Social Welfare (Occupational Injuries) Bill, 1965: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. J.A. Costello

Last night when I moved the adjournment, I had been dealing with two fundamental changes in the procedure in connection with workmen's compensation which it is proposed to effect by this measure. I had dealt with most of what I wished to say on the first topic, namely, the transfer of the liability of the employer from his pocket to the pocket of the taxpayers. There are just a few remarks I wish to make to supplement those observations.

I fail to see why the taxpayer should have to discharge the duties of big firms like Guinness's, Jacobs, Plunder and Pollock or any other industrialists throughout the country. Certainly what the Minister has stated has not convinced me of the necessity, or even the desirability, of effecting that transfer. I would again emphasise the fact that the Minister's Department are not in any way qualified to do what will be a very difficult task which will require very much more specialised civil servants than he has available at the present time.

That leads me to the second point I want to develop a little further on the duties that will fall upon the Department and its personnel, consequent upon the taking away of the rights of the workman which it is proposed to effect by this measure. At the present time and for many years past, a workman injured in the course of his employment had the right to go to court. We all know the history or an outline of what has happened during that period. That is relevant in connection with the remarks of the Minister when he said it causes controversy and bad will between employer and worker to have to go to court.

Whatever may have been the development of the legal relationship between employer and worker in the past, I pointed out yesterday, and I repeat, that there are comparatively few cases that come before the courts of this country arising out of disputes between employer and workman. They are dealt with expeditiously and cheaply and no workman has ever been deprived of resort to the courts to get justice because he has not had sufficient money. Solicitors and counsel have always been ready to give their services free, if necessary. These cases are so well groomed and the procedure is so well known that they can go through the courts in a very short space of time: cases dealing with workmen's compensation, whether they be in connection with the determination of liability or whether that liability having been determined by the court, they arise in the course of the years in connection with questions as to whether the workman is fit for work, whether he is fit for light work or whether he is completely incapacitated. All these matters are dealt with very expeditiously by people who know their job and who are able to do it in a manner satisfactory to both parties.

It seems to me astounding that these rights are to be taken away from the workman, because under this Bill there is no resort to the courts. The Minister stated that in certain respects there is an appeal from the appeals officer, who exists at the present time under the Social Welfare code, to the High Court on a question of law. That is only the question of insurability and nothing else, and the one thing that is unlikely to give any difficulty under the present Bill is the question of insurability, as to whether a man is entitled to be insured or not. That can go to the High Court, but what cannot go to the High Court or any other court is the vital questions as his rights, such vital questions as whether the accident of which he complains arose out of and in the course of his employment. Inexperienced, untrained people will decide that very difficult issue. The law books are full of cases from 1906 in connection with such matters. It does not often happen that there is a dispute as to whether an accident arose in the course of employment or not, but if it does, any junior counsel down the country, in this city or anywhere else will know the legal principles to apply. He is trained in that and it can be done very cheaply and expeditiously.

I emphasise that it is a very bad principle to deprive the workman of his right to resort to the courts. That is what is being done here and I do not see why it is being done. I am not speaking on behalf of my confreres because they may lose a bit of business here; they will take it up somewhere else. Although it may be said in a sneering way about my profession or the profession of solicitors, that is not the reason. The reason is that workmen are going to be deprived of the rights they should have. I would not like to have any right of mine decided by any civil servant if I could possibly avoid it, because he is not trained for that.

I should like to draw the attention of Deputies to the provisions of this Bill which, if it passes into law, will determine the scope of the duties of and the matters which will have to be determined by the civil servants in the course of investigating these cases. There is no provision anywhere for the workman to come in and make his case. At the very beginning in the definition section, it is merely stated that the basis of this code in future will be the social welfare code. I see no justification at all for making workmen's compensation part of the social welfare code.

I should like to recall the history of this matter for Deputies so that they can get it into perspective. The workmen's compensation and employers' liability legislation started very early on and arose because of a judge-made law that an employer was not liable for the acts or negligence of his workmen. One of these learned gentlemen expressed horror that he should be made liable for the action of his footman causing injury to an underservant in the kitchen and from that gentleman's horror arose the matter of common employment which we in this legislature abolished. For more than a century the doctrine of common employment, which had its origin in the way I have indicated, brought about the necessity for workmen's compensation and employers' liability codes. There was never a question of a social service code at all.

There was a residue of matters left for which the employer was responsible in spite of the common employment situation which imposed liabilities on employers. We have got rid of the doctrine of common employment and workmen can now sue at common law for the negligence of their fellow-servants or of their employers, but still we have the residue of workmen's compensation which in nearly all cases does not give sufficient to an injured workman who, therefore, if he can, will go to common law which, in spite of workmen's compensation, will be available to him under this Bill.

It is proposed to take this matter away from the courts but it is still proposed to leave, and properly so, the workers' right to use common law. This right, however, has been eaten into by this Bill. Such cases are not easy to bring to fruition in courts: they are difficult cases to handle and Deputies who understand that will know the character of such cases. I got the impression at one stage that the judiciary were trying to kill common law action by workmen after the common employment doctrine had been abrogated by the Legislature.

At all events, we now find that civil servants, untrained, without any knowledge of this code at all, without any knowledge of the problems that have been met with in day-to-day administration of the workmen's compensation code in reference to workmen's rights, have first of all to ascertain what is an occupational injury under subsection (2). There, the basic rights of the workman are set forth and provide that every person employed in insurable occupational injuries employment shall be insured under the Act against personal injuries by accident arising out of or in the course of his employment. That is the workman's right. It is not to get compensation for injury: he has to prove and establish—and the Minister so stated in his opening speech—and the onus of proof is on him, that the accident arose out of and in the course of his employment. Then you go to section 29 to find out what that means, who is to do it and how it is to be done. There you find the duty imposed on the officials of the Department set forth in great detail and complex language. It provides that where, in relation to any claim for occupational injuries benefit, it is decided that the relevant action was or was not an occupational accident, an expressed declaration of that fact shall be made and recorded and, subject to the provisions of subsection (3) of this section, a claimant shall be entitled to have the question whether the relevant accident was an occupational accident decided, notwithstanding that his claim is disallowed on other grounds. That is not very clear as it stands and you must go to subsection (5) to find out what is meant. You will find there that an occupational accident takes place if:

(a) it arises out of and in the course of his employment,

(b) that employment is insurable (occupational injuries) employment, and

(c) payment of occupational injuries benefit is not precluded because the accident happened while he was outside the State.

You have several decisions there to be made. The accident must arise out of and in the course of his employment. The employment must be insurable occupational injuries employment. Who is to decide that? It is to be decided by civil servants who have no legal qualification. I should not like to have any of my rights decided in that way. I think—I raised it in the House before—that there should be some appeal from the decision under the social welfare code other than the very limited appeal there is on the question of insurability. If there was ever a judicial power conferred on non-judicial persons this is one if not more. Civil servants, untrained, are to decide very serious matters in the absence of court procedure, in the absence of any power given to the workman to have his case met or made.

There is nothing in that section to entitle a workman to go in and get his case made. I do not care whether he gets a solicitor, counsel or a trade union official, but here he cannot bring anyone in anywhere. The proposition put to him is: "You are or you are not in insurable employment". That is a most difficult, complex, judicial determination that may be determined and fixed in the absence of the workman. That is absolutely unjustifiable and as far as I am concerned, as long as this Bill is before the House, it will receive my uncompromising opposition and I hope it will ultimately dawn on the Government and on those supporting this part of the Bill that it is unjust and unfair and probably unconstitutional.

I have recited some of the judicial things these civil servants, untrained, have to do. Then you come along and find they have further matters to decide. In subsection (3) of section 3 they have to decide what is a contract of service. Lawyers know the difference between a contract of service and a contract for service. I should like to know if the Departmental officials in this case have the remotest notion of how these matters are to be determined, of how the workmen's rights are to be determined, not by anything put up on his behalf but by a determining official in the Department.

Then, in the next section, there is a question of the casual nature of the employment to be determined. The question of whether the workman comes within the code at all may turn on a decision on this very difficult question. Subsection (4) deals with the occupations that are not subject to the social security code and says that, certain things being taken into consideration, the workman was or was not engaged in employment of a casual nature. That is a difficult thing. In the last month I have had a very difficult case of a workman whom I was advising, voluntarily, may I say, on the question of the liability of the employer. The first thing that had to be decided was whether it was casual employment and the second was whether it was about the employer's business. That is a very difficult matter.

May I say, incidentally, that I do not know what provisions of this Bill deal with casual work. One always has to watch, when insuring under the present code against liability for workmen's compensation in respect of casual workers and one must be absolutely sure the policy covers casual workers. The principal instance that arises is the worker who comes to clean the windows. Is he a casual worker or under a contract of service within the meaning of sections I have already referred to? I do not know what provision is made in this Bill for casual workers except to say that they are not within the scope of the Bill if they are working about the employer's house. If they are not doing that, or other work of a domestic character, do they or do they not come within this Bill? I do not know. What shall we do then? Under the code as it stands, you insure against liability for casual workers; if you do not, you are a fool. Under this Bill, do we pay 2/1 and 1/6, or both, and also leave ourselves open to liability not covered in this Bill for workers of a casual nature?

Why are casual workers excluded? I do not know. They may be caught within the general scope of the measure but at any rate these are matters of a very difficult legal character on which the rights of persons will depend and they will be decided, not after hearing arguments and consideration of all the facts put forward by both sides, but by the decision—the opinion—of one person with no liability to give any reasons for the decision. As I have pointed out repeatedly, an opinion like this is not worth anything except to the extent of the validity of the reasons on which it is based. One may be told the accident did not occur in the course of one's employment but one is not given any reasons for that. One will not be able to put one's own reasons forward. But it is a very convenient thing for a body that has to determine the rights of other persons not to have to give any reasons or arguments on which its opinions are based. Once you do that, you are open to attack and the less you say the better.

There are some more things I must deal with. Section 4 (1) says:

An accident arising in the course of an injured person's employment shall be deemed for the purposes of the Acts, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, also to have arisen out of that employment.

Somebody must decide what is "evidence to the contrary" and that is a very difficult point. We have at present in the definition of what is an occupational injury giving rise to compensation that it must arise in the course of the employment but here it says also that it can be deemed to have arisen out of the employment, unless there is evidence to the contrary. Somebody may give evidence to the contrary and the worker may know nothing about it. The decision will be made in his absence. He does not get an opportunity of hearing it. That is a very serious matter because this is not the sort of thing that should be determined other than by a court or some person with judicial knowledge.

The next subsection deals with a series of incidents which would give rise to a claim for compensation. This is the case where there is a question of what is called larking or negligence or misconduct by another person or by the insured person being struck by lightning, and where the insured person does not directly or indirectly induce or contribute to the happening of the accident by his conduct outside the employment and so on. It would take any judge, even an experienced one, to determine the facts on that section but the workman will not be given a chance. I referred last night to the duty that will be in the official mind above all else to protect this Fund.

I had experience of this myself in connection with unemployment insurance. Officials will be bound to consider all matters in that way. This serious matter of whether an insured person did not directly or indirectly contribute to the accident is to be decided and the rights of the employee will be decided in his absence and certainly without giving him a full opportunity to make his case. He will know the decision and will be told. "You can appeal if you like." He will get the same treatment again on appeal unless there is some resort to the court.

There are other matters of this kind all through the Bill. The Minister has power to make regulations of a most extraordinary kind almost to the extent of changing the Bill. I do not know where we are going in regard to bureaucracy. There was much discussion here about bureaucracy in regard to the budgetry proposals but we shall get in regard to so-called bureaucracy exactly what we want here. If we do not want bureaucracy we have the remedy in our own hands; if we want it, there is no use in complaining about the results later when we do not take steps to stop it.

We have most extraordinarily wide powers of regulation of all kinds in this Bill. Perhaps I should start with section 27 which deals with the prescribed notice of accidents. Notice must be given in a prescribed time and form by the person claiming insurance and if he fails to do that without good reason, he is disqualified. Could there be any greater exercise of judicial power than the power given to a person to decide these matters? The regulations will do it: The Minister will say what is this, that or the other.

There have been many cases in the court about failure to give notice of an accident and the workmen's advisers are alerted to the necessity for giving notice and where a client does not give the notice, they have to go in because frequently when a man is injured, he forgets to give notice or thinks somebody else will do it. Now it will be worse because no judge at present if he can possibly do it, unless there is grave injustice to the employer, would ever permit lack of notice to interfere with a person's rights. They may be very seriously interfered with here, because failure without good cause to give the prescribed notice will disqualify and that is going to be decided by civil servants and nobody else, and nobody may appeal from that and no reasons will be given. That is not correct. It is unjust to the workman. It is only one of the many ways in which the rights of the workman are interfered with prejudicially in this Bill. There should be resort to the courts in all these cases, which will be cheaper, more expeditious and done by people who know what they are doing.

