By agreement, Motion No. 27 is being taken.
Private Members' Business. - Travel Facilities for Old Age and Blind Pensioners.
I move:
That Dáil Éireann is of opinion that old age and blind pensioners be afforded travel facilities by CIE bus and rail free of charge.
First, I should like to thank the Minister for expressing his willingness to take the motion at such short notice. It is a simple motion of less than two lines. We must consider first with whom we are concerned in this motion. As Deputies are aware, the percentage of old persons in the State is increasing. However, the income of old people is hardly keeping pace with their increase in numbers. Without impinging on any other Estimate, I should like to deal with the problem of old age pensioners in relation to transport costs. Fares on CIE have gone up steadily in recent years. Today the minimum fare in the city is 4d and the fares between the city centre and the outlaying housing estates vary from 10d to 1/- or more.
Many old people of necessity have to travel. They may have to travel from the outskirts to the city centre for the purpose of purchasing out of their miserable allowances the necessaries of life at the cheapest price. Deputies familiar with the city are aware of the fact that normally in the perimeter areas it is impossible for old age pensioners to obtain the necessaries of life at anything like the prices at which they can be purchased in the centre city area. In addition, we have the situation of the old couple, one of whom may be confined to hospital. There is then the problem of the husband or wife visiting the other partner in hospital. It can be said of our elderly people that they are always very concerned about their family and relatives and when these are in hospital endeavour, even at great sacrifice, to visit them as regularly as possible. Then you have the problem arising from their own attendance at clinics or hospitals for treatment. Even though our dispensary and hospital services may be gradually improving, there is a burden imposed on these old people who have to travel to them.
The rate of contributory pension for a single old person is 60s a week and 107s 6d a week in the case of a married person. Every Deputy will agree that people on such an income find it difficult to pay 10d or 1s in bus fares two or three times a week, especially when one has regard to their other necessary expenditure on rent, heating, the provision of a meagre standard of clothing and a reasonable amount of foodstuffs. The situation is even more tragic in the case of people living in the rural towns. If a member of their family becomes ill, the nearest hospital may be ten or 20 miles away. In this case if old age pensioners wish to visit them, they can only do so by relying on the charity of neighbours. Certainly out of their contributory pension they could not pay the rail fares to make even infrequent visits.
This is a human problem affecting all these people. The motion deals with blind persons also and the same general remarks apply. As I said, the contributory old age pension for a single person is 60s. For the person with a non-contributory pension, the problem is even more difficult. In that case the income is 47s 6d per week. On the basis of the means test, a very high proportion of these people are found to have little or no means. People may talk about the level of rail fares, but I do not think this motion provides the appropriate opportunity to expand on that at any great length. It has been dealt with on many occasions previously and will be dealt with again. But the expenditure of every 6d or 1s in fares by old age pensioners should be considered sympathetically.
I think of my own constituency stretching from within half a mile of the city centre a distance of ten miles. The old age pensioner living on the outskirts of the city who wants to visit a relative who is being taken care of in St. Kevin's by the Dublin Health Authority will have to pay 1/2d into the centre of the city and another 5d from the centre of the city to St. Kevin's amounting to 1/7d each way. Now, 1/7d may not mean much to a person with £15, £20 or £35 a week but it is a very important sum to a person who, the day after he receives his pension, has nothing to rattle in his pocket. Consequently, we put down this motion in order to get the opinion of the House on the matter.
The problem of providing free transport for the old age pensioners and for the blind has been raised many times and objection has been made to it on the grounds of administration. I suggest to the Minister that if this aspect is thoroughly examined, it should be possible to find a system that will secure some form of pass for free travel for old age pensioners on our public transport, whether it be for every day, three days a week, two days a week or during the valley hours.
CIE might argue that to provide passes for old age pensioners might interfere with the services at peak hours on the buses. That argument may or may not be valid but I do not think there is a great deal of validity in it. I should imagine that the bulk of old age pensioners would be likely to travel during off-peak periods. Visiting hours in city hospitals are usually in the afternoon or after tea in the evening. If the old age pensioners want to purchase goods in shops where they can get the most economic rate as far as they are concerned, they would not normally do their shopping at the times when people are going to work in the morning or coming from work in the evening.
The people in CIE might say in effect "Passes would be impossible". That is not a valid argument because for many years some people in CIE have passes on the buses or on the trains, or on both. The number involved may be few but nevertheless the system is there. We often see people on a bus show a pass to the conductor and we are aware, too, that there are season tickets for travel on the railways. We are not aware that there has been difficulty about checking them. The problem may be posed that some old age pensioner might lend his pass to somebody else and that some five per cent of the passes might be utilised by persons who are not old age pensioners. From the financial point of view, I do not think that is a very serious matter or that it would interfere tremendously with the position of CIE because its incidence would be very slight. Furthermore, if CIE arranged for the giving of such services to old age pensioners it might have the effect of encouraging a greater utilisation of the services by other people.
