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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 23 Nov 1965

Vol. 219 No. 1

Private Members' Business. - Social Welfare (occupational Injuries) Bill, 1965: Second Stage.

Tairgim go léifear an Bille an Dara Uair.

Bille é seo chun scéim nua a chur ar fáil in áit na scéime atá ann i láthair na huaire faoi na hAchtanna um Chúiteamh do Lucht Oibre, 1934 go 1955. Séard atá beartaithe ná an Scéim Árachais Shóisialaigh a leathnú chun freastail ar díobhálacha agus galair cheirde agus cuirfear íocaíochtaí níos fearr ar fáil d'oibrithe gortaithe agus a gcleithiúnaithe, ar chostas réasúnta. In ionad an freagracht seo maidir le cúiteamh do lucht oibre bheith leagtha go díreach ar an bhfostóir mar atá faoi láthair, freagracht a mbíonn sé ìnárachaithe ina éadan de ghnáth, íocfaidh mo Roinnse sochair leasa shóisíalaigh má deintear díobháil pearsanta d'oibrí de dheasca agus i gcúrsa na fostaíochta.

Mar is eol do Theachtaí, cuireadh Coimisiún ar bun chun iniúchadh a dhéanamh ar an gceist seo agus thairg an Coimisiún seo dhá tuarascáil dhom i 1962. T'réis dhom staidéar a dhéanamh ar na tuarascáil seo bhí mé sásta nárbh' fhearr rud a dhéanfaí ná an Bille seo a rith. Bhí sé soiléir gur scéim casta, costasach atá ann faoi láthair, a riaradh scaipthe imeasc na comhluchtanna árachais, socraithe á ndéanamh ins na cúirteanna agus mar sin de, agus go mbéadh cúiteamh i bhfad níos fearr le fáil ag oibrithe ar an gcostas céanna faoi scéim den chineál atá ghá moladh agam sa Bhille seo.

Tosóidh an scéim nua ar lá a bhéas socraithe de réir Ordú. Riarófar í ó chiste lena ndéanfaidh fostóirí amháin ranníoca. Beidh na ranníoca seo de réir 2/1d sa tseachtain d'oibrí fir agus 1/6d sa tseachtain d'oibrí mná. Ar an iomlán, siad na hoibrithe a thiocfaidh faoin scéim nua ná iad siúd a thigeann faoin scéim um cúiteamh do lucht oibre anois, ach beidh cineálacha eile oibrithe inárachaithe faoin scéim nua freisin.

Is mór an difríocht atá idir na sochair a íocfar faoin scéim nua agus na híocaíochtaí faoin sean scéim. Ar feadh sé seachtain's fiche díreach taréis na timpiste, agus an t-oibrí gan a bheith in ann obair a dhéanamh de bharr gortaithe, gheobhaidh sé liúntas, ar a dtugtar "sochar díobhála" de 115/- sa tseachtain. Beidh méadú ar seo de réir 40/- sa tseachtain le haghaidh cleithiúnaí aosaithe, 13/- an duine sa tseachtain le haghaidh na céad beirte clainne agus 8/- an duine sa tseachtain le haghaidh gach páiste eile sa chlann. íocfar na méadaithe seo i leith páistí atá faoi 16 bliana d'aois agus páistí atá idir 16 bliana agus 18 bliana atá ar scoil, i bprintíseacht ar bheagán pá nó ina mbreoiteacháin. Mar sin de, féadfaidh fear gortaithe a bhfuil céile agus beirt pháiste aige, sochar díobhála seachtainiúil a shroisfidh £9 1s. ina iomlán d'fháil.

Nuair a bhéas deireadh leis an sochar díobhála beidh an t-oibrí i dteideal sochar nua, "sochar míthreorach", d'fháil, agus, fá na choinne seo, is cuma é bheith in ann, nó gan a bheith in ann, obair a dhéanamh. Is ar mhíthreoir oibrí de bharr na timpiste a bhéas an teideal don sochar seo ag brath. Íocfar pinsean de 115/-sa tseachtain i gcás in a bhfuil an míthreoir go hiomlán—cuir i gcás, go bhfuil sé dall ar fad—agus íocfar pinsean ag ráta níos ísle de réir míthreóra an iarrthóra. íocfar an ráta iomlán le haghaidh tréimhse ar bith in a mbeidh an t-oibrí ag fáil cóir leighis in ospidéal pé aca gur ag an ráta iomlán nó ráta níos ísle atá pinsean á íoc leis. Íocfar na méadaithe le haghaidh cleithiúnaithe, mar i gcás sochair díobhála, leis an bpinsean ar feadh na tréimhse seo freisin, muna bhfuil na méadaithe chéanna á n-íoc leis an oibrí i dteannta le sochar míchumais faoi na hAchtanna Leasa Shóisialaigh. Má bhíonn an míthreoir níos lú ná 20 per cent den iomlán íocfar cnapshuim airgid nach mó ná £380 leis an oibrí in ionad pinsin. Méadófar an pinsean míthreorach de réir 52/6d sa tseachtain, maraon le méadaithe eile le haghaidh cleithiúnaithe, má bhíonn an t-oibrí, de bharr na timpiste, gortaithe go buan agus gan a bheith ábalta obair a dhéanamh ar feadh an chuid eile dá shaol. Méadófar an pinsean, freisin, de réir liúntais suas go dtí 40/- sa bhreis sa tseachtain, nó 80/- sa bhreis sa tseachtain i gcás ar bith in a bhfuil an t-oibrí gortaithe go mór, má caithfear aire a thabhairt dó i rith an ama uilig agus é taobh amuigh d'ospidéal. Beidh na sochair le haghaidh mná pósta éagsúla, daoine faoi 18 bliana, ag rátaí níos ísle. Beidh na rátaí seo thart fá dhá-thrian den ghnáth ráta.

Beidh an mhéid sochair a bhéas iníoctha d'oibrí gortaithe, teoranta de réir gnáth pá iomlán seachtaine an oibrí ag am na timpiste. Maidir leis an uasteora seo, áfach, glacfar árdaithe pá san bhfostaíocht in ar tharla timpiste san áireamh.

Le cois na sochar thuasluaite tá sé beartaithe faoin mBille go n-íocfar costaisí leighis atá réasunta agus riachtanach, agus a éiríonn as timpiste cheirde. Íocfar na costaisí seo san mhéid nach mbeidh siad iníoctha faoi forálacha na hAchtanna Sláinte nó na hAchtanna Cóireála Meabhair-Ghalar, nó de réir sochair cóireála faoi na hAchtanna Leasa Shóisialaigh. Faoi fhoráil seo an Bhille íocfar costas ar bith a thuiteann ar an oibrí de bharr cóir ospidéil faoi na hAchtanna Sláinte, nó cóir liachta nó aire banliachta taobh amuigh d'ospidéal, nó soláthairí leighis, maraon le géaga bréige. Déanfar íocaíochtaí freisin i leith chostaisí a bhaineann le athshlánú oibrí.

I gcás báis oibrí de dheasca tionóisce íocfar pinsean de 95/- sa tseachtain lena bhaintreach maraon le méadaithe le haghaidh páistí, ar aon dul leis na méadaithe a bhéas iníoctha le sochar díobhála. Faoi na forálacha seo, freisin, beidh pinsean de 47/6d sa tseachtain iníoctha i leith dilleachtaí agus pinsin de 24/- sa tseachtain do thuismitheoir nó do bheirt tuismitheoir cleithiúnaí.

Má fhaigheann bean bás de thoradh timpiste cheirde, gheobhaidh cleithiúnaí baintreach fir dí, nach mbeidh ábalta obair a dhéanamh choíche, pinsean a bhéas ar aon dul le pinsean baintrí mná. Más rud é nach duine é nach mbeidh in ann obair a dhéanamh choíche ach go raibh sé i gcleithiúnas a mhná chéile, gheobhaidh sé suim airgid de £247. Íocfar deontas tórraimh de £50 taréis báis de thoradh timpiste.

Sé an taon choinníoll amháin le haghaidh ceann ar bith de na sochair a lua mé ná go dtárlódh an timpiste don oibrí de dheasca agus i gcúrsa fostaíochta inárachaithe. Tá coinníoll cosúil le seo i réim san am faoi láthair faoin scéim um chúiteamh do lucht oibre. Tá forálacha sa bhreis san mBille seo áfach chun go mbeidh sé níos fusa an coinníoll seo a shásamh. Mar shompla, de réir forálacha an Bhille, beidh sé inghlactha gur de dheasca fostaíochta a éirigh timpiste a thárla d'oibrí i gcúrsa fostaíochta, muna bhfuil fianaise a thaispeánann a mhalairt. Mar an gcéanna, beidh sé inghlactha freisin gur éirigh a leithéid de thimpiste de dheasca fostaíochta más é droch-bhéas oibrí is cúis leis an timpist nó má bhuaileann aon ní nó splanc thintrí an t-oibrí, agus muna ndearna an t-oibrí aon ní a tharraing an timpiste air féin.

Ní amháin go n-íocfaí an sochair san Bhille seo de bharr timpistí a tharlaíonn i gcúrsa fostaíochta íocfar iad freisin de bharr galair a bhuaileas oibrí de dheasca a chinéal fostaíochta.

I gcás timpistí a tharla nó galair a thóg oibrithe roimh teacht na scéime nua i bhfeidhm, beidh ar fhostóirí cúiteamh faoi na hAchtanna um Chúiteamh do Lucht Oibre a íoc mar is ghnáth faoi láthair. Tá forálacha san mBille faoinar féidir leis na daoine atá ag fáil íocaíochtaí chúiteamh lucht oibre agus nach mbeidh in ann obair a dhéanamh choíche, ceart a bheith acu íocaíocht de réir 52/6 sa tseachtain d'fháil maraon le méadaithe le haghaidh cleithiúnaithe san dóigh céanna le duine atá i dteideal sochar míthreorach d'fháil.

San mBille freisin tá forálacha faoina bhfuil ceart ag faighteoirí chúiteamh lucht oibre liúntas de réir 40/- sa tseachtain, nó 80/- i gcásanna speisialta, más gá aire a thabhairt dóibh i rith an ama uilig. Tá sé ar intinn freisin méid iomlán de shochar míchumais faoi na hAchtanna Leasa Shóisialaigh a íoc, taréis tús na scéime seo, maraon le híocaíochtaí cúiteamh lucht oibre i gcásanna nach bhfuil an liúntas breise de réir 52/6 sa tseachtain a rinne mé tagairt dó, iníoctha. Faoi na rialacha atá ann faoi láthair ní íoctair sochar míchumais faoi na hAchtanna Leasa Shóisialaigh le haon íocaíocht seachtainiúil faoi na hAchtanna um Chúiteamh do Lucht Oibre ach san mhéid ina bhfuil sé níos mó ná an íocaíocht sin. Mar thoradh ar seo, gheobhaidh fear ar bith, atá ag fáil íocaíochtaí cúitimh do réir £4 10s Od sa tseachtain anois, sochar míchumais de 52/6 sa tseachtain más fear singil é, nó 92/6d más fear pósta é maraon le liúntais i leith páistí, le cois na híocaíochtaí cúitimh. Laghdófar na híocaíochtaí seo i gcás ar bith ina bhfuil siad, san iomlán, níos mó ná an pá san bhfostaíocht as ar éirigh an cúiteamh.

Ní chuireann an Bille seo isteach ar chearta an oibrí damáistí a éileamh faoin dhlí coiteann as neamart fostóra nó páirtí eile. Tá forálacha san mBille, áfach, chun an sochar a bhéas ag dul don oibrí faoin mBille seo ar feadh tréimhse cúig bliana, a chur san áireamh nuair a bhíonn damáistí á meas.