You have the regulations in regard to the reporting of accidents by employees. I do not know what will happen to workmen if they do not do it, if they pass it up without bothering their heads. As I said last night, this Bill favours the employers. They have very little to do now. Under the regulations they are supposed to facilitate the giving of notice of accidents and all that class of thing. But all that is very easy compared with the liability of a workman who is injured. He has to give notice of the accident although there may be many people around the place looking at it at the time.

Section 31 is a section that so far has not been referred to and it requires very great consideration. Regulations made under it may disqualify a person from receiving benefit for any period not exceeding six weeks if he fails to submit himself for examination and so on or fails "to observe any prescribed rules of behaviour." How is that justified? What are the rules of behaviour that will be prescribed? He may be disqualified by these officials for six weeks, although his family may be starving, if he does not behave himself in the way the Minister says he is to.

There is no appeal. Under the present code, a man is entitled to work when he can, to do light work when he is able to do it. There is nothing to prevent him from getting his compensation or to provide that he will be disqualified if he does not conform with certain rules of behaviour. In the normal course, if he did not submit himself in the proper way for a medical examination, the court could take other medical testimony and act on that. But here he is going to be disqualified. That is new. That is not merely depriving a workman of his rights but imposing new liabilities on him that did not exist before.

In section 32 we read:

Regulations may provide for treating a person for the purposes of this Act as incapable of work as the result of an accident or injury when he would not be so treated apart from the regulations, and may also make provision—

(a) as to the days which, in the case of a person who at any time is or is to be treated as incapable of work as the result of an accident or injury, are or are not to be treated for the purpose of occupational injuries benefit as days of incapacity for work, and

(b) as to the day which, in the case of night workers and other special cases, is to be treated for the purpose of occupational injuries benefit as the day of the accident.

What is the meaning of that? It means what the civil servants say it means. When that is construed—as it probably will be—against a workman, there will be no resort to the courts.

I have gone only very casually through some of the functions that will be imposed on these inexperienced persons. The result will be to deprive workmen of existing rights or resort to the court and impose on them obligations that do not exist at present. That is not justice. It is not something we ought to do. It will be in strict accordance with bureaucracy. That is what we will get if we let them. Now is the chance to stop that. There is no reason why the workman should not have resort to the Circuit Court. It would be done there far more cheaply and quickly than it would be done under the way now proposed. As it stands, the workman has not resort to the courts other than for insurability.

Be that as it may, what is proposed now is entirely different from what is imposed on civil servants by the Social Welfare Acts as they stand at present. They have very much more important matters to decide and determine judicially affecting a person's rights. If you have a workman now stated by his employer to be capable of work, that can be determined by the one person who can give a judicial determination. One doctor comes in and says he is fit and another doctor says he is not. The judge determines between them or gets in a medical referee. What can happen here is that a civil servant can say: "You are capable. Go out and do it." You have to go out because the civil servant says it or your compensation is stopped. You have no right to go before a medical tribunal or anything of that kind. You must attend at some official place before an official medical man. You cannot have your own doctor who might say: "I do not agree."

That is a fundamental right taken away from the workman by this Bill. Are we going to stand for that? I would be very interested to hear some views on that matter. At present the workman can have his own doctor and can have very good specialists. I have seen some of the best specialists in the country come down to court on behalf of very humble workmen. It is not a question of insurance companies being able to pay. They can have their own choice of doctor. Under this they are told they have to go before A, B, C or D, who will have the official view and attitude. He will be there, first, to keep his job and, second, to protect the fund.

I want to say a few words on the question of damages. Section 38 deals with the matters to be taken into account in the common law proceedings brought by the workmen entitled to do so to get damages. Why should we interfere with their rights? They have the same rights in respect of negligence as any other person, if they can bring themselves within the law so far as their employers are concerned. It is true they should not have both remedies. That is provided for under the present code. If you get damages, your workmen's compensation can be deducted from the amount of damages to be given. I fail to understand why this particular provision should be put into section 38. It is a provision I really do not understand at all. I understand that, when you tell a judge and jury that the injured person is entitled to a certain amount of damages, he is in the first place entitled to get whatever loss he sustained. That is part of the primary right, but apparently it will not be done here. It is all right to say:

...there shall in assessing those damages be taken into account, against any loss of earnings or profits which has accrued or probably will accrue to the injured person from the injuries, the value of any rights which have accrued or probably will accrue...

He got compensation and credit is entitled to be taken for that as at present. But why put in the other stuff? What is meant by the jargon? It is almost impossible to know what it means. It says:

When you come before a jury looking for damages for injuries, it is assessed once and for all on the last day when the jury come in with their verdict and the judge gives his decision. You take into account all the loss involved in income, wages, or whatever it may be. How can you ask a judge and jury to project themselves into the future? It is contrary to law, contrary to justice and another evasion of the workman's rights.

The next point is a small matter but I mention it to show the lack of consideration and the lack of knowledge on the part of those responsible for this Bill. Under the Civil Liability Act passed by this House, a right was given though it existed before that time, to dependants of a workman or of any person killed by the negligence or fault of another person to get the expenses of the funeral, debts, and that kind of thing. What do we do here? We say that, if a workman gets that under a previous section of this Bill, then something is to be done by way of not giving double payments. Under section 22 there is, apparently, a right to get a grant of £50 but that is immediately cut down by the second subsection. The first subsection says:

Death benefit by way of a grant of fifty pounds in respect of funeral expenses shall, subject to the subsequent provisions of this section, be payable in respect of the death of the deceased.

Subsection (2) says:

In any such case as may be specified by regulations, the reference to fifty pounds in subsection (1) of this section shall be construed as a reference to such amount less than fifty pounds as may be specified by the regulations for that case.

You will not get £50, in other words, "in any such case as may be specified by regulations". John Jones will get £50 but Mary Flaherty will get less, provided her name is put in regulations. Did you ever hear such nonsense? But that is what the section says.

You find then that a workman has a right to go in common law for damages and under legislation passed by this Oireachtas he has a right to get his reasonable funeral expenses not cut down to any amount. Then you say that, whatever a workman gets under this, you deduct it. That is all right, but let us see what it does. Section 38, subsection (3) provides:

Notwithstanding section 50 of the Civil Liability Act, 1961, in assessing damages in respect of a person's death under Part IV of that Act, account may be taken of any death benefit by way of grant under section 22 of this Act in respect of funeral expenses resulting from the person's death.

Why should the taxpayers not get the benefit of making the negligent party pay? You let off the insurance company and you make the taxpayer pay. That is what is here and that is why I point to this as showing a lack of appreciation of the problems being dealt with by this Bill. A workman is suing on his common law right against a person who is negligent and, under the law, he is entitled to get his reasonable funeral expenses, but the insurance company under this is to get the benefit of what the taxpayer pays under the Bill. Does anybody think there is rhyme or reason in that? This is an absolutely ill-considered Bill despite the lapse of three years after the recommendation in both the Majority and the Minority Reports. This is presented to us as a grand Bill, something worth waiting three years for. That is the kind of stuff we get and all the time we are taking away the rights of workmen and also imposing additional obligations.

The last point I want to deal with is the lump sum. One would think this Bill was something tremendous because it does not give any lump sum. That shows that those at the back of it know nothing about what goes on in workmen's compensation cases in the country. The fact that workmen could get something from their insurance companies which they will not be able to get under this Bill was a tremendous instrument and a valuable privilege. A very valuable right is now being taken away from them. Under the Workmen's Compensation Acts, there was provision for allowing employers to redeem the weekly payments. Some people may say that lump sums were frittered away. Some of them may have been but a great many benefited by getting a lump sum. They were able to set up in little businesses. Some of them bought farms. Some may have dissipated the lump sum but, by and large, it was a good thing and anybody who says the lump sum should be done away with is talking of something about which he knows nothing.

That was one aspect. There was another even more valuable than that. There was the workman who got compensation either by agreement with his employer or by order of the court. The compensation dragged on and there was a good deal of worry as to whether the workman was fit for light work or had recovered from his incapacity. All sorts of questions arose and the insurance company, in the phrase, wanted to get him off their books. That was a most valuable right for the workman because instead of being harassed by directions to go back and try to work, he could go to his solicitor or counsel and the latter could make a very valuable arrangement with the insurance company to buy the workman off. The workman got a lump sum. That has gone. That was a very valuable right. Any junior counsel of even a few months' standing could tell the Minister how valuable that was.

Nevertheless, the Minister comes in here and talks as if he has achieved something wonderful in doing away with this lump sum. Of course, he does not know what he is talking about. That was a very valuable right and workmen will find to their cost, when they are dealing with civil servants, that they cannot buy themselves off. That has gone. In case anybody may be under any misapprehension, no settlement could be made at the expense of the workman because the settlement had to go before the county registrar and, if necessary, the Circuit Court judge. The county registrar might object to the settlement on the ground that the workman was overborne by the insurance companies and their officials or that he was too anxious to settle in order to get some money into his hands. The county registrar could refuse to accept the settlement and he could bring it before the Circuit Court judge. That was a very valuable right. That is swept away now in a paean of praise by the Minister. He knows nothing about it.

A man who was injured in the course of his employment could sue his employer in the ordinary way at common law. He was entitled to do that under an Act passed when, I am glad to say, we were in office. It was not a question of a man electing to take compensation giving up another right. He had the right to sue the employer at common law and, if he did not succeed, he had the right to retain his compensation. It was a well-known practice in the legal profession that, when a case did not appear to be as good as it should be, or proof was somewhat difficult, one went to the other side and asked: "What will you give us?", and the value of a lump sum equivalent to the workmen's compensation was taken into account. That has gone now. That is in ease of the insurance company, again in ease of the employer. It is another instance where the Bill favours employers and is against the workman. That case of the workman is gone.

I do not know why we should be thinking that this is a wonderful Bill. So far as it increases benefits, of course it is about time it was done. So far as it affects workmen's rights, to the extent particularly that it prevents them from taking their rights and getting them adjudicated on in court or by some judicial body, I am uncompromisingly against it and will do everything I can as long as I can to see that it does not go out as not merely a menace to the workman but as a standing disgrace to the Dail.

Mr. Larkin

On behalf of the Labour Party, I want to repeat Deputy Tully's welcome of this Bill and I do so because of the fundamental change the Bill introduces in regard to the position of injured workmen.

The Minister mentioned, but it is no harm to mention again, that from the point of view of an injured workman, the desire is to be treated on the basis that if he is injured in the course of his employment he should have some proper way of receiving compensation while he is unable to work and that there should be financial provision for his family and that his case will not be, as too many of them were down the years, the subject of legal experiment and of legal battles where the hardship involved for the injured workman and his family was not taken into consideration.

It is not very much comfort for a married man with a family who suffers injury in the course of his employment to be faced with the situation that his employer has not taken out employers' liability insurance cover and the consequent doubt as to whether the employer will be in a position to pay and to continue to pay even the inadequate amount of workmen's compensation that was laid down. There were too many cases over the years where employers failed to take out employers' liability insurance cover or where employers were unable to take out such cover except at prohibitive cost and because of these circumstances, a worker who suffered injury in the course of his employment ultimately had to go to the Department of Social Welfare or to the assistance officer for assistance for his family.

It was for these reasons and because of the delay experienced in dealing with these problems and because of the completely unsatisfactory nature of the existing workmen's compensation legislation that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions campaigned for a modern, more rational and more humane basis for workmen's compensation.

No one from these benches would in any way cast a reflection on the many people in the legal profession who represented their clients capably and conscientiously. No one casts a reflection on the many people in the legal profession, both solicitors and barristers, who are prepared to act, in many cases with very little financial reward, but there was a problem of delay. The workman who met with an injury reported the matter to his employer. While it is true that in recent years the number of cases in which it has been necessary to go to court to recover the weekly compensation payable has declined, nevertheless, there existed a certain number of cases where the employer, whether insured or otherwise, might not make the payment of the £4 10s. provided for in the code. In that case a visit to the Department of Social Welfare was the inevitable consequence for the injured workman, to be registered and to give an undertaking there that if he subsequently recovered compensation, he would recoup the amount advanced by the Department.

The proposal in the Bill for a system of insurance in respect of injury to workmen is not new. Such a system has operated for many years in Britain and in Northern Ireland and I have yet to hear of any great volume of protest from those immediately concerned and with whom we should be concerned, namely, injured workmen, against the system. As far as I am aware, there has been no public outcry in regard to the change from the old concept of workmen's compensation to that now operating in Great Britain and that other section of our country, Northern Ireland.

While welcoming the introduction of the Bill and the general principles outlined here, we are entitled to make one comment arising from a statement by the Minister. The Minister, in his summary of the situation, stated that during the year 1955 increases had been arranged in the amounts payable under Workmen's Compensation Acts and a Commission had been established in the same year to investigate the position in regard to workmen's compensation generally. We are entitled to comment, not on the length of time taken by the Commission, because within a year or so of the Commission being established there were changes in the personnel and representation on that Commission by the inclusion of representatives of those who have been doing best out of workmen's compensation and out of the contributions from workmen's compensation, namely the insurance companies. A few years later, in 1963, the announcement came of the Government's intention to deal with injuries to workers under the Social Welfare Acts. I have mentioned the inclusion of representatives of the insurance companies on the Commission and I want to say that they delayed the work of that Commission.