Every Deputy is aware that it costs from £10 to £14 a week to maintain an old person in a State institution and any effort to secure that people can remain at home would represent a tremendous saving to the State. Administration should not present any great difficulties. All it would require would be the designing of a special weekly or monthly ticket or pass. A ticket could be issued to blind pensioners each month when they go to draw their pension and a pass could be issued to old age pensioners when they draw their pension. Alternatively, arrangements could be made for the issue to them of a pass which would have to be renewed by themselves at intervals.
We are concerned not so much with the problems of administration as with the need to secure for our old age pensioners an opportunity to visit relatives in hospital, to attend clinics at a distance from their home and to travel to shops where they can purchase their needs at a lower rate than in shops near where they live. Every Deputy is aware of the hardships continually suffered by our elderly citizens during inclement weather. We must feel sympathy for them and do our best to avoid situations where these people have to walk fairly long distances because they cannot afford the bus fares. Unfortunately, too, the bus fares have a habit of increasing from time to time, thus multiplying the difficulties for such old people.
Year by year, the problem becomes more difficult in Dublin city. Thirty or forty years ago, the bulk of the city was contained, generally speaking, within the canals plus Rathmines, Clontarf and Terenure and one might say that the bulk of the old people were to be found within a confined area. The city has stretched from Howth, Finglas, Cabra West and beyond, on the north side, to Ballyfermot, Rathfarnham, and so on, on the south side. The percentage of old people in the new housing areas around our city is also increasing very rapidly. There are many hundreds of cases of old people in hospitals—surgical hospitals, medical hospitals and geriatric hospitals—who do not receive a visit from any of their kin or friends because of the inability of their kin and friends to meet the cost of visiting.
I have no doubt that Deputies representing rural areas will tell us the situation is exactly the same in their constituencies. The only difference is that the cost of visiting in the rural areas is even more prohibitive. People living in Athlone have to travel to Mullingar to visit people in hospital there. Knowing the cost of fares, it is quite obvious that there must be financial difficulty. The same situation occurs in those areas in which there are regional hospitals. The latest development in our health services is leading to even more institutionalising of people. Geriatrics may be excellent for the aged but the aged in these institutions miss the most essential thing they should have, namely, frequent visits from their relatives and friends. These relatives and friends are not in an economic position to visit.
The classes with which we are mainly concerned are the old age pensioners, both contributory and non-contributory, and blind pensioners. We ask the House to support our request in this motion for free travel. CIE may well say that they cannot afford it. I suggest the Minister should discuss the situation with his colleague, the Minister for Transport and Power, to find out if something can be done. Perhaps there could be a subsidy from the funds under the control of the Minister for Social Welfare. It might be possible to provide passes or season tickets of some kind which would secure the objective set out in the motion tabled in the name of the Labour Party.
I second the motion, and reserve the right to speak later.
It has been said that there is no worse combination than being poor and old. For that reason I support this motion wholeheartedly. Deputy Larkin has been extremely reasonable in his approach and has even suggested that the facility proposed should be available only during off-peak periods. Surely it should not be outside the ingenuity of man to provide the free passes he suggests? The motion has been put forward in a most balanced and reasonable manner and it deserves the serious consideration of both the House and CIE. Deputy Larkin said that CIE might not have the money, but the amount involved would be minimal because the amount involved on travel by old age pensioners and blind pensioners is very small indeed. The old age pensioner cannot afford transport on the rate of pension we give and, therefore, the effect financially on CIE would be minimal. In fact, the effect could well be nil. Pass schemes have been introduced elsewhere. There is one operating in London. Surely we can provide this very small amenity? Even if the system proved a little faulty, what matter? We all know old age pensioners. We all know people with defective eyesight. It would be a great charity to give these people this little amenity. If he were to make a serious recommendation to the Board of CIE I am certain this facility would be forthcoming.
There are occasions when, if a sug gestion of this kind is made by the Opposition, the Government Party yel across the floor of the House: "Why did you not do it?" I maintain the two inter-Party Governments should have done it. I was not here when the first inter-Party Government were in office but I supported the second as a Member of this House. I believe we were wrong in not providing this amenity. Confession is good for the soul. Everybody is asking for this amenity and nobody is trying to make any political capital out of it and, therefore, if it is of any benefit to the Government, I make the confession freely. I do so to make it as easy as possible for the Government and CIE to give this little concession. Of course, there is always officialdom and we all know how completely hidebound officialdom can be. I do not say this in any criticism of officialdom, but it takes a politician to have his finger on the pulse of the people and to go to the officials and say: "You are wrong in this and my recommendation is that you change the system."
