Last Thursday I welcomed the social security innovations contained in this Bill. I particularly welcomed the new provisions for deserted wives and those relating to invalids' pensions. I also welcomed the lowering of the age limit from 70 to 65 years for contributory retirement pensions. I described these as laudable innovations and very welcome. I have no doubt that considerable support for these praiseworthy efforts on the part of the Minister will be found in the remaining contributions to this debate.
There are, however, a number of issues in relation to the Minister's statement that I consider to be of urgent public importance and which need to be given a public airing in connection with this Bill. One of the difficulties the House faces in regard to this Bill is that while, admittedly, the Bill has a number of marginal innovations of a very welcome nature it is a good example, nevertheless, of the failure of the House in the past decade particularly to get down to a continuing review of the circumstances in which want, need or poverty arise in our society. One cannot be satisfied because one adjusts social security benefits periodically or annually that automatically one has discharged one's obligations and eliminated the need continually to review and update the whole structure of our social services and ensure that they achieve the kind of priority in the field of public expenditure which as yet they certainly have not attained here.
I feel very strongly that there is a rather disturbing and, in many respects, alarming failure on the part of the public at large and particularly on the part of those in charge of legislation, to accord to our social security system its due priority and due level of expenditure within our budgetary system. It can be quite vehemently argued by the Minister, and can be accepted by many sectors of the community, that we are spending according to the Abstract of Estimates for the Public Services in 1970-71, over £66 million gross a year on social welfare. When one looks back to 1965-66, only five years ago, and finds that we were spending then about £39 million the jump between then and now with the additional cost of benefits is very laudable but the fact remains that at this point in time the level of benefits and of payments for what are classified in this typical political jargon as "the recipients of social welfare benefits" are abnormally low and in a Christian society cannot be accepted as being adequate.
I am quite sure that to the staff of the Department and to the Minister this must appear to be repetition ad nauseam, but it is necessary to stress that when the new rates of benefit come into operation, the widow with children will obtain £4 10s per week for herself, 18s for the first child, 18s for the second child, 13s for the third child and each subsequent qualified child. In effect, a widow with three children and with a contributory widow's pension will have the handsome sum of £6 19s per week on which to live. I do not think it is unfair or exaggerating to say that the figure of £6 19s per week or 19s 10d per day for a widow and three children merely allows them to live at subsistence level. I would prefer to call it the level of starvation and poverty.
There are people, particularly those with no close relatives near to where they live, who, due to family circumstances, children at school, must stay at home and are unable to earn an additional income apart from depending on voluntary charitable organisations. As far as I am concerned, the State has a prime obligation in this matter and the voluntary efforts and contributions of other organisations must necessarily come second. We talk very volubly and rhetorically about this wonderful Irish concept of caring for the family, but in terms of hard cash it amounts to £6 19s per week for a widow with three children.
I welcome the increase of 17s 6d per week in the old age contributory pension, bringing it up to a total of £8 10s per week for a married couple at 70 years of age. Nevertheless, at the end of one's normal working life to have that income from social insurance contributions cannot be held out to be unduly generous or likely to lead to an elderly permissive society developing in this State. We in this House should not be carried away with the idea, as unfortunately the Government party seem to be, that we are being generous. The Minister comes before the House full of glory on Budget day and announces an increase of 15s or 17s 6d per week and Deputies are beside themselves with joy and cannot wait to carry the information back to their constituents. It is only when one meets these insured persons that one appreciates the sparseness of the benefit that is granted.
I would remind the Minister of the need to adjust the existing social welfare limit of £1,200. This matter has been raised repeatedly in this House. The insurability limit of £1,200 affects the middle income group in relation to health services and in relation to redundancy payments. This limit also has an effect in relation to the eligibility for grants under the higher education scheme and in relation to eligibility for advances or remissions of fees for trainee teachers. I trust the Minister, when he is replying, will give some hope of raising this limit. I do not propose to delay him unduly this afternoon.
As an insured person I wish to query the substantial increase in the voluntary contribution rate as from 5th October next. Admittedly, the voluntary contributor will now be given cover for the death grant and for the retirement pension, which is very valuable. However, I am one of the 1,500 people in this country currently paying 10s 10d per week into voluntary insurance and perhaps the Minister would give some explanation for this increase and the reasoning behind it. Currently the ordinary employee rate is 12s 6d and the voluntary contributory rate is 10s 10d. The proposed rate for the employee is 15s 2d and for the voluntary contributor 16s 3d per week. This is a matter of very profound regret and a matter for Ministerial comment. Notwithstanding the alleged efforts of the Department to advise all those who exceed the limit of £1,200 that they may become voluntary contributors the number who have so become since 1964 seems to be abnormally low.