Riaróidh an Roinn Leasa Shóisialaigh an scéim nua san dóigh céanna le sochair Leasa Shóisialaigh eile. Béarfaidh Oifigigh Bhreithiúnachta na Roinne breitheanna ar an teideal do shochar. Beidh comhairle ó chomhairleoirí liachta na Roinne agus ó shaineolaí liachta le fáil ag na hoifigigh seo nuair a bhíonn gá leis. Féadfaidh duine ar bith nach bhfuil sásta le breith oifigigh breithiúnachta achomharc a dhéanamh ach ní bheidh ceart ag duine achomharc a dhéanamh in éadan meastachán sealadach sochair. Breathnófar ar na meastacháin seo taréis beagán ama. Tá forálacha freisin san mBille a chuireann de dhualgas ar na hoibrithe fógraí a thabhairt dá bhfhostóirí i dtaobh timpistí a b'fhéidir go n-éireodh éilimh astu. Beidh sé de dhualgas ar na fostóirí freisin faoi fhorálacha an Bhille fógraí a thabhairt i dtaobh timpistí agus gach eolas is gá a thabhairt i dtaobh na n-éileamh.

Céim mhór ar aghaidh i gcúrsaí leasa shóisialaigh is ea an Bille seo agus molaim don Dáil glacadh leis.

For almost 70 years, since the first Workmen's Compensation Act of 1897, the compensation of workmen for employment injury, irrespective of any question of negligence, has been a direct liability, imposed by law, on the workman's employer. Under the existing Acts insurance by an employer to cover his liability is optional and it is a matter for the workman to make his claim and, in the event of dispute, to take steps to enforce it in the courts. The present levels of compensation, as last revised in the Workmen's Compensation (Amendment) Act, 1955, are briefly as follows:—

for total or partial incapacity for work, a maximum weekly payment of £4 10s. 0d. which may in defined circumstances be commuted into a lump sum on the application of either the employer or the workman —in other words it may be commuted into a lump sum without the consent of the workman—for medical expenses of an injured workman, a sum not exceeding £5 which a Court may order an employer to pay in addition to compensation; and for fatal accidents, a maximum payment by way of lump sum of £900 if there are adult dependants only or £1,800 where there are child dependants under the age of 16. A sum of £15, for medical expenses and burial, may be paid if there are no dependants.

The primary aim of this Bill, which replaces the present system of workmen's compensation by extending the existing social insurance scheme to provide for occupational injuries and diseases, is to provide better benefits, at reasonable cost to employers, for injured workmen and their dependants. Compensation for employment injury will henceforward be a social service rather than an obligation on an individual employer.

In December, 1955, the then Minister for Social Welfare set up a Commission to examine and report on the present system of workmen's compensation and its possible replacement by a scheme of national insurance, or otherwise. The Commission, whose members I would again like to thank for the very valuable work they did and for the time and care they devoted to their difficult task, made an exhaustive and detailed examination of the present system and possible alternatives. While agreeing that extensive changes in workmen's compensation were desirable, the Commission were unable to agree on the best method by which these should be achieved and two reports were furnished to me in 1962.

The Majority Report, signed by ten members of the Commission, favoured retention of the present system, based on direct liability of the workman's employer, with more than 70 recommended improvements. These recommendations included compulsory insurance of employers with commercial insurance companies against their workmen's compensation liability, an increase in the maximum weekly payment of compensation from £4 10s., where pre-accident earnings are £6 or more, to £7, where pre-accident earnings exceed £11 13s. 3d., but with no allowances for dependants nor provision for loss of faculty as distinct from incapacity for work. Pensions in lieu of lump sums for fatal accidents were also recommended. In regard to the recommendation requiring compulsory insurance, it has to be mentioned that in addition to information that some employers were unable to insure their workers because of prohibitive premiums, the Commission received evidence that certain native timber merchants are not covered by insurance because they cannot get an insurance company to accept the risk.

The Commission recommendation, therefore, as well as compelling employers to insure, would involve compulsion of insurance companies to accept certain proposals for insurance. Compulsory insurance involving the payment of premiums hitherto found to be prohibitive could of course lead to difficulties for the affected industries and hardship to the employers and workers concerned. The Minority Report, signed by five members of the Commission, agreed with the recommendations for improvements if the existing system continued but considered that the existing system even with the improvements would not represent the best method for dealing with employment injury or disease. They proposed that the existing system of workmen's compensation be abolished and replaced by the Social Insurance Occupational Injuries Scheme which was proposed to the Commission by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. This scheme was largely modelled on the industrial injuries schemes operating in Britain and Northern Ireland.

In determining the best way in which to make provision for employment injury, the principal considerations should obviously be the adequacy, both in range and amount, of the benefits to be provided to injured workmen and their dependants, and the provision of these benefits at minimum cost to employers and in such a way as to encourage as much as possible a workman's rehabilitation and return to work. It is also, of course, important that the benefits should be available without delay and that disputes between employers and workers in obtaining them should be eliminated as far as possible. Having most carefully considered the views of all the members of the Commission, I came to the conclusion, and I am happy to say that the Government agreed with me, that these requirements would best be met by the Bill which I am now submitting.

There are a number of fundamental faults in the present system, which would still remain even if that system were improved as the majority of the Commission recommended and which make it unsatisfactory as a means of financial protection in the case of persons injured or killed at their employment. In particular, the system allows too much scope for contention between the workman and the employer or his insurance company and rests in the last resort on the threat or practice of litigation. This tends to retard the workman's recovery and to prejudice good relations between him and his employer. Disputes are inevitable, with consequent hardship on injured workmen and their families where wages have terminated and compensation has not commenced. Numerous cases of this nature have come to the notice of my Department in dealing with interim claims for payment of disability benefit pending settlement of compensation claims.

A system under which compensation would be payable as a social service with the employer not involved in the claim is obviously more desirable. The present system also provides no financial aid for rehabilitation, no compensation for loss of faculty or disfigurement as distinct from incapacity for work and no allowances for dependants in respect of a non-fatal accident. Lump sum settlements are a major feature. Besides encouraging workmen to stay away from work until they receive them, these do not, in the Government's view, ensure the maintenance of necessary weekly income for injured workmen.

The system, even if the majority recommendations were implemented, would continue to be expensive and unwieldy: involving administration by insurance companies, the premiums of which would naturally include some element of profit; adjudication by the courts; a separate agency endeavouring to enforce compulsory insurance; a separate bureau for ensuring payment of compensation due where liability is not met otherwise; and, finally, a multiplicity of insurance companies lacking the procedural uniformity inherent in a centralised organisation and failing to provide security for injured workmen such as that which they now enjoy in regard to disability and unemployment benefits. The cost of administration of any such arrangement would be unnecessarily high and excessive by comparison with the scheme now proposed.

In the matter of overall cost, the contributions of employers under the Bill, to which I will refer at more length later, will amount to about £2,500,000 a year. This, together with their independent liability for common law damages, which was put by the Commission at between £930,000 and £1,150,000 if all employers were to insure against this risk, gives a total cost to employers of about £3,600,000 taking the higher figure. On the other hand, the majority of the commission calculated the cost of workmen's compensation with their improvements, and also including common law insurance, at between £2,990,000 and £3,190,000, while the minority of the commission disagreeing with these figures, put this cost at between £3,698,000 and £3,944,000. These estimates of the majority and minority did not, however, cover the cost of inpatient hospital services and outpatient specialist medical services to insured persons which the majority recommended should be met by the Social Insurance Fund, or the cost of enforcing compulsory insurance of workmen's compensation liability and of paying disability benefit to a workman immediately on his being entitled thereto without taking into account any question of his claim to workmen's compensation, which were also recommended. Including these costs, other than the cost of the medical services which were to be financed by increased contributions to the Social Insurance Fund, the total cost on the basis of the majority estimate could amount to £4,040,000 and, on the basis of the minority estimate, £4,794,000, and would involve also a small increase in the cost of the social insurance stamp.

I would like, however, to qualify the figures quoted by pointing out, as the Commission itself did, that any comparison of costs of this nature is fraught with uncertainty and it is not possible to indicate more than a general order of magnitude. I mention these figures merely to show in a general way that the cost of this scheme is not excessive by comparison with what employers would have had to pay if the majority proposals had been accepted. This is particularly so when one considers that the principal benefits in the Bill are about 18 per cent higher than those recommended by the minority in 1962 and, if a similar increase were made in the majority rates of compensation, their costs of their proposals as indicated above would be so much greater. It is, then, practically certain that the majority proposals would be more expensive than the proposals in this Bill which provides for benefits which are far superior.

While a comparison of overall costs can only be made in very general terms, a firmer assessment is possible regarding the proportion of contribution income to be returned in benefit. In this respect we can look to what has happened in the past when insurance companies provided cover against employers' liability including workmen's compensation. In this connection I will quote from the report of the minority of the Commission, who said:

Over the 33 years of the operation of the existing system for which figures are available to us, that is, from 1927 to 1959, less than 9/3d found its way into the hands of injured workmen in the form of workmen's compensation and damages at common law out of every £1 charged in premiums by the commercial insurance companies. Because of the very high awards in the Courts and settlements made out of Court in common law cases the actual amount out of each £1 of premium paid in compensation must have been significantly less than that figure. The balance of the £1 went to increase reserves and pay commission, expenses of management, and profits.

Under the proposals in the Bill, the entire income, less only costs of administration, will go in benefits to injured workmen, and, using the experience in Great Britain and Northern Ireland of a somewhat similar scheme and our own experience in administration of Social Welfare benefits, it is expected that the return in benefits should in the long-term be over 18/- in the £1. Moreover, the application of flat rate contributions to be collected on a single stamp with existing social insurance contributions, and involving no new enforcement machinery, and flat-rate benefits together with claims administration by one centralised Government Department rather than the involved system which I have already described dispersed over a number of insurance companies will clearly result in a considerable reduction in administration costs. Employers will, therefore, pay far less under the proposed scheme than they would have to pay if comparable amounts were to be paid to workmen by way of compensation under the existing system.

With regard to the most important question of benefits, Deputies will appreciate the obvious merit of the scheme in providing workmen and their dependants with a guaranteed payment, easily secured without recourse to litigation or dispute with employers. As I have already stated, the present system relies, in the last resort, on the threat or practice of litigation and this can place the injured workman in a very vulnerable position. The natural hesitancy of workmen, particularly those who look forward to resuming employment, to take court action against their employer, can result in workmen settling for less compensation than is properly due to them. On the other hand, it may happen that an employer who does not desire to take court action himself is forced to do so by his insurance company. The new arrangements will eliminate these objectionable features of the present system and thereby contribute towards more harmonious relations between employers and workers.

The range and amounts of the benefits provided are superior to those now afforded under the workmen's compensation system and to those recommended in the Majority Report. In regard to the increased range of benefits I would point to the provisions in the Bill for payments in respect of dependants and in respect of loss of faculty irrespective of whether there is incapacity for work, for pensions instead of lump sums in respect of both fatal and non-fatal accidents, for constant attendance required by a seriously disabled workman, and for medical care expenses. I consider the elimination of lump sum settlements of weekly payments of compensation to be a decided improvement. There can be few Deputies who have not come across cases in which the acceptance of lump sums has resulted in considerable and prolonged hardship due to the money being dissipated long before the need for compensation ended.

Information regarding the persons to be covered by the scheme and the benefits provided is given in the explanatory memorandum circulated with the Bill, and I will confine myself here to an outline, with some elaboration, of the main features. First, a word about the persons who will benefit under these proposals. Broadly speaking, the scheme will require compulsory insurance against personal injury caused by accident arising out of and in the course of employment, and against prescribed diseases due to the nature of employment, of all persons who are employed under a contract of service, other than non-manual workers whose remuneration exceeds £1,200 a year.