My Party fully support this motion and we do it not in any spirit of taking advantage of the Government or CIE but merely to try to get this much needed amenity for people to whom it should have been given by the Government across the way and by the inter-Party Governments long before this.
This motion calls on the Government to use their influence with CIE to allow old age pensioners and blind pensioners free travel on both buses and trains. It is very difficult for someone who is not actually in the position of an old age pensioner to realise just how much this could mean to people living on an old age pension. When the average person goes out and boards a bus, his only thought is that this bus will take him to his destination, but, for the old age pensioner, travelling on a bus will in fact require a major financial decision. That is how much this can mean to a person living on an old age pension.
The people for whom we advocate free travel are in two classes: the old age pensioner who by his work has contributed to the welfare and building up of the State since its foundation, and the people who, through no fault of their own, are afflicted in such a way that it is not possible for them in many cases to earn their livelihood. I do not think it is too much to ask a State body or the Government to afford these people this concession, small from the State's point of view but a major concession from the point of view of those in receipt of these pensions.
This evening I tried to make up roughly how a person can live on £3 a week—in the case of the contributory old age pension—or £2 7s 6d a week, in the case of the non-contributory old age pension. I came to these conclusions: bread—three loaves a week— 4/6; one half-pound of butter, 2/4; one half-dozen eggs, 2/6; one half-pound of tea, 3/-; rent—the lowest possible under a differential scheme—say 3/6; two chops per week, one on Sunday and possibly one during the week, approximately 4/-; one half-stone of potatoes, 2/6 approximately; one pound of sugar, 1/8;; a bag of coal, 12/6; soap, 1/-; light 2/-; gas, 3/6; milk 4/4 ½d. These items amount to £2 13s 4½d.
The old age pensioner will not die of indigestion.
He will not. If one looks at the items which make up the official price index, one finds such items as round steak, rib steak, neck; corned brisket; bacon, streaky rashers; ham, cooked and uncooked, rashers, streaky; fresh pork, fish, eggs, butter, milk, cheese, lard, bread, flour, oat-meal, potatoes, cabbage, onions, oranges, tea, sugar, jam and mixed fruits and marmalade. There are very many items which are taken into consideration in making up the price index which are not included in my very short list. A person living either on a contributory or a non-contributory old age pension is therefore at his absolute financial limit just to exist.
It does not take into consideration many things which could reasonably be taken into consideration. I do not think that it will be regarded as unreasonable that a man of 70 years, who is living on the old age pension, having worked in the State for anything from 40 to 45 years, should want to go and have a pint of stout at night. I would not think it unreasonable that he should want an odd ounce of tobacco. However, these things are not taken into consideration in the list I read out purely because the money is not there. The man has to decide whether he is going to eat or smoke, and naturally he will eat.
A little drop of brandy would be all right for him, too.
Unfortunately, the wherewithal is not there for the odd drop of brandy.
Deputy Larkin gave the reasons why people would want to use public transport. In the case of an old couple, one of them may be confined in hospital and the other may want to visit his partner. It is a dire necessity that he should visit his partner and sometimes the visit has to be made at the expense of a meal, that is, the only way in which the visit is possible is by cutting out one of his meagre meals. There are other aspects. It is only reasonable that an old age pensioner should be in a position to take a bus to a place such as Blackrock in the summer and spend an hour at the seaside. I do not think that the Minister would regard that as unreasonable. Very often these old age pensioners could be invited out by friends on, say, a Sunday evening— it would afford them an opportunity of getting away from the one room in which they spend most of their time and they could look at television sitting beside the fire without worrying about how much fuel they were burning—but very often they find they cannot accept such an invitation because they cannot afford bus fares. These people have their pride and they cannot explain to their friends that the reason they cannot accept the invitation is that they have not got the bus fare.
I believe that Deputies, irrespective of which side of the House they sit on, are human and if they dwell for a short time on some of the points that have been mentioned, they will willingly vote in favour of affording this small concession. If the Minister wants to introduce this, there are no insurmountable difficulties in regard to its administration. I would ask him seriously to consider accepting this motion.
We can anticipate the Minister's arguments in this matter because this matter has been discussed here before. In the 17th Dáil, we of the Fine Gael Party tabled a somewhat similar motion and therefore we are only too glad to endorse this motion tabled by our colleagues. There is the same principle, whether or not the State agency should be used to provide a facility or benefit for the less fortunate members of the community. If we consider whether or not it is valid for a State agency to do this, I think the answer is a categorical "yes". That being so, we must examine carefully the arguments which the Minister will almost certainly advance to rebut the clear obligation which we consider should be accepted by the State agency in helping the less fortunate members in the community.
