(Cavan): The object of this Bill is to give effect to the provisions outlined in the Budget for the social welfare classes. In my opinion it must be considered in the light of the Budget as a whole. Provision is made in this Bill for a death grant, an increase in old age pensions, contributory and non-contributory, and in retirement pensions, for pensions for deserted wives, increased invalidity pensions and general increases in social welfare payments. I do not wish to be ungracious about these provisions. In so far as they go I welcome them, but I do not think that they are something about which we can boast or that they enable us to say to the social welfare classes: “What good boys are we.” Having regard to the increase in the cost of living brought about by the Budget and having regard to the advance in the standard of living brought about by collective bargaining and threats of strikes of one kind or another, the Minister could not have avoided bringing in some increases for the social welfare classes. He would have been guilty of a grave derelection of duty for having failed to cushion to some extent the social welfare classes against the increases in the cost of living brought about by his colleague, the Minister for Finance, through the recent Budget. Cushioning to some extent is about all the Minister has done. The increases will restore those who receive them to the position approximately in which they were about 12 months ago because the Budget imposed a tax on the necessaries of life, which all these people have to purchase, and in that way drove up the cost of living.
Before I deal with particular items in this Bill, we have a duty to consider these increases against the general picture we find in the country today. Only one Government speaker, apart from the Minister, has so far contributed to this debate — Deputy Paddy Burke — and Deputy Burke adopted the attitude of "What good boys are we." We must compare the position of the social welfare classes with that of other sections of the community. It is all very well for Deputy Burke and other Members of the Government Party by way of interruption, to compare these increases with the increases given ten, 15 and 20 years ago. That is not a valid comparison. One has to look at these increases in the context of the demands for increases of up to £5 per week in wages, increases which, if not conceded entirely, are being conceded substantially.
This Social Welfare Bill and the Budget it implements is not something of which we, as a community, as Deputy Dr. Browne said, can be proud. I believe the social welfare classes will be no better off than they were years ago. The rest of the community is enjoying a higher standard of living. The gap between the social welfare classes and the rest of the community is widening. We are giving an increase of 15s per week to old age pensioners. Superficially, compared with five or ten years ago, that looks a substantial increase. Is it? Think of the respect there was for a 2s piece two years ago and the lack of respect that there is for the same coin today. I suggest that the 2s piece today is assuming the importance if that is the right word, of sixpence a few years ago. It is in that atmosphere we must judge the Budget and the provisions of this Bill.
Half a loaf is better than no bread. I concede — I am not very good at mathematical problems—that the Minister has done something better than restore the social welfare classes to the position in which they were six, eight or 12 months ago. But that is not enough. An indication of the thinking of the Government in relation to social welfare benefits can best be obtained in the light of the death grant. We often hear from the benches opposite disparaging remarks about what was done by inter-Party Governments for the social welfare classes. There is no valid comparison because one cannot compare the half-crown or the 5s and say that the 10s given today is four times or twice what was given then. That is not a valid argument. We know that the Minister in an inter-Party Government in 1949 was thinking about a death grant and that he wrote it into a Bill, a Bill which was not accepted by a Fianna Fáil Minister when he came into power. The death grant in mind at the time was £20. After 20 years the present Minister has introduced, belatedly, a death grant of £25 — £5 more. I do not suppose I would be accused of extravagant finance if I said that £20 in 1949 — I will be conservative — would equal £75 today.
We are not being generous. Having regard to the demands of other sections of the community, having regard to the incomes of Deputies and Ministers today as compared with a few years ago, having regard to the salaries of civil servants and local government employees today as compared with a few years ago, having regard to the incomes of the commercial community in this country today as compared with a few years ago and having regard to the wages of people who have the power of collective bargaining today as compared with a few years ago, not alone are we not being generous but we are not being just. I know the Minister will tell me or he is probably thinking that, if we go along as I say we should go along, we should have to impose further taxation. The money would have to be raised by taxation or otherwise. Many benefits we are conferring today do not come out of taxation but rather out of an increase in the social welfare contribution from the employer and the employee.
The Minister will also probably say that, in common with the Labour Party, this party walked into the division lobby and voted against the Budget. Deputy Burke has already said that, although he did not put it in that way. He said we opposed these provisions in the Budget. We did no such thing. We opposed the increase in turnover tax on the necessaries of life and on food, which put up the cost of living and reduced the value of the so-called concessions. That is an entirely different thing.
This Bill should not be allowed to go through the House in a superficial way which would give the impression that the contributory old age pensioner will receive an increase of 17s 6d per week; that the non-contributory old age pensioner will receive 10s a week, and so on. I seriously think we are not doing our duty by these classes in the light of the regard for money which is held by other sections of the community. The gap is widening and the pensioners will suffer more as a result.
Let me deal now with a few particular matters. The death grant is £25. It is a contributory grant payable to people who are in benefit. As the Minister very fairly said, it will not become payable until March of next year when people will have paid 26 contributions. I concede that that is a start. It is a very belated and small start when we consider what an inter-Party Government Minister for Social Welfare had in mind.