Subject to this limit, the scheme will also cover civil servants and public and local authority officials but not members of the Defence Forces or the Garda Síochána who are not now covered by workmen's compensation but who are provided for by special schemes. Persons such as taxi drivers employed in plying for hire under a contract of bailment are also included. The scheme will cover employed persons under the age of 16 and over age 70 who are not now insurable under the Social Welfare Acts. However, contributions, to which I will refer later, will not be payable for children under age 16.

The scheme will, therefore apply to persons now covered by the Workmen's Compensation Acts with the addition of persons in non-manual employment earning between £600 and £1,200 a year, and some others including certain share-fishermen. All share-fishermen under contract of service will be covered and, in addition, wholetime share-fishermen whether under contract of service or not.

I should add in reference to the coverage of civil servants that it is intended to modify the provisions of the Act, using regulatory powers conferred by section 12 of the Principal Act, the Social Welfare Act, 1952, so that established civil servants, will be ineligible to receive benefits under the scheme for the first six months following an accident and will only receive reduced benefits thereafter. The sick pay and pension arrangements of such persons will be adjusted in such a way as to ensure that they do not receive less than they would have done if they were fully qualified under the scheme. There will be a corresponding reduction in the insurance contribution payable for such persons.

In regard to the type of accident to be covered, the existing Acts provide compensation for an accident "arising out of and in the course of the employment" and this is to be the condition for benefit under this Bill. It was put to the Commission on Workmen's Compensation that the expression "arising out of and in the course of employment" has occasioned a great volume of expensive litigation, that its meaning is obscure and that the legal interpretation of these words has resulted in inequitable decisions which caused much hardship to workers in the past. As the expression is used in most systems of employment injury throughout the world, including the current industrial injuries legislation in Britain and Northern Ireland, and as its meaning is well settled as a result of decisions over the past 60 years, the Commission recommended that it should be retained.

They were agreed, however, that certain judicial interpretations of the expression have created hardship in some cases, chiefly due to the fact that the onus of proof rests upon the workman, and they accordingly recommend that the general condition of "arising out of and in the course of the employment" should be qualified in various ways so as to give a presumption in favour of the workman in cases where hardship could otherwise result. The suggestions of the Commission in this regard are being implemented in this Bill.

A change of particular importance is that an accident arising in the course of employment shall be deemed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, also to have arisen out of the employment. The onus of proving that an accident arose in the course of the employment will remain on the claimant to benefit, but he will not be obliged, as at present, to show beyond doubt that it arose out of the employment. To achieve this, he would have to establish that it arose because he was doing something which he was employed to do, or because the nature of the employment exposed him to some particular risk.

It is, for example, a common occurrence for skilled workmen to assist labourers to load and unload lorries so as to save time, but a carpenter, say, who helps to unload timber from a lorry from this motive could, under the present Acts, be refused compensation if he were injured in the process. The benefit of any doubt will be given to the workman in such cases in future. Another provision of this nature is to the effect that an accident happening in the course of employment which is due to another person's misconduct, or to the insured person being struck by any object or by lightning will be treated as arising out of his employment if he in no way contributed to the accident by an action not incidental to his employment. A provision of this nature was introduced in Britain and Northern Ireland in 1961 and an example given was of a bus conductor attacked by youths while on duty. It is clearly reasonable that compensation should be provided in such circumstances.

I mentioned in reply to a question in this House on 19th June, 1963, that the question of accidents due to lightning would be considered in connection with amending legislation. Accidents from this cause are specially referred to in the new provision and the position under which compensation could be refused in respect of a road-worker killed by lightning while cleaning out gullies to prevent flooding is, I am happy to say, now to be corrected. Another type of case which is specifically dealt with is that of a worker injured in an accident which occurs while he is travelling to or from his place of work in transport provided by or on behalf of his employer, other than transport operated as part of a public transport service. In the past, such cases have been compensated only where there was a contractual obligation to use the transport provided.

Special provision is also made to cover people injured in real or supposed emergencies on their employers' premises and apprentices injured while in attendance at a technical school or other place for training or instruction. In regard to the latter provision, instances were reported to the Comission on Workmen's Compensation of apprentices who were required by their employers, or by the terms of their contract, to attend technical schools or other place of instruction and who were not compensated for accidents on the ground that they were not working in their employment when the accidents occurred. Benefit will not be refused in respect of accidents which are due to a workman's misconduct. Under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, compensation is not payable where the accident is attributable to the serious and wilful misconduct of the workman unless the injury results in death or in serious and permanent disablement. Consequently, compensation is not with held if the consequences of the accident are serious but penalties are imposed if they are not.

The restriction of benefit to serious injury or death in such cases was dropped in Britain and Northern Ireland when their industrial injuries schemes commenced in 1948, it being pointed out at the time that while this might be justified by some kind of logic it was a source of considerable irritation in practice and its removal would be welcomed, and that in any event, before benefit becomes payable it must be shown that the accident arose out of and in the course of the employment. A somewhat similar change is made in regard to injuries which result from an action performed in contravention of statutory requirements or employer's orders. These will not be excluded so long as the act was done for the purposes of, and in connection with, the employer's trade or business, provided that the accident is such that it would have been regarded as arising out of and in the course of employment if it had not been the result of breach of orders by the workman. Under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, the injuries in such a case would be compensated only where they resulted in death or serious and permanent disablement.

Finally, as a general comment on the new provisions easing the conditions for obtaining employment injury benefits, I would mention that as early as 1925 the International Labour Office, in a survey of workmen's compensation for industrial accidents, stated that "everywhere modern compensation legislation tends increasingly to disregard the legal notion of fault and to take more and more into consideration the economic need for enlarging the sphere of occupational risk", while in a later survey in 1936, that Office stated "the principle of occupational risk ... has gradually replaced throughout the world the principle of employers' liability for industrial accidents as the legal basis for the right to compensation."

Turning to the details of the benefits under the scheme, the initial benefit for a workman meeting with an employment accident will be injury benefit. This will be paid, within the limit of pre-accident earnings, at a weekly rate of 115/- for the first twenty-six weeks of incapacity for work, with increases for adult and child dependants at rates similar to those applying in the case of disability benefit and unemployment benefit under the existing social insurance scheme, that is 40/- a week for an adult dependant, 13/- for each of the first two children and 8/- for each other child. Adult dependants will, as in the case of existing social insurance benefits, be a wife, dependent husband or woman looking after a widower's children, but the children to be treated as dependants will include, as well as all children under age 16, those between 16 and 18 if they are at school, in apprenticeship at low earnings or are invalids.

Married women who are maintained by their husbands will receive a reduced benefit but other married women and all single women and widows will receive the same benefit as men. The present arrangement whereby workmen's compensation is payable for the first three days of incapacity for work when the incapacity lasts for at least two weeks is being continued in the new scheme and injury benefit will, therefore, be paid for the first three days when the recipient has been incapable of work for 12 days, excluding Sundays.

In the majority of work accidents, the workman is able to resume work after a relatively short absence with no continuing ill effects. Consequently, it is expected that in most cases compensation will be by way of injury benefit only. However, where the effects of the accident continue beyond the period of injury benefit the workman will be given a long-term benefit related to the degree of his disablement or loss of faculty, that is to say, a benefit in respect of his loss of health, strength and the power to enjoy life. This will be paid by way of a pension except in cases of relatively minor disablement where a pension, if payable, would be very small and the payment will instead take the form of a lump sum.

This benefit, since it is not dependent on incapacity for work, may be paid to a person who has resumed work and, in this sense, corresponds to the existing provision whereby Workmen's Compensation may be paid to a person who is not incapable of work but has suffered some loss of earnings as a result of a work-accident. The new benefit, however, avoids the anomalies in the existing system under which a man's potential post-accident earnings are taken into account even though he is not receiving such earnings. Any such arrangement of reckoning notional earnings must inhibit a workman from undergoing rehabilitative measures.

The new benefit also has the merit that compensation will be payable where loss of faculty does not entail any loss of earnings but nonetheless leaves the workman under a possible life-long handicap. This will remedy the situation which can arise under the present system whereby, for example, a girl who has facial disfigurement as a result of an accident at work receives no compensation except and in so far as she has suffered loss of earnings. The rate of this benefit for total loss of faculty will correspond to the personal rate of injury benefit, 115/- a week in the case of a man, and proportionate reduced rates will be payable where loss of faculty is less than total.

A person receiving disablement benefit who is incapable of work or who is unemployed may receive disability or unemployment benefit, if he is otherwise qualified therefor, in addition. A special supplement to disablement benefit, unemployability supplement, is provided in the scheme, to ensure that persons who are permanently incapable of work as a result of occupational accident or disease will receive a payment corresponding to disability benefit at maximum rate, with increases for dependants. One important feature of the supplement is that in determining whether a person is permanently incapable of work, the fact that he is earning, or may be able to earn, up to £104 a year will be disregarded.

A further supplement of up to 40/-a week, or 80/- a week in exceptional cases, will be provided for persons who are 100 per cent disabled and are in need of constant attendance, otherwise than in hospital. This supplement will be paid irrespective of whether the attendance given is paid for or not, and, indeed, would be payable where the attendance is given by the workman's wife or other member of his family. It will be seen, therefore, that a man with a wife and two children who is permanently and totally disabled as a result of a work-accident may, subject to a limit of his pre-accident earnings, receive payments amounting to £15 13s. 6d, including the maximum allowance of £4 a week for constant attendance.

As a final word in regard to disablement benefit, provision is made in the scheme for the payment of disablement pension at the 100 per cent rate during any period in which the beneficiary is receiving in-patient hospital treatment required by his injury or loss of faculty, even though his loss of faculty would not otherwise warrant a 100 per cent pension. This provision, taken in conjunction with the payment of all his medical care expenses and entitlement to disability benefit or unemployability supplement will ensure that injured workmen are in no way deterred from undergoing treatment for their condition, including rehabilitation measures where these are suitable.

Dealing now with the benefits payable when a workman dies as a result of an occupational accident or disease, provision is made whereby the widow of such a workman will receive a pension of 95/- a week, together with allowances for children as in the case of injury benefit. A similar pension, with allowances for children, will be paid to a dependent widower of a woman who dies as a result of an employment accident or disease. To qualify for a pension the widower must be permanently incapable of self-support by reason of physical or mental infirmity. If he is not permanently incapable of self-support but was dependent on his wife at her death, he will receive a gratuity of £247, the equivalent of one year's pension. A pension granted to a widow will, as in the case of a widow's pension under the existing Social Welfare Acts, cease on her re-marriage. Pensions at the rate of 24/- a week will be payable to the dependent parents of a workman who dies as a result of a work-accident. If both parents were dependent, i.e. wholly or mainly maintained, two pensions will be paid. An orphan's pension of 47/6d a week will be granted in respect of an orphaned child or step-child of the workman and also for any orphaned child who was dependent on the workman at his death.

A funeral grant of £50 will be payable to the legal personal representative of the deceased but if there is no next-of-kin the £50 or a lesser sum if the funeral expenses are less than £50, will be paid to any person who has paid or is due the funeral expenses.

In addition to the benefits which I have outlined, injured workmen, or their dependants in fatal cases, will be entitled to any reasonable and necessary medical expenses incurred by a workman as a result of a work-accident. Under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, the only payment provided in respect of the medical expenses of an injured workman is a sum of up to £5 which a court may direct an employer to pay in addition to the compensation for which he is liable. The Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952, of the International Labour Organisation, requires that an employment injury benefit scheme should provide for free medical care, comprising, briefly, medical, surgical and pharmaceutical aid, including hospitalisation, and the supply and renewal of artificial limbs and surgical appliances.

As the Commission on Workmen's Compensation points out, a convention of this nature represents the general agreement of informed world opinion, and, indeed many countries elsewhere have adopted these standards of medical care in whole or in part. Our present system of workmen's compensation, under which not more than £5 is provided for medical expenses, does not by any means reach those standards and the proposals for the payment of medical expenses in this Bill will remove this serious deficiency in the existing system. Injured workmen will, as insured persons under the Social Welfare Acts, be eligible for the benefits provided under the Health Acts and Mental Treatment Acts and for treatment benefit under the Social Welfare Acts.