Most likely the Minister will say that the Board of CIE has an obligation to run the company as efficiently as possible on a commercial basis and that it would be improper for it to provide a social service. CIE are, in a number of respects, already providing a number of social services. They are already providing, because of obligations which this House has imposed on them, a number of services which, commercially, are unprofitable, which, commercially, are not justifiable but which, socially, are considered as being highly desirable. Take, for instance, the school service which CIE provide. CIE provide cheaper school fares during the luncheon break in Dublin and other cities, where children can travel for a penny a journey which could cost up to 4d and 5d and for twopence, a journey, the fare for which would be far in excess of that if they were paying the full child's fare. If the Minister's argument is a valid one, then CIE should not be providing those cheaper school fares. In fact, there would be a justifiable outcry if CIE terminated this service.
CIE also provide free travel for children under three years of age. Those are social services which CIE are providing simply because there is social and national recognition that those services should be provided by a national transport company. That is not all. CIE, in some cases, are running long distance services, which are carrying no more than school children who are paying grossly uneconomic fares. There are several bus services, certainly in the Dublin region, running into Dublin daily, carrying nobody but children going to secondary schools. Those services are running at a considerable loss, commercially, but we consider this is entirely justifiable because it is proper that a State agency should be used to facilitate people reaching their destinations on important business. I think I am right in saying that the steamer service to the Aran Islands is not profitable. In fact, I believe it is running at a commercial loss. Nevertheless, we consider that CIE should run that service. We consider it right and proper to provide transport for people who are less fortunate than people on the mainland.
There are several other State agencies which are discharging social duties which are not particularly profitable but which we consider are justifiable. The Electricity Supply Board, for instance, are producing electricity from turf, although to do so is much more costly than to produce it from water, oil or coal; but we consider it is proper that the ESB should provide this service because in doing so, they are doing something which is of advantage to our society and to our nation and which is of advantage, in particular, to those regions of the country where turf is produced. This, again, is a social function which is being discharged by a State agency which has the same obligations as those which lie on CIE.
Local authorities provide houses at less than economic rents. The rents charged are negligible compared with the cost of providing and maintaining those houses for the less fortunate members of the community because again we consider it is socially justifiable that a public authority should provide such a service for those people at less than cost. Again, apart from CIE, Aer Lingus and the shipping companies provide cheaper travel rates for students because it is considered desirable that students, who are not earning themselves, should be carried from one place to another at cheaper rates. We are providing this service for students who are not earning. We are doing so for infants free of charge and we are doing it for all children at rates much less than the actual cost. All this points to the fact, as the proposer of the motion said, that we should give to the very small percentage of our people in the autumn of their days the advantage of free travel which they had until they were three years of age.
It would not break CIE to provide this service. I do not think CIE could possibly suffer any loss if this service were confined to the valley periods, as suggested by the proposer of the motion. If this service were provided during that time, it is difficult to see what additional cost, if any, would be imposed on CIE in allowing old age pensioners and blind pensioners to occupy seats which would otherwise remain vacant. Indeed, there is a distinct possibility that by allowing those people to travel free of charge and occupy those vacant seats, they would be accompanied by able-bodied people paying full fare and so CIE could increase their revenue during that period.
I imagine the proposer of this motion would be prepared, as we in Fine Gael were on another occasion, to accept, if the Minister is not prepared to go all the way and provide free travel, that at least he would provide cheaper travel for those people whom we seek to assist here. I believe that if CIE even provided cheaper fares for those old age pensioners during the valley periods of the day they would show again in their profits. It took many years to show CIE that they could make a profit by providing 2d bus fares in the centre of Dublin. They agreed to do so for a trial period on the recommendation of one of their own bus inspectors. This showed such tremendous success that CIE have continued the service ever since simply because it means more profit to them.
We believe that if CIE provided cheaper travel for old age pensioners, their revenue would go up particularly if the concessions were confined to the valley periods of the day. It is most likely that the pensioners would use public transport during those periods because those are the times they can get about more easily. I believe the rush hours are beyond most of them. Therefore, CIE have an opportunity to increase their revenue if they provide cheaper travel for pensioners during the valley periods. If CIE are not prepared to go the whole hog, then they should be prepared to provide cheaper fares for those pensioners during these valley periods.
We believe this service should be provided, whether or not CIE increase their revenue by providing it. I have shown that other cheap services which CIE provide are justifiable but I consider that the provision of cheap bus fares for old age pensioners is even more justifiable. We have the ludicrous situation in which city pensioners are contributing towards the cost of providing travel services for people in rural Ireland. The city pensioner is obliged to travel frequently by public transport which is subsidising the CIE services in rural Ireland.