However, the comment that is properly called for from this House is that from 1955 to 1965, a period of ten years, even though the matter was under careful examination and many meetings of the Commission were being held, there was one aspect of the situation which appears not to have got any great attention. While that Commission was sitting, even though the cost of living was increasing steadily and to some extent wage rates and salary rates were also increasing, the position of the worker affected by the workmen's compensation code remained the same as it was in 1955. I would like to hear the Minister justify his lack of activity in that regard.

From 1955 to 1965, the maximum that injured workmen could obtain was £4 10/- per week. I do not think it will be sufficient to say that the Government were examining the workmen's compensation code during that time, that the Commission would make recommendations and that a Bill would be brought in but that in the meantime the injured worker would have to make do on £4 10/- a week. All concerned in this matter have been heartless in that regard. The decision to establish the Commission was made at the time Deputy Costello was Taoiseach and Deputy Corish, now the Leader of the Labour Party, was Minister for Social Welfare. The decision to do this at that particular time, even though the results have been delayed, must bring some credit to the people responsible.

The Bill before us is designed to deal with the position of workers who meet with accidents and it has a number of defects. It is to some extent limited from the point of view of the fact that accidents do not just happen out of the blue. Inherent in any approach to the question of compensation for injury through accident must be the question of what steps can be taken to avoid accidents. The Bill does not deal at any great length with that aspect of the matter, although it may be said that the activities of the Minister for Industry and Commerce in warning people about the prevention of accidents may to some extent deal with the matter of prevention.

The Bill deals with the question of compensation, to some degree with hospitalisation, but it leaves the question of rehabilitation, which is ar inherent and essential part of the approach to the matter of injury to workers, in the area of the local authorities. These people have not been too successful up to the present time in the operation of local health matters. Deputies will be aware that there is a continuous stream of complaint about the lack of adequate health services and about the need to modernise and improve these health services. To leave the question of the rehabilitation of injured workers in that area will hardly satisfy Deputies who are interested in this problem.

On the Bill itself, there are a number of questions that should be asked. Does it cover people like part-time insurance agents? Will it apply in the case of people who are employed by individuals? There is an increasing tendency for householders to employ individuals temporarily to do small repairs. These people are not dealing with builders' contractors as such. They employ people to do painting, decorating and window-cleaning. What is the position of people so employed or of the householder who employs them? Will the householder who employs such a person be required to make a contribution in order to protect that person or will such a person be required to cover himself?

Reference is made to this matter in subsection (3) of section 3 where it says in paragraph (b):

Employment, which is neither wholetime as may be defined in regulations nor under contract of service, as a member of a crew...

What is the position in regard to accidents to people going to work? This is a matter which has been the subject of difficulty for years. It has always been excluded from the workmen's compensation code. Take the case of a man going to work on a bicycle or motorcycle at 6 o'clock in the morning in the kind of weather we have been having recently. If he meets with an accident which prevents him from carrying on his normal employment and from providing for his family, if no one else is involved in the accident he has no case for compensation. Is he to be treated in the same way under this new legislation as under the workmen's compensation code? If we are having a new look at the question of injuries in employment we should look very carefully at this aspect.

Take the case of a worker who is able to get out for half an hour or maybe an hour for lunch. Because of the length of time available and because of traffic congestion, he has to rush in order to get back to work on time. If such a person meets with an accident in which no one else is involved, even though it does not happen within the area of the factory, surely his case should be covered in an enactment such as this. What about the question of injuries that may be suffered by workers in a canteen? The majority of accidents in the canteen. These workers should not be excluded from the benefits of this Bill, and there are benefits in this Bill. There is also the question of an accident occurring during an interval from work when the worker may not be on the premises but may be adjacent to the company's premises. Section 4 (2) (c) reads:

the insured person did not directly or indirectly induce or contribute to the happening of the accident by his conduct outside the employment or by any act not incidental to the employment.

What exactly does that mean? Does it mean, as might conceivably happen, that a man might have a discussion with a workmate outside the factory and perhaps the following day they might be engaged at work carrying a heavy weight and because of the words spoken one of the men might be careless and drop the weight? Would it cover the situation where due to an argument outside the factory, one of them was not as careful at work as he might have been with the result that his fellow worker received an injury? This section needs some explanation. Subsection (3) of the same section also requires careful examination.

There are many sections in the Bill which could possibly be better dealt with by way of a discussion on Committee but there is this question. Why limit the payment under the injuries clause to 26 weeks? Is it because that is what applies in Britain or in Northern Ireland? If that is the position, then let us also consider the rates of benefit that apply in Britain or in the North and the rates of payment that are made there as well.

The estimated cost of the scheme is set out very clearly in the Minister's brief and there is no need to deal with it at this stage, but where a person dies as a result of an accident the payment of 24/- to the parent of that person appears to be very meagre indeed. There is also a reference to compensation to married women who may be maintained by their husband and who meet with an injury. In the case of widows and single women the compensation is the same. If a married woman is a worker within the meaning of the Act and is working full time, why, if she meets with an accident, should the disablement sum be reduced? If consideration is to be given to the total income of the family, there is here a case to be examined when the question of payment for injuries arises. I ask the Minister, therefore, to look at the position in this respect and ascertain whether there is any justification for the payment of a reduced amount when the worker is a married woman.

I should like also to get clarification in relation to women or others in part-time employment. The Minister indicated that people who are on short time would have their payments reckoned on the basis of the normal wages paid in that industry. Does this apply to cases where part-time employment is a feature in the particular industry. Does it mean that injured workers in such industries will be paid on the basis of the actual payments in the industries to similar workers?

Before I conclude, I should like to express on my own behalf and on behalf of the Labour Party, a welcome for this Bill which at least goes a considerable way towards dealing with a number of deficiencies as far as injured workmen are concerned. There may well be a case to be examined in relation to the need for appeal machinery for injured workmen or for the setting up of a medical referee system. I should like here to remind the Minister that in relation to the working of the various Departments, including that of Social Welfare, Deputies have a right to raise matters which come to their attention and to take them to the Minister. Where workmen affected by the Bill may not be treated equitably, Deputies have a right to raise the matter publicly and demand a full investigation. At the moment, if a workman takes a case for workmen's compensation and the employer is not insured or has gone bankrupt and out of business, he may not get any payments and he has absolutely no recourse. He can have the most highly paid legal representation but it is of no avail in such circumstances.

Mr. P. Hogan

(South Tipperary): He is covered by the Bill.

Mr. Larkin

What is to be the position of the many workers employed by firms who carry their own insurance? Are such people to be allowed to insist that injured workmen must come in even if not fully fit to work, or will they be allowed to have such workmen treated under the heading of illness, and transferred to social welfare payments? The Minister is right —I do not often like to agree with him—when he says there have been a large number of cases in which lump sums have been awarded to the detriment of the workmen. There are many cases where workmen's compensation has been inadequate. Married men with families have run into increasing debt because they have obtained only £100, £200 or £300 by way of a lump sum.

Mr. Barrett

Or £3,000.

Mr. Larkin

It is very seldom measured in thousands. In many cases where this has occurred the families have been in great need after a few months and there is no further compensation for them. The position could arise where, because of their history of accidents, workers would find great difficulty in securing reasonably-paid employment. In such cases lump sums have no great merit and we have all had experience of cases in which inadequate lump sums were accepted and where the families were in dire need after a few months. While we feel that the level of the benefits provided in the Bill could stand some further examination, we agree that the sections concerned can be discussed and amended. As I have said, the general principles of the Bill are welcomed. It should be of value to the people mainly concerned, those who are injured arising out of and in the course of their employment and who, up to the present, obtained benefits which were utterly inadequate.

Mr. Dowling

I support this Bill as a piece of progressive legislation and a forward step in the field of social justice. The Minister is to be congratulated on it. It is time the worker got this consideration of being treated as a human being rather than a digit by the Minister's Department and other Departments. The Bill gives this consideration to workers and their families in times of stress.

When I first saw the Bill, I was aware that there would be a rush to the wailing wall by some members of the legal and medical professions and representatives of the insurance business. All these will try to defend their own interests. The Bill itself brings some contentment to the workers and as one who has worked in the shops, I am satisfied that contentment is necessary and it comes not before its time. In times of stress or accident, the worker goes through a period of great concern for himself, his family and his future. There have been defects in previous legislation from the points of view of both employer and employee. Sometimes the employee is reluctant to proceed with a case. The security provided by the Bill will let the worker know that he can be independent and have the means of survival at his disposal.

One would think from Deputy Costello's contribution that there was nobody but the legal profession to save the workers. We are well aware of the very many able members of the legal profession who performed great service in defence of the workers but nevertheless his suggestion that no worker or person in difficulties would be obliged to have cases undefended because there were many young counsel and young solicitors only too able and willing to take up these cases, does not conform to my experience. I have never met them. I am quite sure many unfortunate people I know who had accidents in the course of employment were unable to meet them. In any case if the young counsel are available, they would be inexperienced while the insurance company would have the benefit of personnel of long experience and specialisation in this field.

As Deputy Larkin indicated, the previous Act was amended and a Commission set up by Deputy Costello and his Party. It is true that they brought in the amending Act in 1955 giving weekly compensation of £4 10s., and certain other benefits and then set up the Commission. The fact that the Commission was set up showed clearly the division of opinion between Fine Gael and the Labour Party at the time. The Commission was probably set up as a result of Labour's insistence.

The primary aim of the Bill is to provide better benefits at more reasonable cost to the employer for the insured worker and his dependants. Compensation for an employment injury will henceforth be a social service rather than an obligation on individual employers. That is necessary and desirable. In 1955 the Minister for Social Welfare set up the Commission to examine the matter. Deputy Costello had many things to say about the Commission. He placed great importance on the fact that the majority of the Commission reported in favour of the present system. Why should they not? Apparently he blamed the Government for rejecting this advice. Surely it was clear even in 1955 that the Majority Report would be in favour of retaining the existing system. Surely the insurance representatives on the Commission would suggest that the present system is adequate because it served their interests best?

It was also to be expected that representatives of the professions involved in administering the present system, medical and legal representatives, would favour retention of the present system. The employers' representatives naturally resisted the encroachment on private enterprise even when it was clear that to provide similar benefits for the workers would be more expensive for the employers. The workers' representatives, however, saw the matter from the point of view of the workers; in other words, from the social welfare point of view. Surely this was the correct recommendation, that a new system on the lines of the present Bill should be adopted. I can well appreciate the desire of the medical and legal professions and of the insurance companies who now see their footing going, to dig in and indicate in some way that the Bill does not meet requirements and will in itself inflict hardship on the workers in some cases.

Many of us who worked in industry are only too well aware of the great difficulty that exists regarding lump sum payments. Some people benefit by them in starting up small shops or other such enterprises as indicated by Deputy Costello but the great bulk of injured workmen accept lump sums after prolonged negotiations. They would settle for anything when the case is long drawn out and they are under pressure from shopkeepers, hire purchase companies and others whose bills they are unable to meet, and no doubt many of the legal profession drew out some of the cases for the sake of the "cut." It is desirable to have that section deleted and compensation given in another form.

Insurability is now being met by the employer, and rightly so. It is right that it is being met on a broad basis. If each individual employer were to meet the requirement of the Bill by insuring in the previous manner, it would be necessary for some of them to meet prohibitive costs charged by the insurance companies because of the difference in hazards of employments. Some employments have greater hazards than others. The insurance companies allow for these things and set premiums which possibly might be beyond the reach of the employer. Of course, the unfortunate workman who meets with an accident would suffer.

That the awards will be available at the earliest possible moment is something that those concerned with the workers and the workers themselves will certainly welcome. It is necessary for them to meet their day to day commitments without having to think whether the case will be a success or not.

Legal proceedings or the threat of legal proceedings have cost many a man his job or stopped the advancement of other members of his family in those concerns. We are all aware of this. I am certain members of the Labour Party are aware of it. A person is injured and proceeds for compensation. Other members of his family who would normally follow on the employment were denied it. The new provision eliminates the undesirable situation. In the case where some employer is negligent or fails to provide the proper protection, the employee will now be able to get compensation without this threat to which I referred.

The Majority Report of the Commission indicated that from 1927 to 1959 less than 9/3d. out of every £1 found its way into the pockets of the injured workman. They had to pay the profits of the insurance companies and of all the other people concerned. Under the present Bill it is estimated that 18/- out of every £1 will go towards the compensation of the worker. That is almost double the amount under the previous legislation.

Everybody will welcome the application of the flat-rate contribution collected by a single stamp with the existing social insurance contribution. That eliminates the large-scale administration that would be necessary under any other system. It dispenses with a multiplicity of insurance companies and others dealing with the situation and getting their profit.

Another desirable feature is that the Bill will cover employed persons under 16 and over 70. They are not insurable under the present legislation.