Unless, however, they are in the lower income group they will not be eligible under the Health or Mental Treatment Acts for general practitioner services and medicines or appliances supplied outside hospital, and they will be liable for charges of up to 10/- a day for impatient hospital treatment, 7/6d for an x-ray or 2/6d for any other treatment as a hospital outpatient. The cost to the injured workman of all of these services will be met under the new scheme. The cost will, of course, be limited to that which arises after the services provided under the Health Acts, Mental Treatment Acts or by way of treatment benefit under the Social Welfare Acts have been fully availed of.

As Deputies are aware, compensation is at present payable in respect of certain industrial diseases which are scheduled under the Workmen's Compensation Acts. The new scheme will also apply to diseases which are due to the nature of a person's employment, and provision is made for the making of regulations under which the diseases to be covered will be prescribed and the provisions of the scheme will be adapted to these special cases. The provisions dealing with the coverage of diseases under the existing Acts were examined by the Commission on Workmen's Compensation who found them to be too rigid. They, therefore, recommended adoption of provision in the Workmen's Compensation Acts similar to that now made in this scheme. The extent to which diseases will be covered by the scheme will be a continuing process and the list will, from time to time, be added to as our pattern of industry changes and as new diseases manifest themselves.

The Department of Health will, of course, be consulted in regard to the appropriations or otherwise of prescribing a particular disease. I should mention that it is intended to cover from the outset all the diseases at present scheduled under the Workmen's Compensation Acts with certain additions. In particular, the present coverage in respect of pneumoconiosis which is limited to coal mining or the search for coal will be extended so as to apply to any mining operation. A further addition of particular interest to farm workers will be the disease known as Weil's disease. Certain other diseases which are required to be covered by International Convention but which are not now covered by the Workmen's Compensation Acts will also receive immediate consideration.

The Workmen's Compensation Acts will be repealed as from the appointed day but employers will continue to be liable to pay compensation under those Acts in respect of accidents which occurred or diseases which were contracted before that date. The position of workmen receiving compensation under the existing Acts and who therefore do not come within the ambit of the new scheme has been carefully considered and it has been decided that some increase should be provided in this Bill. To increase the maximum weekly amount payable under the Workmen's Compensation Acts would increase the existing liabilities of individual employers or their insurance companies and it is proposed instead that any increases granted will be met from the contributions by the general body of employers to the Occupational Injuries Fund set up for this scheme.

Regulations to be made under the Bill will enable workmen's compensation recipients, who are permanently incapable of work or of earning more than £104 a year, to receive the unemployability supplement, with additions for adult and child dependants, which will be provided to a disablement pensioner in similar circumstances. The regulations will also give recipients of workmen's compensation who are 100 per cent disabled the same right to a constant attendance allowance of up to 40/- a week, or 80/- a week if exceptionally severely disabled, as recipients of 100 per cent disablement pension.

It is also intended to amend the regulations made under the Social Welfare Acts for payment of disability benefit with workmen's compensation so that concurrent payment of both benefits will be possible in cases where the supplement to which I have just referred is not payable. As Deputies are aware, disability benefit is not now payable with workmen's compensation except to the extent that such benefit exceeds the compensation. Since the standard rate of disability benefit for a man and wife will, from January next, be 92/6d, this means that a married man in receipt of workmen's compensation will, from the appointed day, be eligible to receive an increase of £4. 10. 0d a week if he is incapable of work or, being permanently so incapable, of earning more than £104 a year, and up to £8. 10. 0. if he is in need of constant attendance, subject to the limitation that overall payments will not exceed pre-accident earnings.

The persons who will be eligible to receive these additional payments are those who were at any time on or after 1st October, 1965, entitled to weekly payments of workmen's compensation.

I now pass on to the provision in the Bill which limits the total amount which may be paid by way of benefits, including any increases, in non-fatal cases to the amount of the workman's pre-accident earnings. Earnings for this purpose will be those at the time of the accident in the employment in which the accident occurred and will include perquisites or wages in kind, such as meals supplied to agricultural workers. Overtime payments will be excluded but where a person was working part-time, or was on short time, his earnings will be made up to the amount payable for a full normal working week in his employment. If his employer has nobody employed full-time at the same work the earnings of another worker in similar employment in the same district may be taken into account in calculating the earnings.

Acceptance of pre-accident earnings as the earnings, disregarding over-time or short-time, at the time of the accident rather than, as in the Workmen's Compensation Acts, the average earnings received over a period immediately before the accident follows on a detailed examination of the existing provision by the Workmen's Compensation Commission. The Commission came to the conclusion that in arriving at earnings greater weight should be attached to the fact that it was while the workman was in the service of a particular employer, and engaged on the particular work required by that employer, that he suffered injury, and accordingly it is more equitable and simpler to relate compensation to the weekly rate of wages payable at the time of the accident by that employer. No justification was seen for taking a rate greater or smaller than that actually in payment at the time of the accident by averaging that rate with rates paid by other employers for other work. No reduction on account of earnings will be made in the gratuities which will be payable where disablement is less than 20 per cent and a minimum payment, equivalent to the amount payable by way of pension for disablement of 20 per cent, will be made in all injury benefit and disablement pension cases.

As disablement pension, including any increase for dependants, unemployability or constant attendance, will be liable to reduction because of pre-accident earnings, provision is also made that disablement pension may be reduced where the amount of the pension, together with any disability benefit, unemployment benefit or unemployment assistance payable, is greater than the pre-accident earnings. There is also provision for review of the reduced amount of pension payable, in any case where the wages in the employment have increased since the date of the accident or where an apprentice or other young person would, were it not for the accident, have reached full adult wages.

Since a limitation by reference to earnings is to be placed on the amount of benefits payable to injured workmen for future accidents it is right that a similar limitation should also be applied to the weekly amounts which will be payable under this scheme by way of any supplement to workmen's compensation in respect of unemployability or constant attendance. Provision is accordingly included for a reduction of a person's weekly payment under the scheme if such payment along with his weekly payment of workmen's compensation would exceed the weekly earnings for the time being in the employment in which the accident occurred or the disease was contracted. A similar limitation will be applied in relation to disability benefit payable with workmen's compensation under the regulations, to which I have already referred, which will permit full payment of that benefit with workmen's compensation.

The new scheme will be administered by using the existing machinery in my Department for the determination of claims to social welfare benefits and by extending such administrative machinery where necessary. Claims for benefit will need to be supported by confirmation from the employer as to the circumstances of the accident or disease, and where the benefit claim is based on incapacity for work, periodic medical evidence will be required as in the case of claims to disability benefit under the Social Welfare Acts at present. Claims will be decided by deciding officers, who will refer questions of a medical nature, in particular questions regarding degrees of disablement, to medical referees in my Department. Specialist medical advice will be obtained where this is considered necessary.

A claimant will have a right of appeal against the decision of a deciding officer except in regard to short-term provisional assessments of disablement which of their nature are tentative and must be reviewed in any event. Appeals will be decided by appeals officers of my Department who may obtain further specialist advice on medical questions. Decisions by appeals officers on benefit claims will, as in the case of existing social welfare benefits, be final, subject to review only if new information as to the facts of the case comes to light or if there has been a change of circumstances which would warrant a revision of the decision. Any question of insurability will be determined by a deciding officer and there will be a right of appeal to an appeals officer with a further right of appeal to the High Court on a question of law.

To ensure that the circumstances of accidents will be recorded as early as possible after their occurrence and to facilitate the making of claims, provision is made for the giving of notice by workers to their employers of accidents which may give rise to claims, and for reports by employers of such accidents. There will also be arrangements whereby a workman who meets with an accident may seek a declaration that the accident arose out of and in the course of insurable employment, even if he is not immediately incapacitated or disabled, so that in the event of his being incapacitated or disabled in the future his right to benefit will be secured. Employers will also be required to furnish any information required for the purpose of deciding any claim, or application for declaration such as I have just mentioned.

The provision for disqualifying a person for receipt of injury benefit or disablement benefit for a period of up to six weeks for failure, without a good reason, to undergo medical examination or treatment or to observe rules of behaviour, is on similar lines to that already provided under the Social Welfare Acts in relation to disability benefit.

The duty of training disabled persons for employment suitable to their condition of health and for the making of arrangements with employers for placing disabled persons in suitable employment is, under the Health Acts, vested in local health authorities. Persons in receipt of occupational injuries benefits will be encouraged to avail themselves of these and any other rehabilitation services, and provision has been made in the Bill for a grant to be made out of the Occupational Injuries Fund, if necessary, towards the cost. Furthermore, recipients of disablement benefit receiving rehabilitation treatment as inpatients will be entitled to pension at the full 100 per cent, rate, with increases for dependants, and will be eligible to receive disability benefit or unemployability supplement.

With regard to the provision enabling financial assistance to be given to persons engaged on research into the causes and prevention of occupational accidents and diseases, and indeed for the Minister himself to employ persons to carry out such research, my Department will be very much concerned with the question of safety measures for all persons who will be covered by the scheme, in particular those whose safe conditions of working are not the specific concern of any Department at present. Comprehensive statistics of the incidence of occupational accidents and diseases do not exist at present and the experience of claims under the Bill and the information regarding accidents and diseases given therein will provide a new and very valuable basis on which to direct lines of inquiry into accident and disease prevention. The provision will also enable research to be carried out for the purpose of determining whether particular diseases, or injuries not caused by accident, should be prescribed for the purposes of the scheme.

I referred earlier to the cost of the scheme. I will deal now with the method of providing the funds to meet such cost. The scheme in general applies only to accidents occuring or diseases developing on or after the appointed day, although some provision is made for increases for existing workmen's compensation cases. The benefits include long-term payments by way of disablement pension and supplements, and survivors pensions. Yearly expenditure on benefits will, therefore, increase progressively over a considerable period of years until stability is reached.

The rates of contributions have been determined on a funded basis with the purpose of achieving an ultimate position of financial stability in which annual income, allowing for interest accruing from excess contributions in the earlier years, and outgo will balance. This means that the increased expenditure arising in later years from the growth in the number of pensions and supplements in payment will be met without the necessity of increasing the rates of contributions now provided. These are 2s. 1d for male employees and 1s. 6d for female employees and will, it is estimated, cover all the costs arising from the scheme. These are: the expenditure on occupational injuries benefits, payments in respect of medical care, payment of disability benefit with disablement benefit, the cost of supplements to workmen's compensation payments, including disability benefit paid with such compensation, payments towards rehabilitation and research, and the cost of administration. The contributions will be payable by employers.

Under the existing workmen's compensation scheme, employers are liable to pay the compensation provided under the Acts for injured workmen, and if they insure against this risk they must bear the full cost of the insurance. The contributions payable in future will form part of the overall social insurance contribution except where the person is insured for occupational injuries purposes only, e.g. persons over age 70. Contributions will not be payable for persons under the age of 16 and their title to injury benefit will be limited by regulations.

All contributions collected will be paid into a new fund, the Occupational Injuries Fund, which will meet all payments to be made under the scheme. There is provision for actuarial reviews at five-yearly intervals so as to ensure that the contributions are adequate to keep the Fund solvent at all times. As payments, especially payments to recipients of workmen's compensation, may have to be met in the early stages before sufficient contributions are paid into the Fund, there is also provision for borrowing from the Exchequer during the first two years of the scheme.

I have mentioned that disablement benefit, which is payable in respect of loss of faculty, may be paid along with any other benefit under the Social Welfare Acts, e.g., disability benefit. Disability benefit, which is a payment in respect of incapacity for work, will not, however, be paid concurrently with injury benefit or with unemployability supplement, which are also payable for incapacity, and as such, cover the same contingency. Similarly a widow's or orphan's pension under the existing Acts will not be paid concurrently with a widow's or orphan's pension under this scheme. These and other provisions necessary to ensure that there will not be double payment for the same contingency will be made in overlapping benefits regulations under the existing Social Welfare Acts.