The Minister on several occasions has said that 60 per cent of the Dublin services are uneconomic but he has not, to this day, yet told us which services are not paying and which services are paying. As I have said to the Minister before, until such time as he enumerates the services which are paying and the services which are not paying, we are not prepared to accept that as a worthwhile statistic. There are several services here in Dublin city on which run no more than two or three buses per day. Comparing that kind of service with the service that operates 100 buses is just making a farce of a statistical argument.
Possibly commercial enterprises could provide services for the old age pensioners free of charge or at lesser rates. We all commend people to do this. There are several substantial cleaning firms in this city which clean old age pensioners' clothes at nominal rates. There are cinemas which in the afternoons provide cheaper accommodation for old age pensioners. There are also places of entertainment which from time to time provide free shows for old age pensioners. All these people are able to do that and they are making a profit. It should be possible for CIE to provide the same or cheaper services for those people.
CIE may quite rightly say they test everything by what advantage they get out of it. Goodwill would flow to CIE from what is suggested in this motion— the provision of free transport for the less privileged members of the community. This would engender more goodwill for CIE than a change of colours, the changing of destination scrolls and the changing into two languages, neither of which is spoken, I suggest, because they are neither Irish nor English now. Providing the kind of service recommended in this motion would greatly enhance CIE in the public eye and it is something which they should seriously consider. This is such a simple suggestion that it would not be proper to cloud it with too many side issues. I anticipate the Minister's arguments but I hope I have knocked them down before they are put up. I have to leave the House and I may miss the Minister's contribution but I shall read it with great interest.
As the House knows, this question has been raised on a number of occasions. On each occasion while I have been Minister I made it clear that the Government have, since 1957, helped the people by raising the social welfare benefits to the maximum degree. They have been increased considerably and this motion I would regard as a very natural one in view of the fact that we are all seeking to improve the lot of people with low incomes. Contrary to what Deputy Ryan suggests, there is nothing wrong in suggesting this form of social service. It might be provided by CIE. He referred quite rightly to the fact that certain concessions are provided by CIE. Certain losing services are provided for the sake of the public weal. There is nothing illogical in the motion or anything wrong with it. I have sympathy with those who propose this motion.
The difficulty is the method by which the service can be administered and the numbers involved, as well as the principle of providing a considerable ancillary benefit to recipients of social services as compared with increasing the general level of their social services. Some Deputies suggested that this was not a serious problem for CIE. But the motion covers all old age pensioners and blind pensioners in the State. It goes beyond Dublin and there are 146,000 people receiving old age pensions in the State or nearly 1/20th of the population. Of those, there are 22,300 in Dublin city, so, concessions would be offered to quite a considerable number of people. Quite obviously, the administrative difficulties involved would be considerable, certainly far greater than in the case of arranging cheaper fares to schoolchildren. I think, perhaps, Deputies have not realised the problems of CIE if this proposal were adopted.
It is only three per cent of the population of Dublin and they cannot afford it at the moment.
CIE has actually made a concession to blind persons in necessitous circumstances in Dublin city and in those cases certification of their blindness is effectively proved by the National Council for the Blind. About 900 people benefit from this concession. The concession is single fare plus one-third for a round journey. It is provided in connection with those using the rail services and in Dublin city bus services. The resolution, as I have said, goes beyond the concession granted to blind pensioners, of whom there are some 6,000 in the country altogether.
I also believe that if this were done there would be a demand for an extension of it to other people. It would be quite natural that persons receiving disability pensions, who are convalescing, unemployed persons and widows with large families would inevitably demand increases in the scope of this concession. I think there would also be a demand for reductions in other services provided through State assistance or Government aids. It seems to me that when you look at the whole problem it would be better for us to increase the social welfare benefits as quickly as we can in the course of the next few years. That, again, as everybody knows, depends on an increase in production, an increase in the prosperity of the nation. The changes that have taken place since 1957 in the levels of social welfare benefits have been considerable and they are due to a growth in the State's national income and to a growth in industrial and agricultural production and all the other services from which we derive our wealth.
A good deal has been done to improve social welfare services. The national income has gone up since 1957 by 73 per cent. The maximum old age non-contributory blind pension in 1957 was 25/- and in 1966 it is 47/6, an increase of 90 per cent. In the same period, the cost of living has gone up by 29 per cent and the cost per passenger mile of the Dublin city bus services has gone up by 36 per cent, so that although we recognise that the non-contributory pension is not as high as we would like it to be, it may be some considerable benefit to those who live with their families and who are in comparatively better off circumstances. It may be supplemented by private charity and by Dublin Corporation home assistance in the case of people who live alone. In spite of those factors, obviously we would all like to see it raised but nevertheless progress is being made.
The non-contributory pension for the poorest class of applicant is up by 90 per cent as against increases in the cost of living of 29 per cent and an increase in the Dublin city bus services of 36 per cent.