One section the Minister should possibly take another look at concerns the onus of proving that an accident occurred in the course of employment. The section says that will lie with the claimant to benefit but he will not be obliged, as at present, to show beyond doubt that it arose out of his employment. While the matter is reasonably open, I am not very happy about the "beyond doubt".

The provision of cover for apprentices attending technical schools and other training centres is very desirable. Deputy Larkin spoke about this question of cover while travelling to or from the place of employment. I think the worker should be covered when travelling to his employment. I have known of many accidents which occurred adjacent to the employment. I hope the Minister will examine this more fully and possibly give an indication why travel to the employment is not covered. When a person leaves his house with the intention of going to work and meets with an accident, I think it should be deemed to have occurred at his place of employment in cases where no other compensation is open to him.

The amounts of benefits included in the Bill are a great advance on those provided in the 1955 Amendment Act. While they may not be all we would like them to be, they are a considerable advance on what we had for a long time.

Another desirable section is that whereby a person permanently incapacitated can now earn up to £104 a year. These people will now be able to occupy their minds at some sort of business and earnings up to £104 will be disregarded. The fact that a permanently totally disabled person can receive amounts up to £15.13.6. is something we all welcome.

The funeral grant of £50 instead of the £15 now in operation is also to be welcomed. Deputy Costello's concern for this £50 is really unnecessary. The giving of medical expenses is also something to be appreciated. In the past when a person met with an accident during the course of his employment, whether he was an insured worker or whether he had a medical card, he nevertheless had to meet medical expenses. Therefore, the section giving cover for the necessary medical expenses will meet with the approval of all.

I am glad to see included also that, if a man is not in full-time employment at the time an accident occurs, the earnings of other workers in similar employment may be taken into account in calculating the earnings. That will be welcomed by those in part-time or short-time work.

In general, there is little opponents of this Bill can be in disagreement with in relation to the benefits, whether they go far enough or not, apart from the fact that certain people and certain groups will not benefit as a result of the change over indicated by the Minister. This certainly represents a major advance in social services and a completely new look in regard to industrial injuries.

The Minister is to be congratulated. I believe this Bill will receive the approval of all those who from time to time will be unfortunate enough to meet with injury and those who are guarding them. The Labour Party have spoken at length and given their approval to the Bill. They are well aware of the position in relation to unfortunates who meet with accidents. I am sure their word goes a long way in this vast field. They know all the problems in relation to the medical profession, the legal profession and the insurance companies, just as I do. The Minister is to be congratulated on the thought he has put into this Bill and on the provisions in it in relation to apprentices and those over 70 years of age.

Mr. Barrett

In so far as this Bill seeks to rectify the omission of the Fianna Fáil Party in regard to their social obligation to injured workmen by increasing the payments under workmen's compensation from £4 10s. to the amount set out in the Bill, we in this Party welcome it. When one considers that there has been no increase in workmen's compensation since 1955, although the cost of living has skyrocketed over the same period, one is inclined not to congratulate the Minister on what he is now doing but to castigate him for not doing it sooner.

Having said that, I must now part company with the Minister and the Labour Party in their approach to this legislation. I speak as one who has been more closely in touch with the administration of the workman's compensation code than any other Deputy because in the Circuit Court in which I practise more workmen's compensation cases are dealt with than in any other circuit in the country. In fact, statistics reveal that over half of the entire workmen's compensation cases heard are heard in the Cork circuit. I have watched the operation of workmen's compensation under the present legislation. I have closely studied it because that was my job. I have studied the spirit and the manner in which the Act was administered by the court and the manner in which the sections were interpreted.

Anybody who comes here to speak on a Bill of this magnitude and importance should study that code and its operation before coming in here to speak in vague, general terms. Anybody who has studied the approach of the courts to workmen's compensation cannot but be struck by the fact that the courts were acutely aware that the workmen's compensation code was a code in ease of injured workmen and the interpretation of the Acts both by the Circuit Court and by the Supreme Court, to which an aggrieved workman had the right of appeal, was invariably benign.

As an instance of the manner in which the courts both here and in England interpreted cases, I should like to draw attention, particularly the attention of the Labour Party, to one of the leading cases. A workman died whilst turning a nut with a spanner. The question before the highest court in Britain was whether or not the death of the workman was due to his work. Did it arise out of and in the course of his employment? The case was heard in 1910 and it was decided the accident arose out of and in the course of his employment, although there was a conflict of medical evidence and evidence that the man's heart was in bad condition before he ever turned that nut with a spanner. That case has been followed consistently by both the British and Irish courts. It has set the whole tenor of the approach of the courts to the administration of workmen's compensation code.

This Bill is put before us as a piece of enlightened legislation. What does it do? It is dressed in the most gay bunting. The Minister said yesterday it is a wonderful thing that, if a workman's accident is proved to have arisen in the course of his employment, it will, until the contrary is proved, be deemed also to have arisen out of the employment. That means absolutely nothing. That gives no new assistance to the workman because the number of decided cases in which the decision went against the workmen is minimal. But, even under the proposed legislation, the presumption that the accident arose out of the employment is rebuttable presumption. Those of us who know the manner in which social legislation is administered by the Department know full well that if they can rebut the presumption that the accident arose out of the employment, then they will bring every force to bear to rebut that presumption. Let us examine now the circumstances in which that presumption could be rebutted. The workman will not be represented by any trained mind. He may not even be there himself when his case is decided. Some nameless, faceless people somewhere will some time sit down and say: "Let us decide now whether the presumption that the accident arose out of and in the course of the employment has been rebutted". That decision will be reached, irrespective of any submission that the workman might make to those deciding his fate. Let us remember that this is very important social legislation. Those of us closely in touch with the workman's compensation code realise how very important it is to a man who has lost the power to earn a living that his right to gain compensation for losing that power should be maintained.

Deputy Larkin has told us that the Labour Party subscribe to the new legislation because it is more modern. The fact that legislation is more modern does not mean that it is more acceptable. He has told us it is more rational. I do not see any evidence that any section of this Bill is more rational than the provisions enshrined in the 1934 Workmen's Compensation Act, as amended by the 1948, 1953 and 1955 Acts. Is it more rational that a man who claims that he has some rights against an employer should be denied the right to plead that claim and that his claim should be decided by people without legally trained minds, in his absence and without his having the right to have evidence in support of his claim brought before the tribunal by people trained to bring such evidence before such tribunals?

Is it not more rational that a workman should have the right to go before an independent tribunal such as a Circuit Court judge and plead his case there than that he should have to send in a number of forms to an unknown gentleman in Dublin? Is it not more rational that in the event of appeal, the workman should have the right to go to the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, than that, if the Minister decides against him in the first instance under the new code, he should appeal to the Minister? On the ground of rationality, I again appeal to the Labour Party to have a second look at this Bill because I believe that unwittingly they are doing something for which they will afterwards feel very sorry.

Deputy Larkin mentioned that abolition of the workmen's compensation code as we know it in Britain and Northern Ireland evoked no great outcry in Britain or Northern Ireland. That is probably true but that does not mean that it did not impose many great injustices on workmen in Britain and Northern Ireland. More is the shame on people who represent labour interests in Northern Ireland or in the British Parliament if they did not make an outcry. I feel that the Labour Party in this instance have a split mind, that they are so glad to see the emergence of the nationalisation of at least one section of an industry, in other words, the nationalisation of a section of the insurance industry, that they are afraid to oppose the Bill on the rational ground that it is taking away from the workman his rights to plead his case in open court.

I know from Irish doctors who practise in Wales, where more workmen's compensation cases came before the courts than in any other part of Great Britain, due to the mining industry in the area, that many workmen have greatly regretted that they no longer have that right, which they had under the former workmen's compensation code in operation in Britain and that they now must have recourse to a Civil Service tribunal in circumstances very similar to those obtaining here at the moment in the case of people claiming disability and other such benefit.

Deputy Costello referred the House to the danger of Government by regulation which is enshrined in this Bill. Time and again I have regretted the increasing tendency of the administration to take from this House, from the elected representatives, the right to legislate. The regulations under this Bill can be of the most oppressive nature. Regulations of all kinds can be introduced which will hinder the workman in his right to obtain compensation or which will impose upon him oppressive requirements before he can be paid compensation.

There is in the Bill provision for the making of rules of behaviour by regulation. Similar rules of behaviour were made by regulation of the Department of Social Welfare for people claiming disability benefit and I should like to draw the attention of the Labour Party to one of these rules of behaviour. This is the way a man must behave whilst he is beholden to the Department of Social Welfare for disability benefit: the rules of behaviour prescribe that whilst a person is being paid disability benefit, he may not leave his house without leaving at his home detailed particulars of every place he is going for every moment of every 24 hours of every day of the week. If the Labour Party feel that by giving the Government an opportunity to impose similar rules of behaviour on people looking for workmen's compensation, in preference to the present code, they are entitled to it but I draw their attention to the fact that under this Bill these rules of behaviour can be imposed on a person seeking workmen's compensation under the new Bill and I counsel them to join with us in our complete objection to such a course.

As I have said, the Bill is dressed in its most attractive garb. The fact that the workmen's right to a lump sum goes by the board in this legislation is glossed over. The Minister said yesterday: "Thanks be to God," that it is a great thing; that it was a terrible thing for a workman to get a lump sum. Apparently, the average workman is deemed incapable of dealing with a lump sum.

As one who is probably more closely aware of the manner in which the Workmen's Compensation Act operates than most members of the House, I should like to say that the average workman who gets a lump sum gets it because he has some definite plans for using that lump sum for his own betterment and that of his wife and family. Time and again, when representing workmen, I asked them what they would do with £2,500 if they got it by way of compensation, they would reply that they would buy a little shop or start a little business, that they had had a trade and would go back to it and could teach the wife to help. The essence of thrift has been shown by most of these people who got lump sums.

It is all very well for Deputy Larkin to talk of amounts such as £100, £200 or £300 by way of lump sum. Last year I asked the Minister if he would state the amount of money that had been paid by way of lump sums over the previous five years under the workmen's compensation code. The sum represented by lump sums, leaving out the large number of weekly payments, was nearly £2½ million over a period of five years. The Department of Social Welfare, in effect, says that that £2½ million that was given by the large modern insurance companies and the employers generally over the past five years will never be given again; that is one sum the workmen will never get their hands on.

Any of us who know anything about the workmen's compensation code cannot but appreciate the therapeutic effect of the lump sum. Some of us are inclined to be cynical and say that once these people get a lump sum, their incapacity is finished. It is true to say that in the case of a lump sum, the fact that incapacity has no longer to be pleaded has an effect on the mind of the average person, to the end that that person recovers much sooner than he ordinarily would. I have in mind the case of a young person who wanted to get married. A sum of money was offered to her and her medical adviser stuck a needle in the palm of her hand and she did not even wince. He said that if she got the lump sum within a few months, she would jump if the needle was stuck in her hand. That is what happened. Her mind was relieved of the responsibility of having to plead illness and immediately she got the lump sum, that illness disappeared. We are doing away with that now. If a person wants to continue in benefit under the new legislation, he will have to continue to be incapacitated. That is bad legislation.

I have already referred to the inroads of bureaucracy on the rights of this House. Deputy Costello also referred to that earlier in his able discussion of the demerits of this Bill. I should like to refer the House to the fantastic proposal of section 32 of the Bill which says that the Civil Service may, by regulation, take away any part of it. If we are going to enact legislation like that, then let us come in here and look at the one section of every Bill containing that particular power and then go away and not waste our time in the enacting of legislation enabling the Civil Service to undo everything or most of what we have done. This Bill is not a good Bill and it is important that the House should give it most serious consideration.

I would appeal to the Labour Party to approach this Bill from the point of view that the most solid safeguard a workman can have is that his rights will be upheld and will be upheld not just by himself but by minds trained to uphold them in tribunals which have consistently looked upon the workmen's compensation code as a code enacted for the protection of workmen who have met with this misfortune. We should not drive these workmen into the same position as the many people who come to Deputies of all Parties looking for disability benefits or for something to be done to hurry up payments from the Department and for various other benefits.

Deputy Larkin has other objections to the Bill and he spoke about the delays in relation to the existing Acts. I do not know where Deputy Larkin found these objections but there is no foundation in fact for them. The workmen's compensation code provides the shortest route for the workman to the courts. If the workman is aggrieved by the finding of that court, the appeals procedure provides the shortest possible route to the Supreme Court, the highest court in this State. Deputy Larkin spoke about cases going on for a long time and being litigated and he wants to put the workman in the position that he cannot litigate his case, in the position that his case cannot go on for a long time because it will be knocked at departmental level.

I would ask the Labour Party to consider carefully whether it is a good thing that a workman should be unable to fight his case at length and if it is a legitimate objection, fight it for a long time. The Labour Party should consider whether it is better that the present code should be scrapped so that the workman can get the shortest possible shrift from the Department or whether he should be in a position to fight for his rights.