Finally, there is a very important feature of compensation for employment accidents and diseases which remains to be dealt with. I refer to the question of damages which may be claimed by an injured person from a wrongdoer. This right of taking an action for damages in respect of a wrong is not, of course, confined to employment injury but this is the only aspect which arises in this Bill. At present if a workman is injured in circumstances which would give him a title to compensation under the Workmen's Compensation Acts and the circumstances are also such that he would have a claim for damages against his employer or a third party, based on negligence, he may be paid the compensation or the damages but not both. If he has accepted workmen's compensation he may make his claim at common law as well, but if the claim for damages succeeds any amount paid by way of workmen's compensation is recoverable by the employer.

It is not proposed to remove a person's existing right to claim damages under the Civil Liability Acts, 1961 and 1964, or otherwise at common law, in respect of injuries caused by the negligence of an employer or a third party, nor is it proposed that benefits under this Bill will be reduced as a result of any award of such damages. The Commission on Workmen's Compensation accepted in relation to such cases of double entitlement to benefit and damages that the Fund would not be relieved but that the common law damages would be limited to any margin by which the common law judgement exceeds the estimated capital value of the benefits received and to be received under the Occupational Injuries Scheme.

It is worth nothing in this connection that, even with the set-off of the benefits against damages, the Commission estimated that the cost of insurance by employers against common law damages only could increase by between £100,000 and £215,000 following the introduction of a social insurance occupational injuries scheme. To avoid a double payment to workmen by way of damages and benefit, and consequently a double charge on employers generally, it is provided in the Bill that the amount of injury benefit or disablement benefit, disregarding any increase for constant attendance but including all other increases, payable for five years from the time when the cause of action arises will be taken into account in an assessment of damages for any loss of earnings or profits accruing from the injuries.

The set-off is related only to damages for loss of earnings or profits and will not therefore affect damages awarded under other headings, such as pain and suffering, which are not, strictly speaking, reckoned in the determination of benefits. The period over which the value of benefits is to be calculated is limited to five years because, as the explanatory memorandum points out, it would generally be impracticable for a court or jury to estimate these benefits over a longer period. The provision made in the Bill in regard to reducing common law damages is similar to that now operating in Britain and Northern Ireland, except that, under their arrangements, workers share in the financing of the industrial injuries scheme and consequently only one half of the benefits received in the first five years is set off against damages. The provision for reducing damages does not apply, except in regard to funeral expenses, to damages awarded to dependants of persons fatally injured. It is considered right that in such cases, which are few in number, the widow or other dependant should receive the pension provided under the scheme and the common-law lump sum as well. A widow's pension under the existing Acts is disregarded in the assessment of common law damages.

Regard has been had in the preparation of this Bill to the most modern international concepts in the matter of compensation for employment injury. I have already referred to the requirements of the International Labour Organisation's Minimum Standards Convention of 1952 in regard to medical care but a more comprehensive measure was adopted by that Organisation only last year—the Employment Injury Benefits Convention, 1964. This Convention revised and considerably raised the standards of a number of pre-war Conventions, many of the provisions of which had been found by the International Labour Organisation to correspond no longer to the concepts and practices which have evolved since they were adopted. This country had not reached the position of being able to comply with even the lower standards provided for in the earlier Conventions. Compliance with the standards set by the new Convention, which has been achieved in this scheme, will mean that this country has made a significant step forward in the field of social security and be, for the first time, in the forefront of those countries which have highly developed systems of insurance against occupational injury and disease.

As a final word, I should mention that this Bill has been drafted by way of amendment of the Social Welfare Act, 1952, the basic social insurance Act. This will enable the new benefits to be operated within the existing machinery and obviates duplication of the general provisions required to deal with, for example, decisions on claims, appeals, overlapping benefits, etc.

The Bill represents a major advance in our social services, a completely new method of dealing with employment injury, and a greatly improved system of recompense for those injured while engaged not only in making their own livelihood but in contributing to the national economy.

As the Commission on Workmen's Compensation pointed out, however, it has long been recognised that compensation is not to be measured solely by cash and the restoration of the injured workman to full working capacity or to the maximum fitness that any residual disablement would allow is just as important, if not more so. This latter objective was constantly in mind in preparing this Bill. While providing substantially better cash benefits, provisions, such as now exist, which could inhibit a workman's rehabilitation have been studiously avoided. On the contrary, many provisions designed to assist and encourage medical treatment and rehabilitation have, as I have already shown, been specifically included.

I have, I think, given a reasonable summary of the provisions of the Bill, and I trust that those Deputies who have been pressing for the introduction of an earlier Bill will accept that it was worthwhile to examine methodically and thoroughly all aspects of the problem of employment injury and disease rather than precipitately introduce a measure which would be less satisfactory or comprehensive than the present Bill, which I now commend for the approval of the House.

(Cavan): Because this Bill proposes, even though belatedly, to increase the compensation and other benefits payable to injured workmen in the course of their employment, we accept it; but, because the Bill proposes to make the payment of compensation to injured workmen dependent on the decision of an official of the Minister's Department, with the right of appeal to another official of the same Department, and with no right of appeal to a truly independent tribunal of any sort, we cannot be enthusiastic about the Bill.

As the Minister has said, compensation for accidents to workmen, arising in the course of their employment, has since 1897 been payable under the Workmen's Compensation Acts. For over 30 years now, the Act which has governed the payment of compensation in these cases is the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1934. By and large, that Act operated very well. It gave general satisfaction both to the employers and employees. In case of dispute arising under that Act between a workman and his employer, the dispute was adjudicated upon by the Circuit Court and it should be said at this stage that down through the years Circuit Court judges operated that Act with great sympathy and understanding, and in case of doubt practically invariably came down on the side of the workman because they felt that it was better to err on the side of mercy and on the side of the workman if a mistake had to be made or if there was any doubt in the case presented to them.

When we come to the later Stages of the Bill, I will be pointing out the differences between the workmen's compensation code as it has been operated here down through the years and the proposals contained in the Bill. As I have said, the code worked very well and gave general satisfaction until the payments under the existing enactments became grossly inadequate, having regard to the increase in the cost of living.

When the 1934 Act was introduced, a workman who was totally incapacitated became entitled to the small weekly payment of £1. 10/-. After the commencement of the Second World War, that was increased by special order, if I am not greatly mistaken, to 37/6d a week and remained at that figure until the year 1955 when it was increased by the Workmen's Compensation Act of that year to £4. 10/-. The weekly compensation payable to a workman has stood at that figure of £4. 10/- ever since.

There can be no doubt whatever that for many years that weekly payment of £4. 10/- was grossly inadequate and this Party have appealed on several occasions to the Government to increase it to a figure that would be in keeping with the increase in the cost of living over the years. The Government have not seen fit until today to accede to that request from this Party and, indeed, from other Parties in the House.

It would be wrong that we should accept this Bill in toto as a measure without defects simply and solely —because it proposes to make good, at this late date, the wrong that workmen have been suffering since shortly after 1955. At any time since 1955, the Minister could have brought workmen's compensation payments up to date by introducing a short Bill containing a few sections. Therefore, in our approach to this Bill, and especially on Committee Stage, we should go through it section by section and ensure that it is improved very considerably.

As the Minister has informed the House, the proposal in the Bill is to transfer the liability for compensation to workmen in respect of injuries arising out of and in the course of their employment from the employer to the State and, in particular, to the Department of Social Welfare. It is proposed to finance the scheme by making it obligatory on employers to pay an additional social welfare contribution in respect of each employee —2/1 in respect of male employees and 1/6 in respect of female employees.

There is one question which I should like to pose at this stage. Is this scheme to afford complete indemnity by the State to workmen who receive injuries in the course of their employment or will a workman whose employer fails to pay this contribution of 2/1 per week or 1/6d per week, as the case may be, be excluded from benefit? If he is to be excluded, it is not much of an improvement.

Does the Minister propose to set up an organisation such as the Motor Insurers Bureau to ensure that in a case where an employer has failed to pay the contribution, the employee will be compensated? Indeed, it would not be necessary for the Minister to set up such an organisation because he could achieve the desired result simply by saying that a workman who is injured in the course of his employment is entitled to compensation from the Department of Social Welfare, even if his employer has failed to pay a contribution in respect of him. I should like that matter to be clarified. It is not clear from a reading of the Bill.

The next point I should like to raise is that if there is no such provision in the Bill, then an employee whose employer is a man of straw and who meets with an accident or is otherwise injured during the course of his employment has no redress whatever. If I am told that if his employer has not paid a contribution in respect of him, he can claim against his employer, I say that that is of no advantage to the employee if his employer happens to be a man of straw.

The next point I should like to make about the contribution, before I leave it, is that this seems to be a flat rate payable in respect of all employees. The contribution of 2/1d per week will be paid in respect of the clerical worker, just as 2/1d per week will be paid in respect of the builders' labourer or the employee operating woodwork machinery. At the present time, of course, there are various rates of insurance premiums. The insurance premium for a person engaged in operating woodwork machinery would be infinitely higher than that payable in respect of a clerical worker but, here, we have a flat rate, which appears to be inequitable. It seems employers and people employed in what might be described as fairly safe occupations will be subsidising the employers and employees in the more dangerous trades and occupations. That is one fault which is apparent in the Bill, as presented.

Another matter with which the Minister dealt is the question of common law liability. Let the House not get the idea and, certainly, let the country not get the idea that we are now, in this measure, shifting over from the employer to the State all liability in respect of injuries to workmen received in the course of their employment. We are doing nothing of the kind. I know the Minister has not said so but let us be clear about it. We are now proposing to transfer to the State liability in respect of injuries to workmen arising in the course of their employment which do not entail any common law liability on the employer. The employer, for his own protection, will still have to insure against his common law liability. He will still have to insure against its being held that he operated an unsafe system of working, or against his own negligence, or against the negligence of one employee in relation to another. He will have to pay to to the State 2/1d per week in respect of each workman he employs and, at the same time, pay a substantial premium to an insurance company to indemnify him against his common law liability.

I think the trend in other countries has been that when workmen's compensation was transferred to the State, common law liability or claims tended to increase substantially. I may be subject to correction but I think that has been the experience in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain. Therefore it is quite likely that the insurance premiums which employers will have to pay will not be substantially reduced. I think the increase in the weekly compensation and in the death benefits, and the provision of additional compensation for dependent children, are long overdue and I welcome those provisions.

There is a new provision in the measure which, for the first time, does not relate the compensation to the amount of weekly earnings of the injured person. A person earning £10 a week and another person earning double that amount may well get the same compensation. I know it is provided that a workman cannot receive more compensation than wages but you could have a case, under the proposals here, where a workman earning £10 a week might get the same compensation as a fellow workman earning double that amount.

The Minister has told us that lump sum settlements and payments have been abolished and he thinks that is a very good thing. What will the Minister or his advisers do in a case of doubt, in a case where it is difficult to decide whether or not a man is incapacitated? Under the code at the present time, the lump sum settlement was a very satisfactory way out in such cases. That has been removed from the present scheme. I think a pension for a dependent widow is a more satisfactory compensation for the death of her husband than a lump sum because it protects her from extravagance or from wasting the compensation she receives.

Before leaving that aspect of compensation, I should say the Minister has pointed out that a widow who becomes entitled to a pension under this scheme will not be entitled to a widow's pension under the Social Welfare Acts. The Minister realises, of course, that she may have contributed for a great number of years to the social welfare scheme and have become entitled to a widow's contributory pension. Notwithstanding that fact, she will not be given that pension under this Bill.