Do the buses run any where else except in Dublin?
As the House knows——
Will the Minister go back and talk about buses in Limerick or do they not run anywhere except in Dublin?
——the contributory old age pension was introduced in 1961 and in 1966 a married man receives 107/6d and that shows an increase of 115 per cent as compared with the non-contributory old age pension that man would have got back in 1957. That again shows that progress is being made and I would like to see, as I am sure everybody in the House would, the progress continued in future years.
I have made inquiries to see how far this principle has been adopted in the neighbouring island where they have twice the national income per head that we have here. I was under the impression that it was very extensively granted by the various municipal transport corporations but I find that of the 95 corporations in the United Kingdom, some ten give free travel and 22 give travel at concessionary rates to old age pensioners.
Hear, hear.
So that even in a country with twice our wealth per head, the concession has not been granted to the extent that I thought it had myself.
It does not matter that people are twice as wealthy. The old age pensioner is just as poor.
I did not say otherwise.
I was not trying to be difficult. I am sorry if I interrupted the Minister.
I feel, knowing the charitable feeling of people in this country, that if a concession like this were offered, there would be opened up a demand for its extension in other directions and when one looks at the possible cost of those extensions for other services and for other classes, it is obvious to me that it would be much the best thing to see that we increased the level of social welfare benefits to the maximum possible. I say that with a genuine feeling that that is the best way of doing it.
What figure has the Minister in mind when he says the maximum possible in terms of the standard of living?
Will the Deputy allow the business to continue?
I could not foretell for the Deputy what it will be ten years from now.
I mean 1966, not ten years from now.
If the Deputy insists on ignoring the Chair and interrupting the Minister, I will ask him to leave the House.
I am only asking the Minister to qualify something and not to be talking in orbit.
The Deputy will not argue with the Chair.
I never argue with the Chair.
He will obey the Chair or leave the House.
Nobody has more respect for the Chair than I have.
The Deputy will leave the House if he will not listen to the Minister without interrupting.
Listen to a lot of cod.
No doubt Deputy Coughlan was annoyed with all this talk about charity.
The Deputy is disorderly. He is interfering. The Chair is the sole authority on order and the Deputy may not interfere.
I was going to remind——
The Deputy may not interfere. That is all.
On a point of clarification, may I not interfere?
The Minister, to continue.
The Minister for Social Welfare has made a prolonged detailed statement on the improvement that has taken place since 1957, far greater progress than ever took place in the three years 1954-1957.
Baloney.
The Minister is now defending the Minister for Social Welfare. If he wants to talk about social welfare, I will give it to him. I have a number of things here.
Deputy Coughlan must not interrupt again.
He does not like it.
Is the Minister Minister for Social Welfare or Minister for Transport and Power?
I am making a final request to Deputy Coughlan to obey the ruling of the Chair. The next time I shall have to ask him to leave the House.
I think I have made the position clear. This kind of resolution is a very natural one but I think there is a better way of achieving the same objective. To propose free travel for 146,000 people in the community is something which would lead to many other precedents being created and the best thing is to look forward to the growth of the social welfare benefits under several headings, not only that of old age pensioners, who are very deserving, but also those who have to face the hazards of life and who have a small income and those who, through no fault of their own, have been unable to secure employment. I should like to see all those people having their benefits increased through the growth in the prosperity of the State and the willingness of the taxpayer to transfer the necessary money for the attainment of that objective.
Mr. O'Leary
As the Minister has just said, this is a pretty simple motion. It is a recurring motion as he says. It has been brought up here before and I was very surprised at the kind of answers he gave to this particular motion.
The Minister's case, in brief, is that this kind of concession will have to wait because he prefers instead an actual increase in the amount of pension paid to old age pensioners from the State. Now that is a very laudable principle. The real tragedy about the case of the old age pensioners is that this particular attitude to their plight has landed them with the present low rate of old age pension. What we ask is that something be done for them in the here and now, not waiting for the national income to increase and not waiting for the lofty things the Minister is talking about but something that can be done here and now to deal with the plight of old age pensioners.
The Minister has painted an alarming picture of what would happen if this concession were granted because of the well-known charitable instinct of the Irish people. Other categories of people would look for concessions. He painted a dark picture of people spinning around in buses and people wanting spins on buses and people in Dublin looking for free rides on public transport with the good wishes of Dáil Éireann. I do not think 23,000 pensioners in Dublin would get on Dublin buses and would not get off. The experience of those local authorities who have approached this question in Britain is that no such situation has in fact occurred. It has been the typical "no change" attitude of those who do not give such concessions that if you give the concession to a particular class, there is no knowing where it may end. But, in fact, the practical situation in Britain and elsewhere has been that only those old age pensioners who needed this transport used it.