Mr. Treacy

The Deputy who has just concluded has thought fit to lecture the Labour Party on their attitude towards this measure. We regard that as something of a compliment to the Labour Party in that this measure would never have been brought before the House, were it not for the fact that a Labour Minister for Social Welfare in the person of Deputy Corish, our present leader, was the first to announce the formation of a Commission to deal with this matter of improving the workmen's compensation code. It fell to the lot of the Labour Party to build the platform of this legislation and another Government have built the structure on that platform.

It is a matter of concern to us that it took so long to implement the report of the Commission. It was in 1955 that Deputy Corish first forecast that a body would be set up for the purpose of making improvements in the workmen's compensation code. A long number of years elapsed before a measure to that effect was brought into this House, ten years in fact. It is now put forward with a flourish of trumpets and Fianna Fáil are purporting to be the guardians of the right of the worker in this context, but one cannot forget the long years of privation, suffering and misery which thousands of workers endured in the ten years since this measure was forecast. In the interim period, we had these unfortunate workmen expected to maintain themselves, their wives and families on £4 10s. per week. There has been no increase whatever in the level of workmen's compensation payments in the past ten years.

Imagine the colossal increase which has taken place in the cost of living in that period. This Government were in power for the past ten years and they tagged along between commissions and inquiries, between majority and minority reports for ten years before they thought of bringing in this measure. In the meantime thousands of workers have had their pretty high standard of living dragged down to a subsistence level as a result of inquiry on the job and protracted illness, and were expected to exist on £4 10s. per week.

With regard to the comments made by the previous speaker, we as a Party are entitled to resent any attempt by Fine Gael spokesmen, especially the last speaker, Deputy Barrett, to lecture us on what we ought to do in respect of this measure. This Party do not require to be lectured by any side of this House as to what they ought to do concerning legislation. I want to assure Deputy Barrett and his colleagues that this Party have been primarily responsible for founding this measure. They pressurised this Government on every possible occasion to bring it forward. We are entitled to welcome something of which we were the originators. Our Party have been examining this measure and will be bringing forward important amendments designed to improve it. It is our intention to ensure that this measure will bring the maximum benefit to the people directly concerned. I think I am entitled to say that in this matter we are not concerned with vested interests. We are concerned directly with the people involved, the working classes who may sustain injury or contract illness as a result of an accident in employment. These are our primary concern.

There are anomalies in the present code which I hope the Minister will take steps to remedy. There has been the problem from time to time of deciding whether an ailment was an industrial ailment or non-industrial, mere sickness. We have had this difficulty, for instance, in respect of miners, and much has been done to remedy that matter in the Bill concerning miners which passed through this House in recent times, but this problem is still arising, and I should like to bring to the Minister's attention a case with which I had to deal only this week.

It was the case of a workman who fell ill, and the matter is now before the Minister's Department. He went to the doctor, who diagnosed the ailment as a rash and put "rash" on the certificate which was issued to the Minister's Department claiming social welfare disability benefit. The Department of Social Welfare declined to pay benefit and sent down a query for confirmation in connection with the ailment specified in the doctor's certificate. The man went back to his doctor and asked him what he could do about it. I should say the doctor concerned was also the factory doctor and he took up the attitude that it was a rash of some kind. The man's condition grew progressively worse and he had to be hospitalised. When a certificate was required from the hospital, the doctor in charged diagnosed his ailment as dermatitis and specified "dermatitis" on the certificate which he issued to the Department. This led to further confusion, and in the meantime no payment of any kind was being made to the man and his family. There are a wife and nine children involved.

This man was eventually cleared from hospital and when he returned home, he again went to his local doctor for a certificate. The local doctor was about to put "rash" on the certificate again and the man pointed out that he was in difficulty with the Department of Social Welfare, that this business of "rash" would not suffice and that the other doctor had stated he had dermatitis. The local doctor agreed that it was a form of dermatitis but he would insist on putting on the certificate that it was non-industrial dermatitis.

Clearly this doctor felt he had some obligation in loyalty to the firm and to the insurance company, and in the clear knowledge that benefit was going to be held up and that a decision could not be made, would not specify that it was plain dermatitis. That problem has not been resolved and the Department of Social Welfare are saying: "We think this is an industrial disease contracted on the job and we refuse to pay disability benefit" and the firm or the doctor concerned with the firm decline to state that it is an industrial disease or dermatitis. While this battle is going on between the Department of Social Welfare, the insurance company and the doctors concerned, with their conflicting certificates of illness, this man and his wife and nine children are suffering acute hardship.

Be it said to the credit of the Department of Social Welfare that they have now said they will pay the balance of the amount between workmen's compensation, which is at present £4 10s. and the amount which he would derive for himself and his wife and nine children under the social welfare disability benefit scheme. As a result he is getting about £3 on which he is expected to live and maintain a family, and of course he will have to lower his dignity to the extent of seeking home assistance. Those of us who are close to the needs and hardships of the working classes realise that these are the problems with which we must contend. Our Party will be seeking to amend this measure so as to place the onus on someone to state clearly what "ailment" is without any shilly-shallying on the part of any vested interest.

We believe that the prevention of accidents is the ideal solution to this problem and for that purpose another Labour Minister, the late Deputy Norton, brought into this House the Factories Act regulations which were designed to prevent accidents occurring and it is a matter of distress to us in the Labour Party and in the trade union movement that an insufficient number of workers have taken an interest in that Act.

While there is power under that legislation to set up factory committees, not enough workers or their trade unions have taken sufficient interest in the setting up of these very necessary factory committees to safeguard themselves in case of accidents and indeed to improve general conditions on the job such as the provision of adequate heating, ventilation, space and so on. While we accept a certain amount of condemnation for not inculcating in our people a sense of their responsibility in this respect, the Minister's Department must also bear a share of responsibility. We understand that the number of factory inspectors appointed is far too small to do effectively the job involved.

It may be true to say that the number of inspectors does not exceed 20—I understand it to be 16—and the Minister can correct me if necessary. Having regard to the hundreds of thousands of industrial workers and the many factories, large and small, I submit that the number of inspectors is totally inadequate and that it must be increased out of all proportion if the necessary investigation is to be made into factory premises and if there are to be necessary consultations with factory managements and workers' representatives. I ask the Minister to do all he can in this respect by increasing the number of factory inspectors.

After prevention, our next concern is adequate compensation. This measure provides reasonable compensation in the circumstances, though naturally we should like to see it higher. It does not compare very favourably with compensation rates in Northern Ireland and Britain. While we agree that the adult payments seem to be comparatively reasonable, the allowances for wives seem to us to be very small. Certainly, the amount payable to widows is extremely small. I should like the Minister to tell us in this respect whether he is taking into account the widow's pension for which a widow would normally qualify. In other words, does the amount payable under this measure take into account the widow's pension and benefits that would accrue to the widow, or would she be entitled to claim the widow's pension on top of the figure stipulated here? If she is to be denied a widow's pension, the amount here is infinitesimal and would do nothing to maintain a widow and her children in reasonable comfort.

We are concerned, too, that payments will continue for only 26 weeks. This seems to us to be too short a period and we are concerned about what will happen to the injured person afterwards. We presume he will automatically qualify for social welfare benefits if still indisposed at the end of 26 weeks. That is also a matter for clarification by the Minister.

Deputy John A. Costello referred to the right of workmen to avail of the courts. It is a matter with which my Party are concerned. We have considered every aspect of the Bill so that it can be improved on. The right of workers to proceed to a higher authority is something that will be given the utmost consideration by our Party and suitable amendments will be tabled on that score in the days ahead.

I am not too happy, speaking personally, about the proposal to leave the final decision in respect of appeals in the hands of officials of the Department of Social Welfare. It is a matter of some concern to me that the decisions of the appeals officers will be final and binding. There seems to me to be good case for having a higher authority involved. That being so, I agree with Deputy John A. Costello that the courts, which have done such valuable work in this respect and which have given such very fair and sizeable awards in the past to unfortunate workers and their dependants, should not be set aside in important matters of this kind. I am not unmindful of or ungrateful for the efforts of legal men who have worked conscientiously and assiduously to bring justice to unfortunate workers who sustained injuries, many of them serious. Many of these workers went through a lot of suffering and privation and it fell to the lot of the legal profession to secure justice and adequate compensation for loss of employment and inability to continue work. It is not our intention to cast any aspersions on these honourable gentlemen and what they achieved.

Our primary concern is to improve this measure as it affects the people at whose improvement it is aimed. Knowing the mind of the Department of Social Welfare with which I have had to deal during the past number of years, I can say that they could not be said to be progressive. With all due respect to the Minister, they are somewhat archaic and outmoded and their attitude of mind at times would seem to be contaminated by concepts of doles and niggardly means tests. We do not want that kind of concept to infiltrate into a measure such as this and that is why it is desirable some higher court of appeal should be available instead of leaving decisions, which will be final and binding, in the hands of officials.

I appreciate that we have this House as a national forum to reveal any flagrant defects or injustices which might occur in the administration of this legislation, but that is not good enough. It is only when the damage has been done and great hardship and suffering have ensued that we should take such matters into this House. We want to ensure that decisions taken as a result of this measure will be fair and impartial. We want justice not merely being done but seen to be done. In such circumstances it may well be necessary to give the people affected the right of appeal to the judiciary.

I had not intended to say so much. My concern was to ask the Minister in particular to remedy the anomalies to which I referred earlier in regard to the diagnosis of illness and the placing of responsibility on somebody, be it the Department of Social Welfare or the employer or the doctors or the legal profession or whoever might be involved.

I am glad something is being done in the Bill regarding rehabilitation of disabled workers. I wonder to what extent this rehabilitation scheme can be dovetailed into the proposals of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce in his measure concerning retraining of operatives arising from redundancy. I should like the Minister to elaborate on that aspect of the matter and tell us the kind of rehabilitation he has in mind, the kind of compensation and the extent to which it will impinge on the proposals to be submitted by the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Flanagan, as indicated in his recently published manpower policy programme.

We were rather concerned about the allegations made by some Fine Gael spokesman here today and the aspersions cast on our Party as if we were being negligent or guilty of some dereliction of duty whereas we feel intensely proud of this legislation. We agree it can be improved and we are taking the necessary steps to ensure that will happen and our amendments will come before the House in due course. I repeat that our responsibility as a Party in establishing the platform for this measure in 1955 by the action of the Minister for Social Welfare then, Deputy Corish, our present Leader, was to provide a new workers' charter for injured workers. We could not be expected to have regard to all the vested interests involved. Our primary concern was then and now is and always will be fair play for the workers who may have the misfortune to sustain injury on the job with resultant privation and misery.

Dr. Gibbons

In proposing to discuss this Bill, one feels one is dealing with a legislative iceberg because most of what it proposes to do is still beneath the surface buried in regulations it is proposed to make later on when this becomes law. I think there are 18 cases where it is said regulations will be introduced to deal with various problems. When enacted, this legislation will mean changes for the employers, particularly for the workmen and perhaps for the insurance companies but in view of the fact that the insurance companies must still cover the common law cases, they will still get their pound of flesh.

In dealing with the injured workman, a few minor points strike me. The first concerns the notification of accidents. A worker who is seriously injured will notify his accident but one who receives a minor injury may not do so. He may be in the habit of getting minor injuries and may be one of those who do not feel like running to the foreman or to the office every time he gets a minor injury. But as time goes on he may develop some disease or disablement as a result of this injury and when the regulations are drafted I would strongly urge the Minister to give particular care to the time he prescribes for workmen to notify injuries.

In the change over from workmen's compensation to this new social welfare benefit a problem will arise in deciding when a man's disease or disability began. The various sections from nine to 23 now state that it covers disabilities or diseases arising on or after the date the Act comes into force. I believe this does not go far enough and that it should cover diseases or disabilities diagnosed after the coming into effect of the Act because there are diseases that may be present before that particular date but which may not be diagnosed until afterwards and the workman may be in a position of having to decide to take action under the old Workmen's Compensation Acts and may not find himself able to do so successfully.

In that connection the first disease one thinks of is pneumoconiosis which will be diagnosed by X-ray and some expert looking at that will say: "This man had this trouble for the past year or two and does not come under this Act". The workman may not be aware of this until he has been diagnosed and may not be able to offer much evidence on the point. This should be provided for in the legislation so that diseases or disabilities diagnosed after the Act should be covered by the Act.

Section 26 covers payments to medical advisers of injured workmen. At present most workmen come under the medical card heading. But as the section stands it says it is proposed to pay the man whatever he is entitled to under the Health Acts. A man with a medical card if he goes to a dispensary doctor or avails of the regional consulting services is entitled to those services free but some workmen when earning a decent wage may have a private doctor and when injured would like to continue going to that practitioner. Bills will be incurred in those circumstances and I feel the legislation should cover such bills.

Down the country where I work it is not unknown for people to come to the city to seek specialist advice on their complaints. Under this legislation their medical fees will not be covered in these circumstances. They may be told that the service will be free if they avail of the local service. They may not wish to do that and I feel that this also should be looked into. For a person working in an area such as mine one of the most important things to decide is the definition of disability and unemployability. If a man in rural Ireland, who may have spent 20 or 30 years in a particular occupation, is injured, I think we should know definitely how that disability will be decided. A man in the city may not be able to continue his usual occupation but it may be possible to get him other work that he will be able to do just as easily and the remuneration for which will be just as good. He will be at no great disadvantage.

