We, in the Labour Party, support this Estimate. It is only fair, I think, to comment that as the years go by the percentage of the national income spent on social welfare seems to be reducing. We do not regard this as a good trend. It is not a healthy trend. The Government must face up to the fact that no matter what ILO Convention they sign, so long as they continue to pay miserly amounts to those in the social welfare classes needing help, so long will they stand condemned.
One matter the Minister might consider is the cost of the stamp to the insured person and his employer. For a man it is £1 Os 1d per week and for a woman 18/1d. Does the Minister consider that the insured person is getting a fair return for that amount of money? Does he consider, remembering what is happening in neighbouring countries, that the same amount of value is being given to the worker here as is being given in the neighbouring island and in portion of our own island?
The whole social welfare code must be re-examined. There are still a number of anomalies in it. Possibly it is administration which is causing the trouble and I should like on this occasion to bring to the Minister's notice again some of the things which, I think, are being dealt with in an entirely incorrect manner by his Department. Since I came into this House in 1954, I have always paid tribute on the Social Welfare Estimate to the Minister's Department and to the various Ministers who have occupied the office of Minister for Social Welfare from time to time. I have found the officials most courteous and most anxious to help within the scope of the code.
Before I go any further, I should like to say that I consider this booklet, SW4, which is brought up-to-date every year, an excellent document. My only regret is that it does not fall into the hands of more people and I suggest to the Minister that, when someone applies for social welfare benefit and forms asking for further information are sent out, it might be a good idea to enclose a copy of the booklet and then any reasonably intelligent person will know what he or she is entitled to under the code.
Apart from that, there are a number of complaints which should be examined. In a recent issue of that excellent publication, Advocate, by investigating officers, they took me to task for what they described as attacks on members of their organisation during debates on the Social Welfare Estimate in this House. I want to say to the Minister and to them that, so long as they continue to do as they have been doing, I will continue to attack them in this House and elsewhere. They make a claim about which I was not aware and, because of that, I want to bring it to the notice of the Minister. They say that, because they are shorthanded and have to do far more work than they are in a position to do—they are now doing much more investigation work for almost the same rate of wages as a far greater number were doing previously—they find it impossible to give the attention that is necessary to detail. It is hinted, and possibly they are correct in this, that if there are incorrect reports made on an applicant's means, this is due to the fact that they are forced to do so much work that they cannot be expected to give the attention to detail which is necessary.
My complaint about this class of people is that over the years my experience of any of them I have met is that, without exception, they were always prepared to lean over backwards to bring out any point they could find which would disqualify the applicant from receiving a pension or allowance. As the Minister is aware, they also investigate the means of applicants for special allowances under the Army Pensions Acts. This is as far as I am aware still true. I consider it regrettable that old people who apply for a non-contributory old age pension should be forced into the humiliating experience that they are third-degreed by some clever gentleman who will go in to them and, first of all, without telling them who they are, try to find out the family circumstances. Very many of these old people will not say that their daughter is working as a domestic servant at 30s a week but will tell a stranger about the wonderful job she has at £10 a week and this is written down and used at a later stage.
This is the sort of thing that should not be encouraged by the Department. It must be Departmental policy or they would not do it; they are ordinary human beings. I would ask for a more humane approach to the investigation of means. I do not want anybody to get anything he is not entitled to but I do not want to see persons who are entitled to benefit deprived of it because of the fact that he was bragging about something he had not got or became so confused by the barrage of questions put to him that he said things which had no relation to fact. I meet many of these people and know that this has happened again and again.
Might I ask the Minister to do away with the ridiculous situation which at present exists where old age pension committees meet and recommend, according to their knowledge and according to their lights, a certain type of pension for applicants whom they almost always know and an investigation officer appeals against their decision and in every case the appeal is upheld by the Department. Is it not ridiculous that these committees should be asked to meet and to waste their time—there is no question of expenses involved in this — investigating the means of some old person in a humane way, when on appeal by the inspector to the Department, without any case being made in public, the old person gets, first of all, a note from the pension committee secretary to say that he has been granted a pension and, a week afterwards, a second note to the effect that he is not entitled to any pension or is entitled to a much less pension? This is a farce, as the Minister should realise. This procedure should be brought up to date. Either abolish pension committees completely or insist that the pension officer will come before them when hearing the case and give his reasons as to why he considers the person is not entitled to the pension applied for.
