person, after this Bill goes through, over 70, with means of £156 15s. Od. per annum or a married man with a means of £313 10s. Od. will qualify for the minimum rate of non-contributory pension of 7/6. That means that between the person's own means and the pension, there will be a total of £176 5s. Od. for the single man and £333 for the married man without dependants.

Has the Minister ever tried spending 7/6 on his own?

No, but I tried spending £9.53 million this year and I think I have done it in a more equitable way than the Labour Party want me to do. The Labour Party have come out officially in the debate on this Bill as being in favour of giving to the haves at the expense of the have-nots.

The Minister has given 7/6d.——

It is only at the expense of people with practically no means that the Labour Party ask me to give to those with means.

The Minister could give if he wanted to.

Yes, but the Government succeeded in providing £9.53 million extra. That is what has Deputy Tully annoyed.

The Minister has spread it the wrong way.

Debate adjourned.
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