asked the Minister for Social Welfare the number of applications for the 5/- increase due since the 1st November, 1966, received from (a) blind pensioners and (b) old age pensioners; and the number of increases granted in each category.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Increased Pension Payments.
82.
Weekly increases of 5/- were granted without application from the 1st of November, 1966, to all non-contributory old age and blind pensioners who had no means assessed against them according to Departmental records. Subsequently, some 11,000 inquiries regarding non-payment of the increase were received but statistics of the numbers of inquiries received from each category of pensioner were not kept.
The numbers in receipt of the maximum rate of pension on 31st December, 1966 were (a) 1,113 and (b) 9,048.
Would the Minister agree that the major portion of those who applied for this increase have been refused on the ground that they have some minimum means, in some cases only a few sticks of furniture or something like that?
The numbers who applied were very big and I would say that the percentage successful would necessarily be low because the statutory provisions of the Act have to be enforced.
Is it not a fact that practically everybody who applied for the 5/- increase has been refused?
That is not correct.
Can the Minister give me any idea of how many got the increase?
I gave the Deputy the figures at the end of December and if he puts down a question later on I will give him the more up to date figures.
83.
asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will now consider paying the Budget increase of 5/- per week to all those in receipt of the maximum non-contributory old age and widows' and orphans' pensions, in view of the fact that in order to qualify for the maximum pension the recipients had to undergo a strict means test.
It is not proposed to initiate legislation to provide the same rate of pension for those with means up to £26 5s per annum as for those who have no means.
Does the Minister consider it fair or just that people in receipt of the maximum old age, blind, or non-contributory widows' and orphans' pensions, who themselves had to undergo a rigorous means test, should be deprived of the 5/- a week increase which they expected they would get from the last Budget? Does he consider that it is fair to assess as means profits from a few hens in a back garden, or should the fact that a person has a few apple trees, or, worse still, because he owns his own house, deprive him of this increase?
The fact that he owns his own house is the worst of the lot.
He may be a person living in a vested cottage which he has paid for over 30 or 35 years.
The purpose of this grant has repeatedly been stated here, both by me and by the Minister of the time. It has repeatedly been pointed out that there are certain categories of old age pensioners and widow pensioners who are in an extremely difficult position by reason of the fact that they are destitute and have absolutely no means. There is a certain amount of money to be allocated to these classes and the money was allocated in the manner which was thought would benefit the most deserving. There must always be borderline cases.
Was it not a dirty trick to play on these people when one recalls the large headlines in the national press at the time which gave tens of thousands of people the impression that they were going to get an extra 5/- a week from a benevolent Fianna Fáil Government? Of 130,000, only 10,000 got this 5/- increase. Will the Minister now change his mind, or the Government's mind, and give an undertaking that this increase will be applied to all these types of pensioners in the next Budget?
Was it not a cheap Fianna Fáil trick which was played in view of the pending Presidential election? You are capable of doing anything when you would do that. You must have no conscience.
Order.
There is more in the taxation than what the Minister's Department was allocated.
It was a Fianna Fáil stunt, in view of the Presidential election.
It was a right cheat and the Minister knows it.
There was no increase between 1932 and 1948. They got 10/- in 1948, the same as in 1934.
This cannot go on. Question No. 84.
Would the Minister undertake to press the Government to have this 5/- a week applied?
The Deputy asked that question before.
Would the Minister undertake to press the Government to give this 5/- to all non-contributory pensioners?
This is the only supplementary question I will allow.
The legislation enacted under the Budget last year was legislation giving authority for payment from 1st November last. This legislation was passed in the summer and, during its passage through this House, the position was made quite clear. I quoted from the records of the debate on the motion for the Adjournment on the eve of the two by-elections from the Minister's speech when he was questioned from the other side of the House as to whether this applied to people with no means. He said yes, to people with no means. That was quite clear.
People with no means are those up to the first stop.
I do not think that anybody visualised that hens and apple trees would be counted.
The same manner of assessing means was used as when Deputy Corish was Minister for Social Welfare.