Admittedly there was an increase in 1969 as against 1968, but one must look at the position in the context of a reply from the Minister's secretary to the Transport Union in November, 1969. The figures given in that reply were that for 1964, 1,295 people had become voluntary contributors; in 1965, 2,297; in 1966, 602; in 1967, 918; in 1968, 1,087; and in 1969, 1,546. The majority of these were non-manual workers who had ceased to become compulsorily insured because their remuneration exceeded the insurable limit. This figure is abnormally low in terms of people taking up the options open to them. If the Minister is not going to raise the limit then in view of the very large number who, going on the basis of current wage increases, will exceed the limit, a special effort should be made by the Department through television, radio and Press publicity to inform the people of the considerable benefits available to them in regard to widows and orphans, death benefits, retirement benefits and so on. The Minister should give special consideration to this aspect.
Another point which should be borne in mind is the change in the demographic structure of our society which can be anticipated over the next 20 years. Sufficient attention is not paid to this factor in terms of tentative social security forecasting by the Department. I am aware of the concern of departmental staffs and their interest in such matters, but nevertheless I do not think the House has been given a great deal of information about this work. Special consideration should be given by the Government to, and special information made available to the House on the effect of population changes and structures in the country as a whole. For example, as we are aware, it is estimated that there will be 327,000 persons aged 65 and over in the country in 1971 but by 1981 the figure, it is estimated, will be 363,000, an increase of 36,000. That is only a decade away.
Any changes in our social security system now must take these substantial changes into account. It is also estimated that there will be about 122,000 persons aged 75 and over next year, while in 1981 there will be 135,000: again, a substantial upward change. There will be an extra 10,000 people aged 80 years and over in 1981. With the advances made in medical science, in regard to the span of life and so forth, we are facing a somewhat unique position here relative to other demographic changes throughout Europe. Therefore, I would urge the Minister to let us know whether or not work in this direction is being carried out. Neither I nor the vast majority of Deputies are competent to consider the full implications of these changes, but it is our public duty to be involved at least in the considerations affecting these changes. As has been repeatedly pointed out by medical staffs, psychiatric personnel, and many of those associated with the population census, as well as organisations such as the ESRI, the percentage of total population aged from 20 to 64 is only 48.6 in this country whereas in England and Wales it is only 57, so that there is a very considerable difference in the proportion of total population in the working age group in these two countries alone. As far as the implications of these factors on our social security system are concerned, I have seen no real evidence on the part of the Government of their concern or of projections of policy for the future.
Another point which I should like to raise—one which has not received any great appreciation in this country, but which is very fashionable in England—is the need positively to discriminate in favour of those who are poor, those who are likely to remain poor within the present system of society, those who are handicapped, deprived, those who are homeless, or those who can broadly be classified as the social casualties of our society. Not only should there be what one might call a general universalism within our system of social security but the Department should make a special effort to discriminate positively in favour of the 5 per cent to 10 per cent of our community who are within those categories. It is not just a question of choosing between what one might call the means test system and the universal system, but of positive general discrimination, of providing a basic structure of social security and having additional selective services for various groups and in that context opening up this discrimination principle within our social security system. It is very necessary that these categories of people should be given special priority within these areas. There are unique aspects of this which have been highlighted very considerably, particularly in England, but not so much here; but with a growing urbanisation here we would inevitably want to be very careful or we would have what one might call deprived ghetto areas within many of our urban communities.
Already, there are manifestations of this in some of our urban areas; in areas where there are mentally ill persons, where there are people whom we classify as the "down and outs" in society, people with severe behavioural disturbances and those who tend to drift. One finds that such groups tend to congregate in haphazard housing in particular areas of the urban community or tend to find cheap lodgings in certain parts of an urban environment. There is need for the Minister to ensure that there does not develop in Ireland this kind of social burden where we would have unique forms of social gatherings with consequent problems. This, of course, has not been unknown in British urban centres and I would urge the Minister to pay particular attention to that aspect of our social security services and particularly to local services associated with the Department.
It is necessary in dealing with this Bill that we disabuse ourselves of the fashionable myth, which is fostered most sedulously by those with comfortable and middle-class backgrounds, that rising affluence in this country automatically solves the problem of poverty, that we all ascend the escalator together and that nobody remains in the broadly classified category of the "poverty group". It is important to point out that the substantial demand for social services will not diminish in this country—nor in any other country in Europe—but rather it will be extended and administered in a more effective and humane manner by the State. This is one of the lessons we learned in the 1960s in relation to our social security system.
The publication The Poor and The Poorest by Abel Smith and Townsend highlights what happened in Britain in relation to their social security system. While England has the best social security system and the finest national health service in the world, nevertheless the authors found that only a short decade ago 18 per cent of the households and 14.5 per cent of persons in the study were living below a defined “national assistance” level of living. Although in Britain in the past ten years that 18 per cent has been reduced by 8 per cent, there are still many thousands of families at subsistence and lower income levels. Special attention should be given by the Minister to this aspect.