I notice that dependants appear to be confined to widows, widowers, orphans and parents. Under the code which we are now replacing, a dependent brother or sister or other collateral relations of a workman, were compensated. They are being excluded from this measure. In many cases in this country brothers and sisters are real dependants of workmen and are looked after by them. Notwithstanding that, they seem to be excluded from this measure.

The Minister has told us that damages at common law will be reduced by the amount of payments under this scheme calculated over a period of five years. In England and Northern Ireland, only one half of those benefits are taken into account in assessing damages at common law. The Minister should have followed the precedent set in England and Northern Ireland.

As I said at the beginning, my main objection to this new scheme is that the workman will be placed at the mercy of the Department of Social Welfare and that he will get much less sympathetic consideration from the deciding officer and the appeals officer who, I insist, are really full-time officers of the Minister's Department, who are really anonymous persons, than he would get from an independent tribunal. I am not here making a case that the present method of appeal to the Circuit Court should be retained as it is. I am not even making the case here that both branches of the legal profession should be heard by the independent tribunal to which I have referred, but I do insist that the workmen of this country will regret the day their right to compensation for injuries is decided by a deciding officer and an appeals officer of the Department of Social Welfare than by a Circuit Court judge or some other absolutely independent and unbiased tribunal.

People who have served long years in the Department of Social Welfare become biased unconsciously and quite honestly against claimants, and believe that all claimants are malingerers. Some years ago I acted as chairman of a board of referees, a tribunal which decided whether a workman was entitled to unemployment benefit or not. As chairman of that board, I had as registrar a civil servant who I am sure is not now in the service. Every time I found in favour of a workman, he appeared to be annoyed; he became irritated and lost his temper. He seemed to think my duty there was simply to decide that the workman was not genuinely seeking employment, that the distance the workman was asked to travel was reasonable, and that every time I should come down against the workman. That was, I suppose, his training and his experience, and he could not help it. That was his honest approach to the thing. I certainly did not agree with it and I was not guided by it. I fear that when the decision in these cases is handed over to the officers I mention, the workmen will get a less favourable deal than they are getting at the present time.

I come across cases quite frequently where workmen's compensation is paid and the Social Welfare supplement discontinued. That is a typical example of it. At the present time if workmen's compensation is not as much as the workman would be entitled to if he were ill under the Social Welfare Act, he is entitled to a contribution from the Social Welfare Fund. I know of several cases where workmen's compensation is paid by the insurance company and the Department suspend payment of the Social Welfare contribution on the recommendation of the medical referee.

I know other cases where, although the county surgeon and, in one case, the regional orthopaedic surgeon, certifies a man as unfit for work, the medical referee finds he is fit for work and he is left without any Social Welfare benefit for weeks until he appeals to the appeals officer, and even then it is hard to convince him. Those are cases which influence me greatly in coming to the conclusion that if this Bill is allowed to go through this House without some provision being written into it entitling the workmen to appeal to a proper tribunal, the workmen of this country will regret it very much.

Under the present system, if a workman meets with an accident and there is a dispute as to whether or not he is entitled to compensation, he goes to the Circuit Court judge. He gets an order for payment of weekly compensation and when he gets that order, his compensation cannot be terminated until the Circuit Court judge so decides and amends the order. Under the proposed scheme the absolute reverse appears to be the case. If the workman is being paid disability benefit, his benefit can be discontinued on the certificate of a medical referee and he can be left without any benefit for several weeks until such time as his case comes before the appeals officer. That is the complete reverse of the position that has existed under the Workmen's Compensation Act.

Again, under the scheme which will operate under this Bill, a workman is not entitled to be represented before the appeals officer by his legal representative, unless the appeals officer so decides. The workman should have the right to be represented before this tribunal by his legal repesentative.

I am not saying that there are not certain worthwhile provisions in this Bill. I have dealt with them and I approve of them but this is a Bill which must come under very close scrutiny in Committee, if the rights of workmen are to be adequately protected and safeguarded and if workmen are to continue to get the same sympathetic hearing and consideration as they have been getting from Circuit Court judges in this country down through the years.

The Labour Party welcome and support the general principles of the Bill which was introduced in July of this year because it implements the principal features of the minority report of the Workmen's Compensation Commission. The commission, as we know, was established by the Government led by Deputy J. A. Costello in which the Leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Corish, was Minister for Social Welfare, on 21st December, 1955, nearly ten years ago. That body reported to the Minister in February, 1962. The commission sat for more than four years and the Minister's predecessor added to the commission representatives of the insurance companies with the object of weighing down in a certain way the findings of the commission.

The Minister in his opening speech said it was better to wait and get a good Bill like this rather than rush it as some of us had suggested during the past few years. Most of what is contained in this Bill has been in operation in Britain and in Northern Ireland for a long number of years and we had the example of its working. If we wanted to compare actuarially we had the practical experience of the working of such legislation close to us. We do not, therefore, agree that it was necessary to wait until 1965 to introduce this Bill. That is not taking away from our support of this Bill as it is because we believe, despite what Deputy Fitzpatrick has said, that it was time the handling of affairs affecting the livelihood of so many men and women in this country was taken out of the hands of the insurance companies and of the courts who in many cases found it extremely difficult to deal with insurance companies. Some of the settlements obtained were considered very generous; some of the settlements were a disgrace. Apparently that was the way workmen's compensation legislation worked for years. It became a kind of law unto itself. All sorts of obscure judgements could be cited. When some unfortunate man looked as if he would get a decent settlement the law said it must follow suit, but the direct opposite to what Deputy Fitzpatrick said occurred because we had so many people not insuring their workers and who, when cases were taken against them, were the men of straw Deputy Fitzpatrick referred to and nobody got anything.

In this Bill at least insurance is compulsory. At least we are insisting that everybody, even those under 16 years, even those over 70, who are insurable under the social welfare code, will be insurable for workmen's compensation and occupational injury purposes. Having said that, I agree with Deputy Fitzpatrick that this is principally a Committee Stage Bill. It is a Bill, I may say, that the Minister will not get through as framed because he will get numerous amendments from the Labour Party and I feel sure Fine Gael will also have amendments. That is what makes good law—that Members of the House will attempt to persuade the Minister and their fellow Members that the Bill is not framed in the best possible way, that it can be beneficially altered.

While the Occupational Injuries Bill is a great improvement on the workmen's compensation code, nevertheless, it falls far short of a proper comprehensive occupational injuries code which is a desirable and necessary feature of our social welfare code. The four essential elements in such a code are prevention, compensation, hospitalisation and rehabilitation. An examination of the commission's report reveals that in the first of these elements the Minister for Social Welfare has done nothing at all. There has been no positive legislation in the matter of agriculture and this was the object of special comment by the commission.

Perhaps the Minister will explain why he has not made any effort to ensure that this particular hazard is dealt with. We all know that at present there are far too many accidents in agriculture. Talking about agriculture, it is extraordinary that there are not so many accidents as occupational diseases in agriculture—that farm work has become one of the most hazardous occupations in the country. Deputy Fitzpatrick said that woodwork machinists who operate saws have got hazardous jobs but it is true that more people are knocked out of work in agriculture through injury and industrial diseases than in any other branch of industry in the country. We have a situation where many kinds of new-fangled weed killers and various types of fertilisers are being used, most of which change from day to day and week to week so that if somebody suffers from an industrial disease as a result of using some of them, that by the time he takes action the composition is no longer on sale.

This is something which must be faced by the Government if we are to have a really comprehensive Bill to meet this sort of thing. I am glad the Minister has decided to extend the provision affecting coal miners who unfortunately suffer from pneumoconiosis. I do not know what the incidence of this disease is in mines other than coal mines. I am sure there is some of it and it is only right other miners should be covered as well.

In framing the Bill, the Minister has slaughtered a number of sacred cows and it is rather a pity he has not removed all the warbles which are injuring a perfectly good hide. Every marginal case has been brought within the scope of the Bill but the deciding officers and the appeal officers will be working entirely on new frontiers, far beyond the horizon of the Workmen's Compensation Acts. I suppose it will be the same set-up. Employers' and workers' representatives will be on the assessors panel when appeals come up for consideration. I agree with Deputy Fitzpatrick when he says there is a danger there.

We all know that in this House the Minister has again and again been questioned about the long delay there is from one hearing of an appeal to the next. The Minister made a statement to me here some months ago which rather shocked me. Possibly he did not mean it in the way in which he said it. However, to me, it did convey that if somebody had been examined by one of his officers and was declared not unfit for work, there was no hurry in having his appeal heard, there was no necessity for hurry to have his appeal heard. From that, we must assume that it was considered by the Department that he was, in fact, fit for work.

What will happen if the same thing occurs with somebody applying for compensation under this Bill? Deputy Fitzpatrick says it is true that sometimes you will find workmen's compensation being paid, and continued to be paid, if the supplement by the Department of Social Welfare is stopped but it is also true that in many cases the Department of Social Welfare pay benefit to people who would starve but for the fact that they are paying it because the insurance companies have stopped paying the workmen's compensation.

There are two sides to every coin. I think the most serious one is the fact that, having this situation changed now, the Department of Social Welfare will be there. Consider the position if the Department decide that a man is fit for work and should be fit to resume, even though the local medical evidence is against that decision, even though the surgeon in the local hospital is against that decision. I know of a couple of cases where this happened. They say the man is unfit for work. He has no other Department to fall back on and if he does not get social welfare benefit, he is literally starved into going back to work. This is an aspect which the Minister and the House will have to take cognisance of because there is a danger that, with the present system we have of appeals under the Department of Social Welfare, we may have grave injustices and apparently there is no appeal against this.

There is another aspect about which I should like to ask the Minister. What provision has he made to meet the huge demands which will fall on his Department as soon as this Bill becomes law? Is it not true that far more Social Welfare appeals officers will be required? Is it not true that extra personnel will be required to deal with this tremendous situation? Mind you, it is not just simply a matter as has been said here, of fitting it into the Department of Social Welfare: further personnel will be required to handle the whole thing. Is it proposed to have the necessary personnel ready and will every effort be made to ensure that if any mistake is to be made, it will not be made at the expense of the unfortunate person who is out of work because of an injury at work?

There is one thing in the Bill which it rather surprises me has been continued and the Minister himself seems to think it is a great idea. I refer to the words "accident arising out of and in the course of employment." I should like to point out that, in the Bill itself, 69 lines of print are required to explain the extended scope of the occupational injuries code because of the unnecessary and undefined word "accident". What is an accident? If a stockman is tending a bull and it knocks him down and injures him seriously, is that an accident? Did the bull not do it deliberately? If a bus conductor is coming home late on a Saturday night and a group of teddy-boys attack him, is that an accident? Was it not deliberate? Why is the word "accident" kept there? Would it not have been much better if it had been phrased in a different way? If you put in the phrase "injury not self-inflicted", it would have the same effect. It could not be misunderstood in the way in which the word "accident" is misunderstood and it might possibly save a lot of the wrangling which is bound to occur despite the fact that the Minister says the phrase "accident arising out of and in the course of employment" is so wide that there will be no danger at all of anybody being ruled out because of a doubt that it did occur——

(Cavan): You would have to say “not wilfully self-inflicted”.

The Legislature of Queensland deleted the word "accident" from its code in 1944. I understand it is also being taken out of compensation codes in a number of other countries. In fact, in some of the countries in which it is retained, the word "and" has been substituted by the word "or", so it reads: "accident arising out of or in the course of employment". The Minister might consider this. He may feel it is a trivial matter but he might consider it. Knowing how some of these appeals are twisted and how difficult it sometimes is to get across the actual meaning of some of these phrases, particularly when we have not the legal men to work out the actual concise meaning of a word, it is important that there should not be any room for doubt.

The code is not proposed to relate to wages or loss of earnings. The injury benefit at the rate of 115/-, supported by the standard Social Welfare benefit for dependants, is possibly for the initial injury period and these payments may be continued for a period of 20 weeks. The benefit proposed for a married person having three children is £9 9s, plus 8/- for each other child dependant.