No reference has been made to the fact that bus fares have gone up enormously in Dublin in recent years. It is also true that in winter months especially, old age pensioners have to travel on important errands, to dispensaries or to collect their pensions, and they have at the moment to brave extremely inclement weather because they cannot afford the bus fares to and from their destinations. One of our suggestions was to utilise Dublin transport in the valley periods. I fail to see the logic of the Minister's argument that while it is possible to reduce fares for school children, it is not possible to do so for old age pensioners, as if any man or woman of 70 would feel like spinning around on free transport just for the fun of it. The Minister might, by a flight of the imagination, try to put himself into the position of the man or woman who exists on the extremely small amount given by way of old age pension and try to see how that man or woman approaches life. It is certainly not getting on a bus and going around to see places. These people would use this service only when it was necessary for them to do so.
I would suggest also lowering the level of fares and, in their own interests, CIE could find that such an enlightened policy towards a deserving section of our population would be far more beneficial to their image than repainting their stations or even appointing area managers because we know at the moment this company is in need of holy water from some direction. I would suggest that such a concession to old people would certainly remind the public that there are human beings involved in the administration of CIE because, very often, the public are under the impression that this is not, in fact, the case.
I am sure the Minister was sincere when he spoke about the intimate connection between gross national product and the way we treat our old age pensioners. I know he was being sincere when he spoke about the improvement over the years but I wonder if the time has come when we should not be satisfied to clap ourselves on the back that an improvement has occurred over the years in the case of social welfare. I wonder, indeed, if the time has come when we can no longer congratulate ourselves on the idea that some progress has been made in this field because I should like to know—if this is to be the measure of their improvement— why the old age pensioners must wait in the queue of other deserving cases as our prosperity increases.
What will happen to them this year when we are not going to hit any of the targets? I wonder what pressure will be put on the Government to improve their position this year. Remember that the stomachs and needs of people remain stable whatever the statisticians tell us about the state of the economy. It would seem to me to be a simple step by CIE, a human step by CIE and it would remind the people once more that CIE is supposed to be their property because we see little evidence that this House or any other democratic power has any check over that company. I do not see that there would be any abuse of this beneficial move for this section of our community. I do not see that it would be abused by these people. It has not been abused abroad or in any of the local authorities in Britain who have brought in this measure and whom the Minister likes to say have so much more gross national product than we have.
Let us not compare our situation with that in Britain, where their payments are so much in excess of ours and where foodstuffs are so much cheaper than in this country. Though this is an agricultural country, I would say that an old age pensioner in Dublin finds it much more difficult to live, buy food and other commodities in Dublin than his counterpart in London. If they have found it beneficial to give old age pensioners this simple concession in Britain, I can assure the Minister the granting of this concession here would not open the gates to anarchy. I am not in the least bit convinced by the answers the Minister gave here tonight that it would open up a dangerous precedent, that there would be other people looking for the same concession. The Minister can plead it would be better for a pensioner to get more at the moment but I think the Minister will agree with me that, looking at it realistically, he cannot say there is any guarantee that there will be any upward increase in their pensions over the next few years.
I do not know if anybody has carried out any study as to how long, on average, old age pensioners draw the pension but I would say it is a very poor consolation to an old age pensioner to know that there has been a gradual improvement in his pension since 1957 to the present time and to be assured also that in the years ahead, perhaps with the continued progress in our gross national product, there may be other good things in the pipeline for him. I think we would be showing a greater sense of sincerity by giving this concession now in transport, transport which no old age pensioner uses except for very good reasons, transport which no old age pensioner would use to the extent of the alarming picture painted by the Minister of 23,000 pensioners crowding on to buses in Dublin city.
I am surprised that his Department, who have been so long requested to bring in such a measure, have—up to his speech tonight—carried out no investigation in relation to this request. A responsible Minister tonight gave us the old clichés that it would be a dangerous precedent, that there were too many old age pensioners, that he would prefer to see the money go on to their pensions. I am surprised that the Department of Transport and Power have done so little investigation in relation to this elementary right of an element in our population whom we are all agreed should be helped. To think that these are his reasons and that he should invoke such reasons to refuse this concession to old age pensioners is, in my opinion, a great tragedy.
I have said that CIE could do a great deal of good in the public eyes by granting this elementary concession to old people in Dublin and in other cities. It would be a help to them here and now. We would have no objection if the Government, in addition, could improve the general conditions of old age pensioners but they should not plead that they prefer to see these things coming from the State Fund in general taxation; they should not plead this as their preference for excluding the giving of this elementary concession to old age pensioners here and now.