I have asked the Minister on one or two previous occasions and will again appeal to him that in addition to the unemployment assistance which is given to persons who have no stamps —the dole as some people call it— there should be a disability allowance. It seems ridiculous that a person who has stamps on his insurance card and draws benefit for the specified period, which is now 312 weeks, if still unemployed would draw unemployment assistance, while a person who is ill and who has less than 156 stamps, is entitled to draw disability pension for only 12 months and is left an absolute pauper at the end of the 12 months, without income of any kind. It does not make sense. If it can be given to the able-bodied person who is unemployed, surely it can be given to the person who is unable because of illness to resume work? I would ask the Minister to investigate this matter and, if he cannot do it soon, make a recommendation that something be done about it in the next Budget.
It takes far too long to give a decision on applications for old age pensions, particularly non-contributory pensions. Recently I had a case. A person came to me early this year whose father and mother had transferred a small farm to him and had applied for the old age pension. Two months later he told me his father was dead. I wrote to the Department asking if they were going to make a decision in this case and what was the position. Three weeks or a month later I received a reply from the Department telling me, something I knew because the person lives quite close to me, that the mother was also dead. They did not say and have not yet said or have not replied to my letter, that since both of these people qualified for pension, from a certain date if the amount for the period in question will be paid. I am not suggesting that the failure to grant a pension has anything to do with the death of these old people but I can assure the Minister that in many cases the disappointment of not receiving a pension to which they feel they are entitled does have a serious effect on the health of old persons who are awaiting decisions over a long period.
Maternity allowances and other allowances are referred to in SW 4. Very often, a woman who has a first child and who is not well up in regard to social welfare applications does not apply in time for the maternity allowance and is subsequently given only a balance of what would have been payable. Such persons are entitled to an allowance in respect of six weeks before and six weeks after the birth. They are given the allowance in respect of the six weeks post-natal period if they have not applied when the child is born and, in some cases, if they apply only after the six weeks are up, they are told that their application is late and cannot be considered.
Since the Minister assured me here on the debate on his Estimate last year that the Department were not anxious to deprive insured persons of benefits to which they would be entitled but for the fact that they forgot or omitted to apply in time and that, if a reasonable excuse was forthcoming, payment would be made, I cannot understand why we still have cases where the Department will not accept what would appear to me to be a perfectly reasonable excuse. It is a question of trying to save a few shillings. This system should not be continued.
Deputy Ryan referred to arrears of stamps, to the fellow who does not stamp the insurance card and, as a result, his employees are left without benefit when they require it. Surely the State should do what he suggested? Surely the onus should be on the State to attempt to recover not only the amount of the stamps involved but, also, the amount due to the insured person? In the occupational injuries legislation it is laid down that whether or not cards are stamped the State will honour the obligation and pay the benefit. If that is so, surely the State should do likewise in the case I have referred to and recover from the person who failed to stamp the cards the amount due?
There is a growing practice in this country of certain employers collecting the insurance money from their employees and not stamping the cards. Not alone should the State have these people prosecuted, the amount lost in benefit and the amount of stamps recovered from them, but they should also be fined heavily. The employer who fails for one reason or another— whether ignorance or anything else—to collect the amount due would be in a different category. He just may not know. But the fellow who collects and spends it on his fast cars or something like that and does not pay even the employee's share of the stamp should be taught a lesson in every case. I would appeal to the Minister to do something about this quickly because over the past 12 months I have come across a considerable number of such cases.
There is another point in regard to unemployment benefit which the State should try to rectify. The Minister may remember that I asked a question last year concerning a man who had 15 acres of land and 13 children. He was working for a considerable period and travelling a distance of 26 miles per day to work. The job he had in Bord na Móna closed down and he signed for unemployment benefit. Because it was estimated that his income from the 15 acres would be more than 10/- a day, he was deprived of unemployment benefit. If he had been a single man with no children, he would have been given the same allowance and the right to earn up to 10/- a day. Surely there is something wrong with that legislation? Would the Minister try by regulation—I understand that is the way to deal with it—to remedy this situation because it does not appear to be fair?
When referring to disability benefit, one must take into account the number of people who apply for benefit and after drawing it for a considerable period are disallowed, despite the fact that their own doctor is still certifying them as not fit for work. I discovered a rather extraordinary thing recently. I found that referees, sent out by the Department to discover if these people are fit for work or not, sometimes arrive and find as many as 30 people waiting for them. The amount of attention given to the people going in for examination depends on the length of time available to the referee divided by the number of people present. On one occasion it appears less than ten minutes per person was the amount allowed to decide whether or not the people being examined were entitled to benefit or were unfit for work. One of the people concerned complained that, when he tried to point out to the referee what part of his body was sore, the referee said he would find out for himself. The referee's temper was pretty short, and if he had that number to deal with in a short time, I do not think we can blame him too much. But we can blame the system which allows this to happen.