Retirement pensions will come into operation at 65 years of age for people with sufficient contributions. That is in line with Fine Gael social welfare policy. We have urged the introduction of these pensions. Again, it is a beginning.
I am particularly pleased to see a provision for deserted wives in this Bill. I think that all Members, certainly Members of the Opposition here, were campaigning for this for several years. I am quite sure the Minister — and his predecessor, whom we seem to have forgotten completely — were also under pressure from their own party to provide for these unfortunate people. I urge the Minister, when bringing in his regulations, to ensure that they are flexible because this is a difficult problem. He should err rather on the side of having the regulations flexible because there will not be a great number of persons involved in these pensions. I was rather alarmed to hear the Minister say:
I am of opinion that, before title to the allowance could arise, the wife should have availed, in so far as is possible for her, of whatever processes, legal or otherwise, are open to her to effect a reconciliation or to oblige her husband to meet his responsibility to support her and her family.
If the Minister writes anything like that into his regulations he will be going very far. If he seeks to impose an obligation on a deserted wife to exhaust her legal rights against her husband before she can become entitled to this pension he will, in effect, render this otherwise worthy provision useless. I realise he said: "in so far as is possible for her" but, when that comes to be interpreted in Áras Mhic Dhiarmada, it will quite properly be interpreted in accordance with the regulations if the Minister writes it into them. Where are most of these widows going to pursue their legal rights? They will have to pursue them across the water. They will have to invoke the services of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children or, as mentioned by Deputy Dr. Browne, the Salvation Army or some other charitable organisation to try to locate the husbands. Even if they locate them, how will they pursue them by the process of law? We have not in this country free legal aid in civil cases. This would be a civil case. We have not even free legal aid in criminal cases at the moment because it has completely broken down. It would be impossible for a widow to do what the Minister says she should do, that is, to avail of whatever processes, legal or otherwise are open to her. I would urge the Minister to make these regulations flexible for the first year at any rate. If he sees then that they are being abused they can be amended.
There is no use in holding out hope for these unfortunate people, hundreds of them, I suppose, and maybe more, and then having them find out that they cannot avail of the provision. That would be a repetition of the first scheme introduced by the Minister's predecessor to provide an additional pension for a daughter who came home or gave up work to attend to her mother. The regulations then were so onerous, involving a provision that the daughter should have been employed, or should have been an insured person, or should have left insurable work, that the net result was that the scheme did not work. It was no use. It did not do the job it set out to do. The Minister had to scrap it and bring in more flexible regulations. I thank the Minister for providing for deserted wives. If he takes my advice, for the first year, or so, he will err on the side of flexible regulations rather than rigid ones.
The Minister speaks about invalidity pensions. I do not want to run this down altogether but really it is switching a long-term sickness benefit recipient over to an invalidity pension. It is not an innovation. It is not a new departure. It will mean that the person will not have to attend at the employment exchange or social welfare office every week. He will not have to sign on or submit medical certificates as often as he has to now. He will collect his invalidity pension at the post office on a book something like the old age pension book. That is an improvement, but it is not something new.
I, and other people also, made reference to the provision of an additional pension for a female relative who is caring for an old age pensioner. That is a good provision. The regulations have now been loosened and they are a great deal more workable than they were. Another speaker suggested that, in certain cases, this additional pension should apply to a male relative. I am not so innocent as to think that this might not open the way to difficulties and abuses, but a considerable case can be made for it.
Within the past month or so I had a visit from a man who is completely crippled. He is an old age pensioner and his wife is an old age pensioner. Their invalid son is living with them— or for some reason or another he is not capable of looking after them. There is no unmarried daughter. Another son came back from England and he is living with them on this little farm, wasting his time, as he would regard it, caring for them. The poor law valuation of the farm is too high, even if they transferred it to him, to qualify him for the small farmer's dole. He gets nothing although he is looking after his father and mother. The Minister should include male relatives in suitable cases. I would allow him to make the regulations fairly tight in this sphere because it would be necessary to have them fairly tight and wide enough to cover cases of hardship only. Such there are, as the Minister will be aware.
Another aspect is that were it not for the female relative the old people would be living alone. That is a necessary qualification. I know of cases in my constituency where, instead of a relative going to live with an old age pensioner, the old age pensioner was brought to the relative's house. I am not certain about this but I think in such cases the pensioners do not qualify for the 45s increase, and I think they should. I am nearly certain from cases I had within the past few months that they do not qualify. If the Minister knows, I should like him to tell me now whether they do or do not and, if he does not know, perhaps he would tell me when he is replying? My understanding is that where a relative brings an old person to the house to live as one of the family that old age pensioner does not qualify for the increased pension. Such old age pensioners should qualify because they are better off living in a house with other people than living alone. The old people I have in mind would be sent to the county home if they were not brought to the home of a relative or a kindly neighbour.
I do not think the Minister has made any provision in this Bill to ensure that employees whose cards have not been stamped through no fault of their own will not suffer a loss. I know the Minister says these people can follow their employers and recover any such lost benefits from the employers.