There is a considerable danger if we confine our analysis to particular entitlements of insurability. What is really at stake is the need to develop another concept of social security, a concept in which the needs of a particular family, rather than an insured individual, would be taken into account. There is urgent need for reorientation of our attitudes in that regard. We have a system based on individual social insurance with benefits directly related to individual contribution records. As a result this excludes a range of people who, perhaps, due to chronic illness or disablement, must opt out of insurance and there have been instances where whole families have literally grown into poverty. The Minister should give attention to developing a new concept of family insurance and social security.
I would ask the Minister to consider carefully the effects of the new pension provisions he is introducing and to examine the general effects of the social security system on the parallel development of occupational pensions in this country. Far too little attention has been given by the Department of Social Welfare to the impact of growth of occupational pensions, parallel with this system of social security. I am not opposed to occupational pensions as such. I have no objection to people being involved in private insurance schemes or in occupational pension schemes. However, I regard them as additional to what is provided by the State and it would be wrong for people to delude themselves that private schemes should be the real answer to adequate State benefits. Private schemes must be supplemental to State pensions and not an alternative.
I would point out to the House that there is much propaganda about occupational pension schemes in this country. In many respects the weakest are at a very considerable disadvantage even when coverage is through a company's private scheme instead of directly with an insurance company. Bad risks in an occupational pension scheme may find it difficult to obtain employment because employers are increasingly imposing more stringent health tests on new employees and as employees are compelled to join the firm's pension scheme those who are weak and in need of better pension provisions may have no opportunity of joining occupational pension schemes. These schemes stand very much in the way of the mobility of labour both in this country and abroad. The Minister should examine the effect they have on the mobility of labour here. The State social security system has the overriding benefit of being automatically transferable. It is important to point out this benefit for the information of the public.
Both the Minister and his Department are unduly apologetic, self-defensive and quiet about the tremendous benefit of our State national insurance system, a system which costs a mere 5 per cent of contributions to administer. About 25 per cent of the premium of private insurance goes in administration costs, commissions, profit to the insurance company, profits to the shareholders and the remainder is provided in terms of benefits. About two-thirds of the occupational pensionsthe only figure I have is the figure for the British scheme—die with the pensioners but the State scheme in operation here is of a continuing nature for the vast majority of the people. This is one of the major disadvantages of the occupational pensions scheme. I know I will not be very popular with some of the major pension trust companies for stressing these points. The level of benefits of many of these schemes is not very high; it may be £2, £3 or £4 a week. Indeed one would be doing very well with a scheme paying £4 a week. I do not wish to see these schemes reduced or campaigned against by any government or any political party but I do think their value and effectiveness should be kept in proper perspective.
I would suggest that the Minister examine the Crossman Plan, which was a combination of a State pension scheme and the occupational pension in Britain, and even though it is not going to be implemented by the new Government there it is a plan we might follow. I believe the newly elected Government in Britain have taken a retrograde step by not implementing this plan. I suggest we look at this plan not out of any slavish following of British systems but it must be pointed out that they have one of the finest social security systems in Europe with the possible exception of the parallel development in Scandinavian countries.
The time has come when the staff in the Department of Social Welfare should take a long, hard look at our current system, not only the level of benefits but also the present system of, for example, children's allowances, which in my opinion is urgently needed. We do not know how effective children's allowances are. We do not have the slightest idea to what extent they contribute towards family budgets. There is a great need for social research into family life. I should like to refer the Minister to the statement by the director of the Economic and Social Research Institute made before the Statistical Social Research Society in January, 1969, when he talked about future social research in Ireland. He quoted from a colleague of his, Dr. Hannan, and this quotation is published at page 66 of the Journal of the Statistical and Social Enquiry Society of Ireland:
We have very limited knowledge of the structure and functions of the Irish family or of variations in it. Arensberg's study is 30 years out of date. Humphries' 1950 study is very limited methodologically and is also out of date. Kane and Gallagher will provide some such information but only for traditional farm areas. Even projections such as Walsh's as to actual or likely changes in fertility patterns or in occupational or educational patterns suffer from this lack of knowledge about Irish families. Some of the major economic and social problems in Irish farming stem from the inability of the family to cope with property transfers from father to son.... Similar types of family malfunctioning and generational conflict occur in urban areas, especially among the poor. A project dealing with family structure, even though not directly concerned with providing answers to practical questions, would provide very valuable information on many social problems from farm inheritance problems to poverty cycles, educational problems, alcoholism, and delinquency. As regards demography generally, it would provide the kind of background information that appears necessary for any predictions.
There is an urgent need for the Minister to commission the ESRI and social scientists to examine what benefit we are really getting from the £70 million a year we spend on so-called social welfare benefits because I am not convinced that, on social grounds, on cost benefit analysis grounds, on grounds of an effective contribution to raising the dignity and the morale of our people, we are getting the kind of contribution which the cash, the staff, the Government, and the Opposition parties are capable of making in this regard.