In the rural areas the situation will be much different: the work will not be there for the man. He may be able to do certain skilled work, but it is not there for him in any circumstances. Whoever has to decide this will have to take a very wide view of it. In the case of workmen in rural areas you may find that the disability allowance may be a very small percentage. Much the same thing applies to the question of unemployability, which I find it hard to grasp at all. The Minister must take those things into consideration when these decisions are eventually being made.

Subsection (4) of section 17 is very interesting. I wonder how it appeared in this legislation at all or why it should appear. I would be interested to know if the question were asked in the House how many widows were deprived of their benefit because of that subsection. It would be much more important for the Minister to take power to pay the benefits going to the wife and her children directly under certain circumstances, particularly under the circumstance where the injured workman may be inclined to drink or gamble his weekly allowance. That does not occur very often but, when it does, it becomes a tragedy for the family. If the Minister has not already the power to do so, he should take that power now.

Another small matter in the Bill is the case of the widow who will get children's allowances if her husband's son or stepson or grandchild continues to live with her. This section should go further. It should also give the allowances to this widow if she has staying with her an orphaned child under age or a niece or a nephew of herself or her husband. I am aware of this problem. There are three widows in my area, two of whom have orphaned children. One of them would come under this legislation if it were enacted at the particular time. I feel the number of times this will arise will be very small, but that is all the more reason for covering those particular cases.

My colleague, Deputy Dowling, seemed to be pleased that the doctors and the legal people are moving out of this legislation, but to my mind the doctor and the solicitor will still remain in their capacity in this legislation. I am absolutely certain the doctor is going to be in it even more so. Under the present Social Welfare Acts no matter what document comes from Dublin to a patient the first person to see it is a doctor. He must give his advice on it. This legislation is certainly going to mean more work for the doctors, more documentation, more records.

I am also sure the Social Welfare Department are not unaware that in many cases already people seek the advice of solicitors in their particular problems. They will continue to do so. I think it will be necessary for them to do so at the beginning. They will want somebody to advise them what their rights are under the new legislation. I am of the opinion that, much as the House might dislike it, the State should provide some fees for them in those cases. They will be involved in some expense in these matters.

Deputy Treacy referred to a case of his down the country which prompts me to ask the Minister what is going to happen to the certifying surgeon under the new legislation. In Deputy Treacy's case the man to decide the problem is the certifying surgeon. I would like to know from the Minister will this man still continue to operate. It is not a very lucrative position but it is important to know whether it will continue or not.

Before I conclude, it is not out of place for me, a non-legal person, to pay a small tribute to the judges who in the past have acted in and decided cases under the Workmen's Compensation Acts. Any time I appeared before them I always thought they were conscientious, sympathetic and very patient men. I think I, as one who appeared before them very frequently, should take this opportunity of putting that on record. I hope the Department of Social Welfare will deal with this problem in the same manner. If they do, the workman will be very satisfied.

Mr. M.J. O'Higgins

The approach of Deputy Gibbons and his critical analysis of some of the provisions in this Bill is a welcome one. It is welcome to the Minister just as it is to other Deputies. I, for one, would like to compliment the Deputy on his contribution. Legislation going through this House can only be improved if all of us in our respective Parties examine it and endeavour to improve on it. There have been certain criticisms voiced against this measure from Deputies in these benches, and I think in a number of respects this Bill is open to criticism. I hope the Minister's approach to the Bill is that it will also be open to amendment on Committee. While there is criticism to be voiced of this measure, the Minister may accept that our approach in these benches, and the approach of most Deputies to this measure, is not one of hostility but a desire to have a measure, whether by retaining the existing framework or adopting the framework proposed by the Minister, that will effectively protect the interests of the injured workman.

Let me say for the benefit of Deputies, particularly those who were critical of lawyers, that, while I am a lawyer, I certainly do not regard myself as having any vestige of vested interest in retaining the present workmen's compensation system. I rather imagine very many lawyers find themselves in the same position as I do. I have been in practice for 25 years. I have done a fair share of workmen's compensation work, but it is never work that I would look to to make my fortune, and I do not think any other lawyer looks at it in that way either. The point I want to make is that from the workman's point of view the workmen's compensation code is an extremely valuable one. Were it not for the existence of that code, in a very large number of cases of accidents arising in connection with the person's employment, the injured workman would be entitled to no compensation whatever. Under the workmen's compensation code as it exists at the moment injured workmen, certainly in the large majority of cases of accidents arising in connection with employment, accidents arising out of and in the course of one's employment, are now covered.

There have been criticisms of the existing code. We are entitled to have regard to the fact that in other countries the system has been departed from and has, so to speak, been put on the stamps, as is proposed under this Bill; but the code, as it exists, with all its defects, with all the criticisms that may be directed against it, is one that has proved of very considerable value to workmen. The reason I emphasise that is that, that being so, and I believe it is so, there is all the more reason why Deputies should give very close and very careful scrutiny to any proposals which seek to get away from or to alter radically the existing position.

As I see the proposals which the Minister has put before the House, there are six or seven major proposals in this Bill. In the first place, it is proposed to abolish the present system of claiming and paying and the liability for workmen's compensation. When this Bill becomes law, the employer will no longer be liable for compensation. That will be taken over by the Department of Social Welfare. In the second place, and this is where any difference of opinion of a major sort is likely to come to the surface in connection with these proposals, entitlement to compensation in the future will not be determined by the circuit court, will not be determined by the courts at all, but will be determined by the Department of Social Welfare. There will be no appeal to the courts except in certain exceptional circumstances. Thirdly, in future employers will be compulsorily liable to pay contributions in respect of the employees for the purpose, of course, of entitling the employees to compensation.

Another matter that is of some importance under the proposals in the Bill is that certain factors at present existing, which disentitle a workman to compensation under the existing code, will be removed. I think that is a welcome improvement. Again, the categories of persons entitled to compensation will be broadened. There are other features of the Bill but these are the principal features and, as I say, any sharp division of opinion that is likely to arise will arise on the proposal that, in future, the courts will not be entitled, even if workmen feel they would prefer to have their cases submitted to the courts, to decide whether a workman is or is not under the law entitled to benefit and entitled to compensation. Here we are asked to adopt a proposal whereby the State will be the sole arbiter as to whether or not a person is entitled to compensation and the State will also be a party to the proceedings. The claim will be made against the State and the State will decide whether or not that claim is justified.

I am not for a moment wedded to the idea that only the courts can decide on matters of this kind, that the existing code of workmen's compensation is the only code likely to be satisfactory and likely to be fair to workmen, on the one hand, and to employers on the other. But I find it very, very difficult to believe that a system can operate equitably and fairly to all concerned if one and the same person acts as judge and defendant. That is what the Minister is asking for here. That is the system the Minister is asking the House to adopt.

I have the very greatest respect for the fairmindedness and the capabilities of the Irish Civil Service and its personnel but it is making things a little difficult for civil servants in their capacity as employees of the State to decide whether or not, in the event of a dispute, the case against the State should be sustained. Here the Minister is asking us to adopt that suggestion. If there is a general desire to get away from the present system, to get away from the courts, to get away from the delays that some people say are involved in the procedure through the courts, I believe it should be possible to find an alternative system, based, if you like, on the stamps, as we are proposing in this Bill but which will not leave it entirely to civil servants to decide whether or not a claim is to be met.

I would strongly urge the Minister to consider between now and Committee Stage some alternative scheme. Alternatives do exist. If we want to get away from the courts, it should be possible to set up some type of independent tribunal to which an aggrieved workman can appeal rather than accept the system envisaged in this Bill under which a decision is made by a civil servant and is appealed to another civil servant. I would strongly urge the Minister to consider the merits of setting up some type of independent tribunal to which a workman who is dissatisfied with the decision given by the civil servant can appeal. I believe that could be done. I believe it would be workable. I believe it would have the merit, if it is regarded as a merit, of taking workmen's compensation cases away from the court. It would certainly have the merit of getting away from the proposal under which one and the same person would be both defendant and judge.

This measure is also open to the criticism made here that it is, in fact, legislation by regulation. Practically every section and subsection is dependant on ministerial regulations. One of the bad features of the Bill is that, even where regulations will be made, there is no positive obligation on the Minister, or anyone else, to make the regulations. It is put in in a purely permissive way. Instead of providing that the Minister shall make regulations or that regulations shall be made, we find, running through practically every section of the Bill, "regulations may be made" or "the Minister may make regulations".

I look at the page open in front of me. Section 23 subsection (3) reads:

Regulations prescribing any disease or injury for the purpose of this section may provide...

It does not say what the regulations shall provide but what they may provide. Again, under subsection (4) provision may be made by regulations for determining the time, and so on. Subsection (6) of the same section provides that regulations may provide for certain things. Section 24 which deals with supplements to workmen's compensation payments, starts off by saying in subsection (1):

Regulations may provide for conferring on persons...

Subsection (2) starts by saying:

Regulations may also provide... And subsection (3) says:

Such regulations may further provide...

The whole thing is dependent on regulations.

We are being invited here to adopt this legislation in blinkers to a very great extent because, while the Minister may be in a position to give the House his mind and his ideas as to what regulations will be made and to what extent permissive sections will be operated, and I assume the Minister will make every effort to give that kind of information to the House, nevertheless, until the regulations are made, no Deputy will be aware of precisely what is in them.

The point has been made from these benches and it is one to which I would also like the Minister to give some consideration as to the desirability of introducing some graduated scale of both benefits and contributions. All of us will appreciate that where you have a flat rate of benefit and where you have the flat rate applied to different classes of workmen, some of whom may be very much more highly paid than others, it is a very much greater hardship on a highly paid workman, or reasonably highly paid workman, to drop down to whatever scale is applicable than it is for a more lowly paid workman to drop down to the same level. In the first case the gap between the pre-accident earnings and the flat rate paid is very much greater than the gap between the pre-accident earnings and the amount paid in the second case. It would be well worth investigating the possibility of introducing a system which would genuinely minimise the hardship caused to workmen as a result of an accident by providing some system whereby there would be a graduated system of payments and, in return for that, if the workmen's compensation code in future is based on a system of contributions, it would be reasonable to suggest a graduated system of contributions also.

There is one matter in particular which I should like to ask the Minister to deal with more fully. It is in connection with section 31 which deals with disqualifications for injury benefits or disablement benefit and suspensions of proceedings. This section is also permissive so far as regulations are concerned and provides that regulations may provide for disqualifying a person from receiving injury benefit or disablement benefit for any period not exceeding six weeks, or for suspending proceedings on any claim for, or on any payment of, injury benefit or disablement benefit, if the person fails without good cause to do any of a number of things. Paragraph (d) mentions one of these things: "to observe any prescribed rules of behaviour."

I should like to ask the Minister what that means or what is intended by it, what rules of behaviour it is intended to prescribe. It seems to me to be a very wide description, to contain very wide powers which, if harshly exercised, would result in disentitling workmen for possibly trivial reasons from receiving benefit for a period up to six weeks.

I would again urge the Minister at least to consider seriously between now and Committee Stage whether or not it would be possible to allow an appeal to some body or tribunal other than a civil servant in the case of a workman who is aggrieved by the decision of the deciding officer or appeals officer proposed in the Bill.

Mr. Mullen

This Bill is undoubtedly a progressive move and something which anybody who thinks seriously about workmen's compensation must welcome because it proposes or suggests improvements on the present position. Mention has been made of what brought the Bill about and who brought it about. It would appear to me, having listened to Deputy Barrett this evening, that he certainly does not know where he is and has been away from the happenings for many years, particularly in relation to workmen's compensation. He conveniently forgets that day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, an organisation called the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has been demanding that something should be done in relation to workmen's compensation and that simultaneously the Labour Party have been doing the same thing. If you like, the Labour movement have been crying out for something to be done by way of improvement in workmen's compensation legislation.

This was brought very forcibly to a head on the occasion of the last general election. The people clearly indicated their desire to have improvements carried out in social welfare benefits and other such matters.

Deputy Barrett talked about delays and the fears as to what will happen in connection with this Bill. He then proceeded to talk as if this Bill were the property of the Labour Party, which it is not. The Labour Party will undoubtedly table amendments with a view to improving the Bill but the Bill is not the property of the Labour Party. Deputy Barrett said that the Labour Party had fear about delays. He talked about the progression from the Circuit Court to the High Court to the Supreme Court.

I would suggest that there are no people who know more about the intricacies or the disadvantages of the workmen's compensation code existing at the present time than trade union officials. They are very conscious of the delays that have been experienced and continue to be experienced by workers who have to avail of legal machinery in order to obtain their entitlement. I know for a fact that in some cases, as there are in all professions, there have been good and bad. I have known lawyers who have worked earnestly in connection with matters of this kind. On the other hand, I have known cases where they did not work so earnestly and have delayed and were the cause of delay through forgetfulness or being too busy looking after other business. Compensation claims are not as remunerative as other business might be.