The introduction of a pension for loss of faculty, assessed at 20 per cent or more, payable for life, should encourage an injured workman to resume work as soon as possible. It means that if he is prepared to resume the work, his compensation is not reduced and his right to further compensation is not jeopardised in any way. This is a good idea. It is in operation in other countries and I see no reason why it should not have a good effect here.

I am very glad also to see that compensation for disfigurement is included whereby disablement benefit is payable following an accident, though the injured person may be capable of resuming work. It should help to keep persons at work where injuries of a minor nature are at present holding them up until the case is settled.

Small lump sums, gratuities, and so on, are payable in respect of minor injuries. The new code is clearly concerned with continuing payments of maintenance and income. This is a good idea because many lump sums paid under the existing code were not really in the interest of the insured worker. Some people did make a very good living as a result of receiving a substantial lump sum in workmen's compensation, and were able to live well where otherwise they would have been in very bad circumstances for the rest of their lives, but there are many cases of people who, not knowing the value of money, spent it rather foolishly whereas if they had had a weekly income, which would be continued, they would be much better off, at least in the eyes of the onlooker, though nobody except themselves knows whether they are doing well or ill.

It is difficult to assess the value of the disablement benefits after injury appropriate to any particular degree of disability. These have not been described so I presume the Northern Ireland table of injuries and assessment will apply. This raises a question. Why is it that the rates operated in Northern Ireland until March 1965 when the basic rate of benefit was increased by £1 from 115/- to 135/-a week and the maximum gratuity was increased to £450 do not operate? The settlements for dependants are also higher in Great Britain. Why is it that it is on last year's benefits the assessment is made for this new Bill? In other words, we are, as far as the benefits are concerned, £1 a week under Great Britain and £1 a week under Northern Ireland. In fact, this is so, despite the fact that the amount being paid for this benefit by the employer here is greater than that being paid either in Great Britain or in Northern Ireland.

There is a possible explanation which I do not, at the present time, understand. Perhaps the Minister might take the trouble to try to explain why this occurs? It is difficult, I suppose, to forecast, with any degree of accuracy, the likely cost of the proposed benefits or, for that matter, the cost of parity of the scheme. But we have, as I said earlier, the experience of the system in Great Britain and in the Six Countries for quite a long time. I am sure the Minister is aware that the absence of heavy industry and mining risks in Northern Ireland has had a significant effect on expenditure. Because of the fact that those risks are not in Northern Ireland but are in Great Britain, the cost of running the scheme in the Six Countries is very much less per head than it is in Great Britain. Moreover, the published reports reveal that the actuarial forecast of the rates of contribution have been over-estimated because it has been found possible on occasions to increase the benefits and reduce the contribution. The weekly contributions are sufficient to maintain solvency and build up a fund. The latest reports estimate that the British rate of contribution is slightly less than 1d. a week above solvency level. That being so, I cannot see how the Minister's advisers could have reached the figure of the benefits and the costs which they have produced, particularly because of another factor which I will comment on later.

The present all-in weekly contribution in Great Britain, including the Exchequer subsidy of 20 per cent, is 22.8 pence and this is .9 pence above solvency. The required contribution is 21.9 pence and the net requirement in Northern Ireland is 21.25 pence which is sufficient to support the basic rate of injury benefits and disablement benefits which are £1 a week higher than the 115/- in the Bill, together with which there is a special hardship allowance of up to £2 14s. 0d. This special hardship allowance is not mentioned at all in our Bill. It appears as if somebody is either attempting to make sure that there will be no possible loss on the scheme or that there will be a substantial profit on the scheme. There may be one possibility which I have not over-looked—the Minister will probably explain it—that because of the arrangements being made over the present type of workmen's compensation being paid, and the necessity to supplement it in a number of cases, it is required to have more than that which would have the new scheme solvent under normal circumstances. If that is so, the Minister should say so because it appears that the present scheme is not too easy to explain or to understand.

The estimated cost of the special hardship allowance is 4d. a week. Since the proposed scheme does not include a special hardship allowance, the weekly contribution could be 4d. lower or 17.25 pence a week. Perhaps the Minister might like to explain how the disparity occurs? Briefly, why is this charge being made if we are paying £1 a week less than the other two places I have quoted and paying no special hardship allowance? It appears as if there is something a little screwy and I would like the Minister to explain it. I may say, by way of comment, that the average degree of disablement in Great Britain is 30 per cent and in Northern Ireland it is 33 per cent. The disablement benefit is assessed in accordance with the prescribed degree of disablement. A gratuity of £380 is being given here for a 20 per cent degree of disablement. It probably exceeds the lump sum granted by insurance companies in respect of some period of incapacity. The same 20 per cent in Great Britain would entitle a person to £450.

With regard to occupational injuries, a gratuity is payable in addition to the weekly benefit. I should like to know, with regard to the special hardship allowance, whether this has been considered at all by the Minister. As I said, in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a special hardship allowance of up to 54/- is payable in 1965. It was 46/- in 1954. This benefit is paid when an injured worker is unable to perform his usual occupation or to do work of an equivalent standard. The special hardship allowance in Great Britain is 80 per cent of the cost of the disablement benefit. In Northern Ireland, 65 per cent of the disablement benefit attracts a special hardship allowance. The special hardship allowance payable in addition to the disablement benefit is a settlement of major importance. The disablement benefit would have been a failure in Great Britain and Northern Ireland but for the hardship allowance. I do not believe the disablement benefit scheme will give satisfaction unless the special hardship allowance is provided. I should like to know why it has been omitted from the Bill.

There is another thing I should like to comment on, that is, the three waiting days. The three waiting days period has been retained unless the injured person is disabled for two weeks. No cash benefit is paid during that period, although the injured person would be entitled to medical attention during the first three days. I do not think it is reasonable to deprive an injured person of such benefit. In fact, disablement benefit can be paid out of the fund to persons who may not lose any time at all.

There is one provision for which I suppose there is a very good reason but it is a source of worry to those of us who are responsible for striking the rates. Here again, as in workmen's compensation up to now, the cost of the injured workman, if he has got a general medical service card, goes on the scheme. Up to now, I thought it was a disgraceful thing that if somebody who was ill and was being paid workmen's compensation—and in fact medical fees were given in certain circumstances to those people, even in a court of law—had a medical services card then the local rates had to pay for whatever he would be entitled to and thereby the insurance companies were getting away with the cost of that man's medical attention. This is included here again. I assume the Minister will say that the extra cost might be very substantial and I agree that it is a good way of keeping a check on such expenditure. For that reason, there is a certain amount of justification for it but I am not altogether happy with it. The sooner we reach the stage where an insured person is entitled to medical care by right without having to look for a medical card, the better it will be for all concerned. The maximum payment for a single person is £5 15s and this represents only 40 per cent of the average wage.

I do not know whether the Minister when devising the Bill considered something which was mentioned to me by Deputy Larkin, that is, the question of the worker who is injured going to or coming from his work. All of us have had experience of a man who was so injured but because of the fact that he had just left his work and was on his own bicycle, or perhaps was walking, it did not count. It does not count unless he is carrying tools belonging to his employer or going to a specified place. I remember the case of a carter who was employed by a county council and who was setting off for work in the morning with his cart. He had a barrel of tar on the cart and therefore would normally have been considered to have been in the occupation of his employer. However, as he was going through his gate to the road, he put his foot on the stock of the wheel and the horse turned around and went back into the garden and the man's leg was caught and broken. The insurance company representing his employer refused to accept responsibility on the ground that the accident did not occur between the man's house and his place of employment and that he had gone a few yards towards his house. That case was sustained in court. The man was out of work for a long time and received no compensation. The Minister might consider trying to cover cases like that in the Bill. We have had quite a lot of these cases of a man falling off his bicycle on his way home, or slipping off a fence, and unfortunately these things happen at the wrong time. The Minister might consider including a section to cover that particular type of accident. If he does, he will be improving his Bill.

I believe the Bill is a step in the right direction. I would hate to see it being held up because of the fact that the £4 10s. which was introduced in 1955, and is still in operation, is very much less than what would be required to sustain an ordinary person, not to talk about a man or woman suffering from an occupational injury. The present system whereby the workman's income has to be supplemented by social welfare, where he has a family, makes the matter even worse. I hope the Bill will go through this House and eventually become law in as quick a time as possible but having said that, I want to tell the Minister that there are a number of small sections which will require amending. We intend to submit amendments to improve the legislation. That does not mean that we are opposed to the Bill because, as I said already, we think it time this was done. The greatest fault is that it took the Government so long to uncover the egg which had been hatched for ten years. Let us hope it is going to be a good egg.

The administration of this is something about which the Minister will have to be very careful. As the Minister knows, I have great respect for his Department and the way in which they administer their affairs and the way in which they are able to deal with something when it is brought to their notice but I have found, particularly in recent months, that there are quite a number of things which I have to bring to their notice and I am sure other Deputies are reaching this position also. I should hate to think that some injured workman would be left without means of sustenance until he eventually contacted a Deputy who brought the matter to the notice of the Minister's Department. When the Bill is going through, we must try to ensure that it will be operated in such a way that matters can be dealt with in a reasonably speedy time.

To come back to the comments made by Deputy Fitzpatrick, he is a legal man and has far more experience of these things than I have, but as an ordinary layman, I could give to the Minister and the House a list of a couple of dozen cases of workmen's compensation which started some years ago and which do not appear as if they are ever going to end. Some are receiving compensation; some were receiving it for a period but it has stopped. Some of them have never received any compensation despite the fact that these people have been insured. It appears that an early change is needed.

Finally, I do not know whether those in the legal profession have become aware of it or not but certainly those who are close enough to the sufferers have noticed that there is a hardening on the part of insurance companies, even in pretty trivial cases since this measure was introduced. Apparently, an effort is now being made to avoid being involved in any more payments until this Bill is passed in the hope that the responsibility will pass to somebody else. I see the Minister is making arrangements whereby any agreements or arrangements that have been reached before this measure must be honoured by the insurance companies concerned but it is true that quite a number of cases will drag on until immediately after the Bill is passed and, therefore, very definite efforts must be made to get those cleared up.

We welcome the Bill and in its final form we trust it will do all we hope it will do for the injured workers.

This is a very good Bill and should improve workmen's compensation considerably both from the employers' and the workers' point of view. Since workmen's compensation can be put on the same level as social welfare it is only appropriate that the Department of Social Welfare should undertake the administration of workmen's compensation in another form. The Minister has so arranged it that the cost of benefits under the new system he is introducing will be less than the costs under the present system and that means more benefits will be derived than could be derived from the premiums paid to commercial insurances. The Bill will give more stability to employers. The State will, from now on, take the part of the insurance which was definitely inadequate and not benefiting sufficiently either workers or employers. The cost of insurance to the employers in many cases was very high and also in many cases the insurance companies fell down on the job. Most Deputies will know of cases in which the insurance company failed to pay denying liability on some ground or another leaving the employer in the unfortunate position of having to meet the claim against him. In nine cases out of ten, the employer was not capable of doing this because of insufficient funds.

From the employer's point of view, this Bill also stabilises the position. He will now pay no contribution towards the benefits he will derive from the Bill. Up to now in many cases when a worker had a claim he had to go to court in an effort to solve his problems. In many cases this did not solve anything because he received a lump sum and we all realise that a lump sum is very attractive to the ordinary worker on the day of receipt but the worker is not capable generally of stretching out his money to cover him during his period of incapacity. I am glad the Minister has provided that the worker will receive a weekly sum instead of a lump sum. Many workers accepted lump sums which were inadequate. They were so long waiting for the money that they were willing to settle for any figure offered even though it was not sufficient to cover their period of incapacity.