Especially now, I would appeal to the Minister, with the coming of the winter months in which many old people contract colds, influenza and pneumonia which finally send them to their death, to get his Department to look at this motion once more. He knows as well as we do that this motion will continue to appear on the agenda of this House until some concession is made to the spirit of this motion. I would suggest that his Department get down seriously to examining what would be the realistic numbers they could anticipate using these services, whether there is any possibility of reducing fares for old age pensioners, whether there is need that they should be restricted to the valley periods in using this transport in the urban areas.
They should come out with an honest assessment of how they could meet this problem so that at least we could remove this hardy annual from the Order Paper. Really, it is a bit late in the day for responsible Deputies, in 1966, when all politicians in this House are committed to greater social responsibility and social justice, to resort to all sorts of fashionable clichés in dealing with the less well-off sections of the population. It is a bit late to think that a public service—supposedly owned by the people and supposedly there for the benefit of the people— cannot be used to give some solace in their last days, some help, some convenience to old people with inadequate payments from the State, facing the winter months in which they will need transport. I certainly am extremely unhappy and displeased with the reasons the Minister gave for refusing to accept this motion. I earnestly urge him to get these droves of management consultants, with all this decentralisation of power that has taken place in CIE, around the table and if it means sacking a few, he should sack them anyway to make way for this concession.
The mover of the motion spoke in a very reasonable way and gave very sound reasons why the Minister should accept it, as indeed did other Deputies. I noticed that those who spoke in this debate are mainly city Deputies but as Deputy Coughlan interjected—is there no place but Dublin? I want to remind him that there are other places——
Remind the Minister. Do not remind me.
——than Dublin. Old age pensioners and blind pensioners have to use public transport in the rural areas as well as in the city. I am very familiar with the city because I spent very many years in it doing business. I have mixed with the very poorest in Dublin down at the North Wall and in the side streets. I have mixed with the workers and I know their problems. One great problem which they have here as well as in the rural areas is that the pensioners have to travel. The cost of living is very high for people in the low income groups and they are hard-pressed. We have to consider the value of money today, the increased cost of living and the increased cost of transport. Deputy Cluskey figured out what it would cost a pensioner to live in the city and I thought it was a starvation diet. He left out many items that cannot be considered as luxury items.
I want to support the Deputies who have already spoken. I appeal again to the Minister to reconsider this whole question, and not only to consider free transport for these people in Dublin city but in the rural areas as well. In my area people have to travel seven or eight miles to collect their pensions and they have to pay pretty stiff fares. The fares have been increased. This is very rough treatment of people who deserve better. The majority of the people we are talking about were born before the turn of the century. Many of the men were the people who laid down the railroads and they did it for a pittance. That was in the days of British rule. They provided our railway stations. They did the hard work. Now they are on in years and are getting old and infirm. We are lacking in consideration for these people if we deny them free transport on the few occasions on which they would be compelled to avail of it. In fact, it is really unbelievable that our native Government would deprive the weaker section of the community of free transport.
The Minister made the point that there are 146,000 of these people, but they do not get up early in the morning and travel at the peak periods when the workers are going to work or returning home. They are inclined to get up at 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock, and if they were provided with free transport, they would avail of it when the seats in many buses and trains are practically empty. I cannot imagine that they would create any great congestion or any great panic if they were provided with free transport. I cannot visualise that situation cropping up.
Here again we have the same kind of Ministerial answer given, the kind of thing we have come to expect when something reasonable is proposed by way of private motion by ourselves or by the Labour Party. The people opposite want to shoot it down straight away. They advance that sort of argument to try to beat us down, to try to prove that what we are saying is ridiculous, or is not a sensible suggestion, and cannot be implemented.
Even this evening the Minister went to the extreme of trying to make us believe that disabled persons would be the next category who would have their hands out for free travel vouchers. The Minister should know that the majority of people who are in receipt of disablement benefit automatically have free transport to the clinics. That is the rule in my county wherever it can possibly be provided by the local authority. If they are not able to go to the clinic or hospital from their own resources, if they communicate with the secretary of the clinic, a voucher will be provided by the local authority. Taken by and large, they are not a class of people who would be seeking free travel vouchers from CIE because of this proposal by Deputy Larkin.
When it comes to the weaker section of the community looking for anything, it is amazing how the Government can think up arguments against them. They know that the people on whose behalf we are speaking are the weaker section of the community, but they are the people this Government always want to reduce to even greater poverty, if possible. This evening we had a situation in which thousands of pounds were spent bringing gardaí from the four corners of the country on free transport——
That has nothing to do with the motion before the House.
They were brought in special transport.
That has nothing to do with the motion.
What about the luxury caravans?
We are discussing transport: these people came by special trains.
The Deputy may not make that point as he is very well aware. The motion deals with free transport for old age pensioners.
What about the squadron leaders—the British aristocracy?
It is amazing how we can find money for one section of the community——
Will the Deputy move the adjournment of the debate?
Debate adjourned.