There are a few points in relation to the Bill which I should like to ask the Minister to consider. I am concerned about what the Minister says on page 26 of his brief in regard to a deciding officer and an appeals officer. I am concerned as Deputy O'Higgins has indicated he is concerned, about the decision being left to one man. This is not good enough. We must try to make the people engaged in this exercise, employers and workers, realise that this Bill is being brought in with a view to having benefits provided for everybody who has to be absent from work through injuries caused by accident. There is nothing wrong in setting up a court of referees made up of representatives of employers and workers and there would be nothing wrong in having a High Court judge to preside over such a body. I would be glad of the wiping out of red tape as far as legal machinery is concerned.

I am also pleased to observe that there will be less control on the part of the insurance companies. In the existing situation, the insurance companies appear to be doing their utmost to prevent a workman getting compensation. This will no longer be the case but we cannot at the same time leave it to the Department to give satisfaction. At the moment there are numerous complaints about the Department's present system with regard to benefits and, if the new system is going to be left to the Department to operate, we will have a peculiar situation. Does this Bill mean that we are to have a specially trained staff in the Department to administer it, people who will know their job and who will do their best to give a satisfactory service to the people?

The situation with regard to the person who is being trained for any particular job has been played with under the existing legislation. I would like to know what is to happen to the person who is being trained for a particular type of employment and is not employed by any particular employer. Take the example of the catering workers. There is a council which operates training schemes in various parts of the country and young boys and girls undergo training under this scheme. They are not regarded as being employed and I would like to know whether, if they meet with an accident in the course of their training, they will be covered.

I feel that whenever this Bill becomes an Act the Minister should arrange for a simplified description of the Bill to be given as a handout so that people will know their obligations and their entitlements. There are far too many public lawyers when it comes to workmen's compensation. A man meets with an accident and, while he is unable to work, he is able to amble down to the local pub and have a chat and he will meet people who will advise him that he can get thousands in compensation. That may lead to an awful lot of trouble and it would be useful if we had some arrangement whereby the worker would be advised of his entitlement and the employers of their obligations.

On page 22 of his speech, the Minister referred to certain other diseases required to be covered by international conventions but not now covered by the Workmens Compensation Acts and he says these diseases will receive immediate consideration. Am I to understand that all the diseases covered by the international Conventions are to be covered under this Bill? Deputy Treacy talked about the importance of safety measures. This is something that has a lot to do with workmen's compensation. If we are to get this message of the need for care across to everybody, we will have to get to the people more. The trade unions and progressive employers have been playing their part in that connection but we will not make much progress until we have more factory inspectors to see that the regulations are carried out. I would suggest a get-together between the Minister and the Minister for Industry and Commerce on this matter because the number of factory inspectors is far too small. They are so few that they could not attempt to do a successful job.

The Minister has also said that deciding officers will have the assistance of the medical officers of the Department of Social Welfare in dealing with medical matters. I would ask the Minister to have another look at that. Does he intend to have a new set of medical officers appointed to his Department or will it be the same type of person as sorts people out as far as social welfare benefits are concerned? You can ask any supporter of any Party here what he thinks of the set up of having to go before a doctor in the Custom House.

Deputy Gibbons talked about the expenses of doctors and surgeons and yesterday in this House we were talking about choice of doctor and we had an indication from the Minister for Health that under new proposals which he is bringing in, we will have a choice of doctor. That does not fit in with the Minister's speech concerning the payment of expenses to doctors and surgeons. He said the payment will be consistent with their present entitlement under the old Act. Now the Minister for Social Welfare must know very well what his colleague, the Minister for Health, is going to do with regard to choice of doctor.

This Bill also indicates that there is a limit to benefits. That is understandable because all these things must be paid for. This is a progressive measure but it is not everything that one would desire. We in the Labour Party would like to see more benefits being extended to our people, particularly having regard to the fact that even with this Bill there will still be people in need, and the amount of compensation will not take care of all the needs.

My colleague, Deputy Treacy, indicated that there would be a limit on the period of payment. I should imagine that will not be so. If a person is out of work suffering from an injury sustained at work, he will be covered by workmen's compensation and I presume I am right in thinking there will be no question of a limit of 26 weeks.

There will be amendments to the Bill, as there is need at all times for improvement. I would ask the Minister to give further consideration to the matter of benefits affecting widows and their dependants, and to bring in a suitable amendment.

Every Deputy who has read this Bill or even read or listened to the Minister's speech must agree that this is something that requires careful handling, and cries out for specially trained staff to administer it. As this is a progressive move, we should have another progressive move so that the people outside will realise the Department of Social Welfare is not the barrier they think it is. Too often people say to me: "If you, go before the Departmental doctor, his attitude at all times is: "I am going to get you back to work as fast as I can because you are costing too much money'." We must remove that idea from our people's minds. There must be a different approach to people in this regard. It must be realised that they have problems not only in respect of their injury but in respect of their dependants. We must not run away with the idea that the benefits given under this Bill will rid them of their problems. There will still be the situation that a man with dependants who is out of work through an accident at his work will be receiving less than if he was working. This is important.

Mr. Moore

I join with the other speakers, practically every speaker, who welcomed this Bill, and I congratulate the Minister on the forward look the Bill shows. On page 28 of his speech, the Minister mentioned that financial assistance would be forthcoming for research into accident prevention schemes. Any Deputy with any knowledge of industry, whether it be light or heavy, will appreciate the necessity for striving to prevent accidents, and we do know that on the part of the vast majority of workers and employers, there is a couldn't-care-less attitude towards accident prevention. The fact that there are very few safety committees in industry shows how little we care about this. While there is a national industrial safety organisation, an excellent body doing very good work, we have not got the message across to people that accident prevention is far more important than paying out compensation. I believe that if the Minister presses for research into accidents, he will save a lot of money and also a lot of human suffering.

I welcome the Bill also for the fact that it measures up, or almost measures up, to some of the European standards set up by the International Labour Office. The Minister must be complimented on striving to bring our social services up to the standard of those in Europe, which in many cases are far ahead of ours.

Having said that much about safety, I should like to comment very briefly on some of the provisions in the Bill. Up to now the compensation paid was very low, so low that workers were very often tempted not to report an accident because if they did, it meant being sent home, or going to hospital, and the loss of their weekly income. Many a man has for this reason failed to report an accident to his employer, with the result that the injury became aggravated and he lost a lot more than he would have lost, had he reported the accident in the first instance.

Under this Bill the benefit is to be increased. It will not lead to a rash of accidents but it will mean that if a man is hurt and needs treatment, he will be able to see about it knowing that the payment of workmen's compensation has been increased. The Minister has stated that he is prepared to amend the regulations under the Social Welfare Act so that disability benefit will be payable concurrently with workmen's compensation. This is a tremendous step forward. It will relieve the man or woman not only of worry about his or her physical condition but also of worry about what will happen to the family if the weekly income ceases.

I listened to Members who are lawyers from the far benches and who said that up to this the outlook of people who administered the Act was weighted in favour of the worker. To anybody who has been involved with people working in factories, this is an amazing statement, because their whole outlook was that it was weighted in the very opposite direction, against them. They dreaded reporting an accident, seeking compensation, the whole thing dragging on for months, while all the time hospital bills would be mounting up and in the end, when they would get compensation, they would very often owe some of the money coming to them from the local health authority in order to tide them over this period. Although the injury might not be very serious, it could have upset his family so much that he would have been tempted at the time to accept the lump sum and finish the whole matter.

Somebody said here we did not trust working people with regard to getting lump sums, but that is not true. Perhaps Deputy Mullen hit the nail on the head when he said there were a lot of public house lawyers knocking around who would tell a man about the thousands he would get; he would believe it for a while and when he realised he would not get that much, he would settle for anything just to get some money into his hands. In this respect the Bill is a great improvement, and in increasing the benefits, the Minister has made a tremendous stride forward. On the point of the Department being the judge in cases, I think a big saving in time and money will be made. I do not say this because I have an anti-lawyer bias but because I believe it is a much more businesslike way of dealing with these matters and that it will benefit injured workmen tremendously.

There is nothing in the Bill to prevent an injured workman taking a civil action against an employer. To refer once again to the prevention of accidents, perhaps we need more factory inspectors but we certainly need more industrial awareness that accidents can be prevented. Far too many people are killed and maimed each year by sheer carelessness. While we deplore death on our roads, we do not take sufficient notice of accidents in industry. Admittedly, there are not as many as on the roads but undoubtedly far too many accidents are occurring in industry which could be prevented by care and attention. I hope the Minister will pursue this matter of research into accident prevention and that where either an employer or employee is found to be grossly negligent, he will be dealt with sufficiently severely. All this would help to prevent accidents.

Mr. O'Leary

My Party have indicated, through Deputy James Tully, our support for this measure but in a Bill which we have advocated for so long, we shall be introducing amendments which we think will alter it more in the direction we should like to see it work. Up to now we have felt —the Minister made reference to it in his opening statement—that this area was too much a matter for court action and that it was not considered sufficiently from the point of view of a necessary social service for workers in industry. If industrial relations are framed to make for the best possible harmony and accord between employer and worker while the worker is healthy, the same should apply when the worker is injured in the course of his employment. It is not good ground for employer-worker harmony if the worker must have at the back of his mind this idea that if anything happens, he will have to depend on the tender mercies of lawyers and solicitors to help him.

We feel this Bill is a more rational way of dealing with some of the things that happen too often, men injured in the course of their employment. It is true—Deputy Tully mentioned it— that prevention of injury in a man's employment is still essential and necessary. It is still necessary to see that injury in the course of employment does not occur too often. Unfortunately there are too many firms in this country who do not do quite as much as they should in this matter of promoting safety on the industrial factory floor: there are still too many machines unguarded. I feel the factory inspectorate have not been fashioned efficiently enough. Of course, as individuals they cannot be accused. It may mean their service is not extensive enough and many of us in the trade unions hear that their visits are too infrequent or that the employer is notified beforehand.

We are glad to see that the powers of the insurance companies are being pushed back. We are glad to see vested interests have been pushed back and that in some sense the priority in this Bill is the individual who is injured— that all our contributions through this Bill will be biased in favour of the man injured at his work. In regard to any risk in phrasing, we think it is better to take that risk if our direction is clear—that it is in the interests of the injured worker. Perhaps we can get some improvement in the appeals section and certainly we shall not shed any crocodile tears on this side for any diminution of freedom that means less litigation for the individual. Under the old Act we have found that the exercise of those rights proved a very expensive commodity for the worker.

Improvements to this Bill through amendments we shall suggest will be in the spirit of the defence of the individual worker. Any of us who have attended trade union conferences during the past 20 years will have heard workers advocating an improvement in workmen's compensation legislation, and year after year has had to report no progress. Assuming some of our amendments are accepted, we hope we will be able to report progress on this occasion.

We are proud on this side of the House that the leader of our Party had a principal part in the creation of the Bill now before us and that the first moves towards getting a modern scheme of industrial injuries legislation were taken by him. We are glad also that the Minority Report of the Commission, substantially that of the Congress of Irish Trade Unions, was the one accepted. Our attitude has been set out by Deputy Tully. Our amendments will be framed to protect, even more than in the Bill, the rights of the injured worker. I am unhappy to see that the three-day waiting period is still in the Bill. This has been the subject of conference after conference. That this three-day period should be retained is a disadvantage.

If the good health of his industry, of his factory, depends on an efficient work force, an employer must accept as an obligation that his workers, injured through no fault of their own, are looked after. I hope some of our suspicions will not be confirmed in the phrase "accident arising out of and in the course of his employment". Deputy Tully pointed to some possible improvements in phraseology and the interpretation this clause in the Act receives in other countries. We may consider that the phrase "arising out of and in the course of his employment" is a bit cumbersome, that it may retain in the legislation quite an area of dispute which would not be there if the phrase were simpler.

Minister for Social Welfare (Mr. Boland)

I thank the House in general for the reception given to the Bill. It was obvious that most Deputies appreciated the Bill is a very great step forward in social welfare legislation. It was not very easy to interpret the attitude of the Fine Gael Party as such. Deputy O'Higgins stated that their approach was not one of hostility and I must admit that the personal contribution of Deputy O'Higgins was a very reasonable one, that it did not show any hostility. However, I would suggest to Deputy O'Higgins that he might some time read the speeches of other members of his Party, and in particular those of Deputy J. A. Costello and Deputy Barrett.

It is very hard to believe that we had not in the debate something of a re-enactment of the type of discussions that must have taken place at Government level prior to the setting up of the Workmen's Compensation Commission. I do not think anybody has had any doubt that the then Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy Corish, knew very well the type of change that was desirable in regard to workmen's compensation. The spokesmen of the Labour Party have said there has been considerable experience of the operation of a similar scheme in Great Britain and Northern Ireland and that the experience of the workers' representatives has been quite satisfactory, that there was little, if any, complaint. I should be very surprised if the Minister for Social Welfare at the time when this Commission was set up did not appreciate fully that it was a change similar to that being made now that was required.