In future there will be no confusion between workmen's compensation and disability benefits, a factor which caused hardship to many families and individuals in the past. I am also glad that the Minister has stabilised the price of the stamp. Under the new system in respect of each male worker the employer will have to pay 2/1d and in respect of each female worker, 1/6d. I think this is very fair and I am glad that the Minister has taken into account the fact that some employments have greater risks than others and he has levelled them all out so that the same rates will apply regardless of the employment.

There is only one point on which I am inclined to disagree, that is, in regard to agricultural workers whose stamps will now be 2/1d. If the agricultural workers' compensation is based on his pre-accident earnings, I imagine he will not receive the same benefits as his fellow-workers in industry or in other spheres. I should like to see the Minister amending the Bill to assist the agricultural worker to the extent that he would derive the same benefits, if incapacitated, as every other worker. I have no doubt this Bill will be accepted by the House.

Is mian liom an t-Aire a mholadh as ucht an Bhille seo. Níl le rá agam ach go dtaithneoidh an Bille seo le gach éinne agus go molfaidh gach Teachta é.

This Bill introduces two fundamental changes in the system of workmen's compensation as hitherto operated. I am quite unconvinced that either of them is necessary or that it will benefit the workman. I am approaching consideration of this Bill entirely from the point of view of the workman. Approaching it from that aspect, and from the experience I have had over a very considerable number of years of the operation in this country of workmen's compensation, I have no doubt this is an employer's Bill and not a workman's Bill.

Deputy Fitzpatrick, in stating the attitude of this Party, said we were not enthusiastic about this Bill. That is putting it mildly. It is a gross understatement. The first principle that would appear to operate, if this Bill goes through, is the transfer from the employer to the taxpayer of his liability in respect of negligence and accidents to his employees. What is the justification for that? Why should the taxpayer have to pay for an employer's accident to his employees? In particular, in cases of hazardous employments, where even insurance companies were forced to charge prohibitive or almost prohibitive premiums— certainly very high premiums—for insurance, why should employers get assisted by the taxpayers to discharge their liabilities to their injured workmen?

The Minister devoted a perfunctory series of pages giving the reasons for the change from the personal liability of the employer to the taxpayer. I was quite unconvinced by the manner in which he approached that and the reasons he gave for it. What is the point of setting up a Commission and of asking expert people to give their services for a period of almost seven years? Day after day, week after week, certainly month after month over that long period they gave their services voluntarily to the consideration of the very difficult problems implicit in workmen's compensation. Those people made a Report which is, I think, a monument of hard work, great consideration and great public service. But they get a perfunctory two or three lines from the Minister in his statement thanking them very much: "You are very good but we do not give a hoot about what you say." This Commission was presided over by a distinguished judge, Judge Shannon, who had far more experience of workmen's compensation and its working and the needs of the workman in connection with that than anybody in this House, in the Labour Party or in the Labour movement. He was the man who, I would say, was one of the most judicial people I have come across in my time.

He was in his younger days.

At all events, he had far more experience of the working of that and brought to it, as Deputy Fitzpatrick said, what practically all branches of the judiciary brought to the consideration of the rights of workmen—complete sympathy, knowledge and understanding of what was required in the working of this Act, Everybody knows that the Act of 1906 was supposed to have been passed by the British Parliament in such a form that anybody could read it and that it would be the simplest possible measure to work. There were never so many decisions and consideration of complex facts decided by various courts as under the Act of 1906. The one outstanding feature of the administration of that Act was the attitude of the House of Lords. During all the years until we ceased to have anything to do with them the highest tribunal in the British system were always in favour of the workman. That is the proven fact in connection with the administration of that Act. As Deputy Fitzpatrick again pointed out, every Circuit Court judge and the Supreme Court always approached the consideration of problems dealing with the workman from a sympathetic point of view and with complete sympathy towards the workman.

I want to say this in favour of my own profession and of Deputy Fitzpatrick's profession, too. This system worked well, and is still working well, in the courts here because it got the support and the work of the solicitors and barristers throughout the country, particularly the young barristers. Both gave their services free if necessary and, in my view, no workman ever lost a case or ever lost an opportunity of presenting his case to the country because he had neither solicitor nor counsel. The young counsel who travelled down the country and those who practised in the cities of Dublin and Cork all gave very good services indeed to the workmen. There is no use in anybody saying that the insurance companies did not do this, that, or the other; whatever they did, they did it because they were forced to do it by young counsel, and frequently, young solicitors. They saved the taxpayer the expense of a free legal aid system by the services they gave throughout the years in connection with the administration of this Workman's Compensation Act.

The second principle involved in this Bill takes away the rights of the workmen from the courts. The workmen will lose. They will feel the draught very much when they can no longer have their rights brought to the courts as has been done all down the years. Certainly, as far as I and my Party are concerned, I hope we will fight against this in every possible way and, if at all possible, bring back the right of the workman to bring his case to court and have it decided by an independent tribunal and not by bureaucrats. I am not saying anything in disparagement of them, but they are not fitted for this work; they are not suitable because they have no experience of it. I want to know, first, why was the change necessary? This tribunal, that worked for seven years, came to a conclusion which they expressed in paragraph 496 of their Report:

Our broad conclusion from these calculations is that the cost to employers of these different systems would be more or less the same.

They had just gone through all the various systems that had been suggested and had them actuarially examined. They went on:

While the Flat-Rate Social Insurance Scheme would appear on the face of it likely to cost rather less than the present system as amended by the Commission's proposals or the Monopoly State Insurance Authority Scheme, allowance must be made for the fact that the costings for the Social Insurance Scheme take no account of the possible impact on common law claims of the higher workmen's compensation benefits under that Scheme nor do they include provision for the additional cost of disability benefit from the Social Insurance Fund under this Scheme, which might involve a further £250,000 a year of which almost £200,000 would be contributed by taxpayers and employers. In view of this it appears to us that the decision as between these different systems is one that must be taken primarily on the basis of their relative intrinsic merits, including, of course, the relative volume of benefits or claims which would reach the hands of injured workmen. We were strongly influenced by the arguments in favour of the preservation of the status quo and the undesirability of interfering with the established private enterprise system unless substantial advantages could thereby be achieved.

That is a conclusion the Minister has taken up only by a series of superficial points, all of which were examined by the Commission itself.

It is no use my wasting the time of the House trying to get a change of attitude so far as this first point is concerned. I do not think it is possible now to change the notion that the taxpayers are to be brought to the help of employers. Apparently that has been decided by the Labour Party and the Fianna Fáil Party, but I do not think the case has been made for it. I am not talking now for insurance companies: I hold no brief for them. In fact, very seldom did I hold a brief for them. Mostly I appeared for workmen. However, I am speaking here tonight in relation to this Bill and my criticisms are directed against it because I have the interests of the workers, from the point of view of compensation, at heart. I know something about it. The case has not been established as to why the taxpayers should pay, but that is what is being done.

I do not think the Minister in the course of his speech—he will correct me if I am wrong—gave any indication of the number of extra civil servants that will be required on foot of this Bill. And it is not just a question of an increase in numbers; it is a question of increased cost as well. Deputy Tully, I think, adverted to that aspect in the course of his comments on the Bill. No one in the Department at the moment has any experience of workmen's compensation. Again, that is not a criticism. It is a statement of fact. Existing Civil Service personnel know nothing about it. They have had no experience of it. It is not their job to know it. But it is a job solicitors, particularly solicitors down the country, know very well.

I said that the system has worked well. There are very few legal actions in court now under the Workmen's Compensation Acts. Things have settled down and the system works very well. More particularly still, it works for the benefit of the worker. How the Minister can justify his present attitude is beyond me. The taxpayers are being met with increased demands. As employers they will have to pay an additional sum for their employees. They will also have to pay additional taxes to help relieve employers of their liability. What will they be asked to pay under the heading of increased Civil Service personnel? There is, I think, some suggestion in the Minority Report that what they coyly call the cost of administration would actually run to something like £200,000. That estimate was made a considerable number of years back. What would the figure be in terms of today's costs? Treble that sum. Multiply it by five, rather, and you will have something nearer to the actual cost.

The taxpayers are entitled to know why they should have to pay for the employers. I agree some system of compulsory insurance was long overdue. The system of accident insurance has worked fairly well and methods have been devised to cope with those who drive motor cars while not properly or fully insured. The same could be done in this instance. I am not at all convinced by the very meagre reasoning of the Minister that the taxpayers generally should be called upon to discharge a liability employers have to their workers, but that is what is proposed here. The taxpayers are being asked to take upon themselves the duties of the employers. Why should they? I cannot see the argument at all. I can see the point of view of the workman who believes that, if he is injured in the course of his employment, his employer should pay. Surely it should be possible to devise another system which would give all that is proposed in this Bill without imposing an additional heavy liability on taxpayers generally and still more bureaucracy on the country as a whole. There is far too much of it.

I want now to deal with the second proposal, which I describe as simultaneously the most important and the most pernicious in the Bill. Workmen's rights are being taken away from them by this Bill. I emphasise that again. Deputy Tully asked why there should be a definition in this section of an accident as something arising out of and in the course of a workman's employment. I do not see why there should be anything in this Bill except a simple section providing that when a workman meets with an injury in his employment, he is to be paid by the State. What is the point in putting in "arising out of and in the course of his employment"? The onus of proof and all the judicial and legal formalism will be operated by non-lawyers who will know nothing about it.

I want to put a case. A workman meets with an injury and applies for compensation. The matter comes before a civil servant who must exercise a judicial function. May I say, in passing, that I have very grave doubts of the constitutionality of many parts of this Bill because workmen's rights will be affected and all sorts of points which have been decided down through the years both here and in England, in the House of Lords and in our Supreme Court here, will no longer apply. There are numerous decisions that lawyers know and appreciate. What will the civil servant do when it comes to deciding as to whether or not a workman should get compensation? The workman will get very little chance of making his case or of knowing the reasons why.

Let me put it this way for the benefit of the Labour Party. This is something about which I feel very strongly and that is why I am spending so much time on it. Solicitors and barristers know the decided cases. They know their way around workmen's compensation as people know their way around their own houses. In future these cases will come before civil servants. The function of the civil servant is to do his job and, in doing it, to keep down expenses. In the early days of this State, I had something to do with the administration of unemployment insurance. The one phrase I saw appearing in file after file from civil servants was: "We must protect the Fund". They were protecting the unemployment insurance fund. That was their duty. It was not their duty to see the person out of employment got that to which he was entitled. "We must protect the Fund". There will be a fund under this Bill and the duty of the civil servants will be to protect that fund. They will do that in accordance with their lights but not in accordance with any sympathy to which the workman would be entitled.

This Bill should be opposed, and bitterly opposed, unless there is some provision to enable a workman to appeal to the Supreme Court in reference to his rights to the benefits that are there. This Bill will be one of shame on this House if we permit it to leave here as a completely bureaucratic Bill designed to prevent workmen from getting their rights. Let me emphasise again that it is the workmen's rights that are being affected. Employers will get out of their liability by paying 2/1 for a man and 1/6 for a woman engaged in the most hazardous employments. The taxpayers will take over the real liability and, as Deputy Fitzpatrick has pointed out, the insurance companies can laugh at the lot of us because they are the people who will make money out of this. They will not lose anything because it is the taxpayers who will pay. They will charge any extra premium they like to the ordinary employer in order to indemnify him against common law actions arising out of negligence on the part of himself or the workman. Employers with the most hazardous occupations will get the taxpayers to idemnify them. The employers will have less to pay. Undoubtedly there will be fewer incentives, or perhaps no incentive at all, to take proper precautions to nullify hazardous conditions of employment in order to ensure that workmen do not get injured. That is another important defect in this Bill. The amount is a standard amount irrespective of the employment.

The question of risks is dealt with in the Report of the Commission at paragraph 429. I do not want to take up the time of the House reading it, but that is one of the things that weighed with the majority of the Commission in making their report.

Debate adjourned.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 24th November, 1965.
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