It is regrettable that this particular person declared "not unfit for work", as it is termed, was subsequently X-rayed as a result of an examination by another doctor, was sent to Peamount and died less than a fortnight later. It is just too bad if, because of the short time the doctor from the Department had to examine this poor man, he finished up very dead and in fact did not even know what was wrong with him. He is supposed to have died of something which he had not got, which is the newest one I have heard. The certificate of death was a a different thing altogether from the certificate he was receiving when drawing disability benefit. I am not saying that this man would have lived if the doctor had had an hour to examine this serious case. What I am saying is that, as a result of the referee not having a considerable time to examine him and declaring him not unfit for work, during the period between the time he was examined and his death, he received no benefit, no income came into the house and, on the word of his widow, the family were hungry as a result.
This is the sort of thing I want to see stopped. It should be and could be stopped. Again, at this stage the Minister is the only man who can take the necessary steps to stop it. We had a gentleman going around the country last year before Christmas and he paid a visit to my constituency. He examined a number of people, particularly those who had been what they call "on the funds" for a relatively long period. He decided that as of 19th December they were not unfit for work. If the Minister would care to tell me where he thinks married men with a family, who had been ill, sometimes for years and many of them for months, who had no job to go back to—or even if they had would not be able to get work between 19th December and Christmas Day—where such people could get the price of their Christmas dinner I would like to hear it. The activities of this gentleman resulted in a very poor Christmas for a number of very decent families. The fact that after Christmas on a further examination most of them were declared unfit for work and went back on the funds, which apparently an effort was being made to protect, was very cold comfort to the people concerned. This sort of thing should be discouraged. If they want to carry out one of these "blitz" examinations, then they should do it well clear of Christmas. Do not wait until, as they say in the country, we are on the door of Christmas.
The Minister referred briefly to children's allowances. I regret he was not able to make a more definite statement. The Minister for Finance in his Budget Statement said the whole position of children's allowances was to be reviewed. Let us be very honest about this. We have the extraordinary situation here where the gentlemen I referred to earlier, the investigating officers, can go into the poorest homes in the country to find out whether the people there are entitled to the full amount of old age and widow's pensions, the enormous sum the State will be prepared to give them if they are absolutely destitute. If they are entitled, they will get 57/6d if they have no qualified children, and most of them are in that position. But anybody at all who has children under the age of 16 can qualify for children's allowances. They can have an income of £10,000 a year. They are nearly ashamed to be seen going into the post office. They make arrangements to go in when nobody else who knows them will be present. They draw the allowance and perhaps put it away for the children. They do not really need it.
This continues to be done without a means test. I am opposed to a means test of any kind, but if we are going to have it for the poorest of the poor, let us also have it for the other kind. It is rather ridiculous to have this situation where the wealthy person can draw almost as much for five or six children as the unfortunate old age pensioner or widow pensioner. I had a complaint from an old man last week. He told me his pension book was taken away. He could not understand what had happened. Nobody told him anything, but when he went in to draw his pension, his book was impounded. He was a rather old man but that was the word he used and it was the correct word. I wrote to the Department asking them to let me know why the book was taken in. This man was not getting the full pension and, apparently, he had a small pension from his job and was not entirely destitute.
A month passed and in the third week of the month I had a letter from the man saying that he had got his book back but the 12/6 he had been getting had been reduced to 7/6 without any explanation. A fortnight later the Department sent a note acknowledging my representation. When I telephoned and asked why this had happened, they could not say why they had sent this man's book back and had taken 5/- off him. They passed me round from one section to another until I got browned off and hung up.
This should not happen. As I said before on many occasions, the Department has a well deserved reputation for courtesy and efficiency and it is rather a pity that a few people, through carelessness or because they feel they are upholding the Government by giving as little information as possible to Opposition Deputies, do this sort of thing. I hope the number of these people will grow fewer or that they will learn common courtesy in dealing with the general public, since the Deputy is a member of the public.
In making my next point I do not want the Minister to jump in and say it refers to the Department of Labour. I have before me the register of unemployed for the month of June, particularly relating to 23rd June, 1967, and 14th June, 1968. On the first date there were 48,436 registered unemployed and on 14th June, 1968, the number was 53,965, which means that there are 5,500 more people unemployed now than there were 12 months ago. Can nothing be done to stop this situation growing worse? Do not tell me that there were 90,000 unemployed in 1956 because if you do, I will retort that there were 131,000 unemployed in 1934, something Fianna Fáil should not be very proud about. Neither of these figures is relevant but can we do anything about the present figure? I am sure the Minister will agree that an average of 50,000 unemployed over 12 months is a loss to the State in insurance contributions alone of over £1 million. The amount of money being paid out to those unemployed, small as it is, is very many millions more. When will some Government realise that the only way to solve our economic ills and save the tremendous amount of money we pay out for social welfare benefits is by attempting to secure full employment?