I was accused on a number of occasions in the House of trying to put some blame on Deputy Corish as Minister for Social Welfare for the delay in making the change. I never intended to do that but I did imply that it was the predominance of the Fine Gael mentality in the Government of which he was a member that prevented this obviously desirable change being made and substituted a Commission instead which did a very thorough job and brought out, as was to be expected, two different reports.

Deputy Costello's speech was a really amazing performance or, at least, I found it so. It was quite obvious to me that the Deputy must have thought that by setting up this Commission in 1955, he had disposed of the danger of this change, which I think was surely inevitable under any progressive Government, for some considerable time to come. It was obvious from the whole tenor of his speech that he has still not got over his chagrin that that manoeuvre was not successful because of the fact that the report of the Commission was received by a Government who were able to make up their own mind. The fact that he based practically the whole of his attack on this Bill—and surely it is obviously an attack—on the really silly charge that this was a transferring of the burden of workmen's compensation from the employer to the taxpayer shows, I think, that he was still affected by unreasoning anger because this change is being made and this obvious aspect of social welfare is now being brought into line with modern concepts of social security. It should be perfectly clear to anybody who has been able to look at the Bill in a calm and unprejudiced way that not one solitary penny of the cost of this scheme will fall on the taxpayer. The scheme will be financed by means of the contributions which will be paid in the form of the social insurance stamp by employers and employers only and it is intended that this special Occupational Injuries Fund will be entirely self-supporting and that no part of the cost will be met by the taxpayer.

Of course, there will be some increased cost of administration in the Department of Social Welfare but this will also be met out of the Occupational Injuries Fund which will be financed by employers' contributions. Therefore, Deputy Costello's attack on the Bill, being based in the main on this misconception, means that the greater part of his speech is nonsense.

In this debate we have seen something of the different faces of the Fine Gael Party or, perhaps I should say, we have seen the real face of Fine Gael under the mask of the rather cynical document that was drafted for election purposes, described as "The Just Society". Except for Deputy O'Higgins's contribution I could see no trace of the new mentality and the new approach to social welfare in particular, which it was attempted to convince the public underlay the production of that document. This debate makes it quite clear that the Fine Gael attitude to social welfare has not undergone any genuine change. The public in the election realised that document was purely election eyewash.

It appeared to me that Fine Gael were to a certain extent trying to have it both ways: they were trying to make it appear, on the one hand, that they were not actually opposing this improvement in our social welfare legislation in the manner of dealing with occupational injuries and diseases but at the same time there appeared to be a determination to salvage as much of the existing system as possible. So far as I can gather, despite the bitter nature of some of the Fine Gael speeches on the matter, they do not intend to oppose the Bill on this Stage but it was obvious that some Fine Gael members hope to retain for their profession some of the share of the cost of this aspect of social welfare which was theirs up to now. Certainly, there was every indication that Fine Gael do not appreciate with any degree of enthusiasm as Deputy Fitzpatrick put it, in what Deputy Costello described as an understatement, that this change is essentially an arrangement to ensure that, apart from administrative expenses, the full cost of occupational injuries and diseases will now be entirely for the benefit of the workman.

I was not the only Member of the House who saw something incongruous in regard to the vivid picture painted by Deputy Costello of young solicitors and barristers rushing around the country seeking to take up workmen's compensation cases free of charge. I do not suggest that lawyers are any more mercenary than any other professional people but I think the main attraction of workmen's compensation work is the fees that are involved.

In pursuance of what appears to be the objective of conserving as much as possible of the present system, Deputy Costello made what I consider a scandalous attack on the officers of the Department of Social Welfare when he said that their main consideration was and is to protect the fund at all costs. He said he himself had seen this phrase on many files in his time in Government. He must know full well he did not complete the phrase. He left out the most important part of the phrase he has seen on documents. The objective was that the fund should be protected from fraud. Does Deputy Costello say this is a reprehensible principle or that there should not be an effort to ensure that the Social Insurance Fund, which is contributed to by workers, employers and taxpayers, is utilised only for the purpose of providing recompense for workers in respect of the different contingencies insured against under the Social Insurance Scheme? It is obviously in the interest of all concerned—workers, employers and taxpayers—that the fund should be safeguarded from fraud, but there is no attempt to deprive the workers of their full rights. It was rather bad practice on the part of Deputy Costello to try to convey that very wrong impression of the approach of officers of my Department.

So far from creating a position such as Deputy Costello suggests will be created, the effect of this Bill will be to ensure that there will be a completely objective decision in these cases. The workman will no longer have to depend on his good or bad luck in obtaining the services of legal advisers who can or cannot outwit the experienced specialists who will invariably be employed by insurance companies in these cases. Naturally, the insurance companies are concerned with ensuring that no money will be paid out except in accordance with their strict liability under the law. Decisions will now be purely factual and objective. They will not any longer depend on the ability of what may be an inexperienced lawyer to overcome the wiles of a seasoned practitioner with a specialised knowledge of this subject. There will be no person or body with a particular interest in trying to arrange that compensation will not be paid. If Deputies insist on suggesting that the officers of my Department will act with ulterior motives, the fact is there will be no State contribution in regard to benefits under the Occupational Injuries Fund. In the case of a workman who is unfit for work it will normally be a question of whether he qualifies for disability benefit under the general Social Insurance Scheme or for benefit under the new Occupational Injuries Scheme. As I say, there is no State contribution to the Occupational Injuries Fund but there is to the Social Insurance Fund.

A number of speakers on the Fine Gael side told us that invariably the result of decisions in the courts was to ensure that the benefit of any doubt went to the workman and that there was a general disposition to favouring the workman if at all possible.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): I think Deputy Gibbons agreed with that.

Mr. Boland

Deputy Kyne may have a better recollection than I have of the number of times he had to put down a question to me about a particular case of an Irish seaman working on a British ship who was not awarded workmen's compensation simply because of the fact that there was nobody who knew sufficient about the matter to bring to the attention of the court the fact that there were reciprocal arrangements in that regard. It took a long time to get this case reopened and settled satisfactorily. It is not a fact, despite what Deputy Costello said, that every young barrister and lawyer throughout the country can see his way round these Acts practically blindfold. He went on further to state that this was a very specialised and involved subject. It is quite obvious the specialists were those who normally act for insurance companies; and as far as the workman was concerned it was a matter of luck whether he happened to get a legal adviser who was well informed in this matter or not. The only interest of the officers of my Department in this matter will be to see that justice will be done to the worker making the claim.

The question was raised of the long time that has elapsed since the maximum rate of workmen's compensation was fixed. I was not very long in office as Minister for Social Welfare when the long awaited Report of the Workmen's Compensation Commission became available. It is a fact that that took over six years. I do not blame Deputy Corish for that at all. I realise his difficulty in the matter. It was reasonable, in view of the fact that the Commission had been sitting so long, to wait for its Report. When I got its Report, I do not think there was an excessive delay in bringing this Bill before the House.

The Majority Report recommended the continuation of the present system. When I got the Report, I read it and formed the opinion that the proper action was to bring in the type of change I am proposing to the House now. In other words, that was directly against the recommendation of the majority of the Commission. I read the report again and studied it before I finally decided that that was in fact what I should do. I think that was a wise thing to do. My Department had to study the report and, before I finally made up my mind, I naturally awaited the views of my Department. Other Departments had to be consulted. They did not delay excessively but their approach to the matter was not, perhaps, as expeditious as that of the Department primarily involved. There was a certain amount of delay necessarily involved in that advisable preliminary procedure.

When I finally made my decision, I had to go through certain procedure. I had to submit the matter to my colleagues and ensure that I had a good case to put before them. I decided it would be better to get a decision in principle first before drafting the heads of the Bill because it was a fundamental change I was proposing. I got a decision in principle and then work on preparing the Bill started. I do not think the delay has been excessive in view of all that had to be done. As I say, this is a fundamental change.

Most of the other points raised can be dealt with, I think, more satisfactorily on Committee Stage. Deputy Fitzpatrick or Deputy Tully asked me what would be the position of the worker whose employer fails to pay contributions.

Mr. James Tully

I did not ask that. I know the answer.

Mr. Boland

The answer is there are no contribution conditions. If a worker is covered by the Act, he will be eligible for compensation. There are penalties for employers who do not stamp their workers' cards and the same enforcement machinery we have at the moment will implement this scheme.

Mr. James Tully

And there can be a suspension period now for failure to stamp.

Mr. Boland

There will be no suspension period so far as the employee is concerned.

Mr. T.J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan): Failure to stamp will not exclude an employee from benefit.

Mr. Boland

No. There are no contribution conditions prescribed. Noncompliance action will, of course, be taken against employers who fail to fulfil their liabilities. Exception was taken by some Deputies to the fact that we have provided a flat rate of contribution for all types of employment. I think that is one of the attractions of the Bill. The principle of spreading the risk is generally accepted now in all social insurance. Some of the most important industries in the State, some of those most vital to the national economy, are those which are highly risk rated—agriculture, forestry, fisheries, mining, building and construction work generally. A flat rate of contribution is, I think, a justifiable principle; the more sedentary and less hazardous employments should bear some of the cost of this overhead, an overhead which was excessive in the case of a number of these very important industries. Although this will mean that some of these employments will be subsidising the risks that exist in other employments, nevertheless the contribution in respect of any worker will still be fairly small and the relief given in some cases will be a great deal more than any increased charge on other industries.

Mr. James Tully

The Minister has not referred to the special hardship allowance. Why is it left out? Would he make a comment on it?

Mr. Boland

The special hardship allowance has not been explained at all because it does not appear in this Bill. It exists in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. First of all, I should explain this disablement pension and the question of injury benefit being limited to 26 weeks. Injury benefit is the first benefit payable under this Bill. It is paid in respect of incapacity for work. It is payable for 26 weeks at the rate of 115/- personal allowance and the usual allowances for dependants. At the end of that period, if the disablement still exists, this new benefit of disablement pension is payable. That will be at the rate of 115/- with no allowances for dependants, but it is not related to incapacity for work. It will be payable if the worker has suffered some loss of faculty but is still able to work. If he is not able to work then he will be eligible for unemployability supplement or ordinary disability benefit so that his position at the end of the 26 weeks, if he is still incapable of work, will be that there will be an increase in his total benefit of the amount of the personal allowance under disability benefit, an increase of 52/6 a week.

This special hardship allowance in Great Britain and Northern Ireland operates as follows: It applies only to a weekly rate of disablement pension of less than 100 per cent and, in cases where it is less than 100 per cent, the amount is increased by a special hardship allowance if, as a result of loss of faculty arising from injury at work, the beneficiary is incapable, and likely to remain permanently incapable, of following his regular occupation and is incapable of suitable work of an equivalent standard, or if he is continually unfit for his regular occupation from the time when his injury benefit ends. The maximum allowance is 54/- but the sum of the allowance and the disablement pension may not exceed 135/- being the weekly rate of pension of 100 per cent rate, and within these limits the rate of the allowance is the difference then between the standard rate of remuneration in the beneficiary's regular occupation and that in any suitable occupation which he is able to follow. That special hardship allowance was introduced on the Committee Stage of the Bill in Britain. The essential feature of the allowance is that the allowance, together with the pension, cannot exceed the maximum rate of the pension and the result is that persons with grave disability derive little or no benefit from it and the supplement is of any significant value only to those with relatively slight disablement. A major objection to the provision of this allowance is that persons with limited disablement who are able to resume employment with some reduction in earnings would be compensated both for loss of faculty and loss of earnings within a £2-14s. limit while persons more gravely disabled would receive little or no compensation for loss of earnings.

Another criticism is that, since the amount of this allowance would fall to be reduced, if the person's earning capacity should increase at any time following his loss of faculty, the payment of this allowance would be a serious disincentive to the workman's efforts to rehabilitate himself. The administration of this allowance would be exceptionally costly and this is the one thing that would really give rise to considerable and interminable disputes. There would be the difficulty of determining equitably not only the beneficial pre-accident earnings but also the potential post-accident earnings and of adjusting these calculations where necessary by reference to the worker's prospects of advancement and other wage increases appropriate to his employment.

I should say that the difficulties in arriving at an equitable determination of earnings under the existing workmen's compensation scheme led the majority of the commission to consider flat rate benefits instead. So that the administration of this special hardship allowance would be both costly and practically impossible, certainly impossible to do it satisfactorily.

Mr. James Tully

It is not impossible in England or Northern Ireland where 60 per cent of the people are getting it.

Mr. Boland

There is nothing that gives greater cause for dissatisfaction than this particular scheme. I do not think it is appropriate or, indeed, necessary here at all.

As I have said, if there are any other points that Deputies think I should deal with now rather than on Committee Stage, I am prepared to do it but if I were to go through all the points that were raised, I would probably take up the rest of the time tonight.

Question put and agreed to.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 24 Nov 1965