Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 30 Mar 1971

Vol. 252 No. 10

Private Members' Business. - Social Welfare Services for Widows and Orphans: Motion.

Mr. R. Barry

I move:

That Dáil Éireann being conscious of the grave hardships being suffered by widows because of the quite inadequate social welfare services available to them and their orphan children, calls on the Government to take immediate steps to provide a comprehensive social welfare code for widows and their families so that their standard of living will not be lowered by the death of family breadwinners.

We who signed this motion perfectly understand that the State cannot be expected to provide lavishly for everyone. We recognise fully that funds are not unlimited and that budgetary consideration cannot be ignored. However, we also recognise that many of the 126,000 widows with their families in this country are living at starvation level. There is an urgent need that their case be investigated fully.

I have no intention of going into details about the grief and loneliness that is unfortunately the lot of Irish widows. Undoubtedly it is hard on them when they lose the breadwinner of their family, but very often they have young families to rear and the loneliness and the hardship is not helped by the benefits given to them under the social welfare code. When a man dies and leaves a widow with five or six children we immediately have a great deal of sympathy for that family. Very often in those cases the funeral is a very big one and sympathy is displayed all round. Unfortunately for the widow and her children this sympathy does not last long and they have to face a hard, stiff world when the funeral is over, depending on the entirely inadequate benefits the State provides.

I want to refer to the poverty and the agonising pressures these people must undergo. Under the present code a widow with eight young children— and this is not uncommon—is given an allowance of 22s per person per week. Is it possible in these days of spiralling costs to exist on 22s per week or 3s 2d per day? Everybody in this House and in the community will undoubtedly come up with the same answer, that it is certainly not possible to live on that allowance. The pity for those people is that we are all allowing that situation to continue. We are all part of the community that allows it.

We in the Fine Gael Party have put down this motion so that we might do something to ease the appalling hardships that these people suffer. I do not wish to overstate the case here but wish merely to put the facts clearly and plainly before the Minister so that not only would he be convinced but that he would be able to convince the Government and particularly the Minister for Finance of the hard struggle of this section of our people for survival.

In regard to the non-contributory widow's pension, a widow who is childless and who has no income receives only £4 5s per week. If she earns more than £4 15s she will get no pension at all. It does not do any credit to the Government or the country to ask an unfortunate person to live on such a miserable pittance. If that widow has children she has an allowance of 15s per week for each child. Having regard to the fact that childhood in this case extends to the age of 18 years, can anyone tell me how a person is expected to live on that 15s a week? This is expected to cover all their expenses. I do not see how it can be done. Only God knows how it is done.

Then in regard to the non-contributory pension, there is also this anomaly of the means test, so that if the widow with eight children to whom I referred earlier earns over £9 per week she gets no pension. This is the most appalling aspect of our social welfare code. When she tries to supplement the assistance given by the State to provide a reasonable living standard for herself and her dependants she is penalised in this way. The first step is to have this penal provision abolished from the social welfare code.

If we look at this another way it should be easy for any Minister for Social Welfare to make a case to his colleague for a vast improvement in this allowance. Is it not true to say that if one of these children were put into an institution—and it is easy to imagine several reasons why the children in such circumstances should be put into an institution—it would cost the State over £8 a week?

We should give serious thought to this problem, and that is why I raise it in this House in a calm, cool and collected way without blaming the Minister or the Government or anyone in the House. We are all to blame for allowing this state of affairs to continue. As well as Members of this House, each person in the community must share a certain amount of responsibility for not having insisted many years ago that this should be improved. I suppose the only reason that the people have not so insisted is that they did not bother to stop and think. I must confess that it was only after I had been asked to act as spokesman for this party in matters relating to social welfare that I took any personal interest in those problems. We discussed this matter within Fine Gael and it was decided that we, as a party, would support benefits that we believe to be long overdue to this unfortunate section of our community. That is why this motion is on the Order Paper.

Many widows who qualify for contributory pensions have young families. They are not, therefore, in a position to take up work but the pensions they receive are inadequate by any standards. Another anomaly that should be removed from the social welfare code is that a widow who is in receipt of a contributory widow's pension but who goes to work even on a part-time basis has her pension added to her income for tax assessment purposes. The sooner that provision is deleted from the social welfare code, the better for everyone. Yet another anomaly exists in regard to widows drawing contributory widow's pensions in that if these widows go to work and stamp a card, they qualify for only half sickness and other benefits.

In reply to a parliamentary question some weeks ago with regard to improving the plight of widows, the Minister for Social Welfare gave what I believe was a near record in so far as the length of the reply was concerned. This was a long and monotonous recital of what the Government have done and we got the hackneyed information that there is a limit to the public purse. We were told that not only have pensions kept pace with the cost of living but that they are ahead of it. It is naive to suggest that widows and orphans are getting enough money on which to exist.

Widows are the most deprived section of the community and because they are so deprived, their children also are. The social welfare code as it applies to them is morally unjust and that is why we are calling for a comprehensive code that will allow for the fair and just treatment of that section of our community. Recently an association of widows was formed and, possibly, it is that association that has directed the minds of people all over the country to the hardships that many widows must endure. They are conducting their campaign in a responsible, democratic and intelligent manner. The Government as well as Fine Gael and Labour must listen to them and the legislation must be changed so that widows can live in some kind of frugal comfort in their own country.

There are other Deputies who wish to speak on this motion. Therefore, I shall not detain the House any longer except to say to the Minister in conclusion that if when the Budget is introduced in a month's time, the Minister is able to point to a particular sum of money in that Budget for the benefit of widows, there is no one in this House or, indeed, in the country who would grudge one penny of that money to this very deserving section of the community.

However, the matter should not rest there. Having known the present Minister for a number of years, I believe him to be very sympathetic in this matter and I appeal to him, having succeeded in getting increased benefits in the Budget for widows, to introduce, in the not too distant future, a comprehensive social welfare code that we can all discuss and which, when agreed upon, will ensure that widows and their dependent children will no longer have to endure the hardships that they must endure today.

In recent times, it is difficult enough for a mother and father together to rear a family but it is very difficult indeed for a mother to do so on her own. I hope that this problem will be tackled, not in a political way, but in a way that will best serve the interests of widows and their children.

Mr. O'Donnell

I second this motion. It is a motion that I believe will be considered in a sympathetic manner by Deputies on all sides of the House. As Deputy Barry pointed out, this is an area of social welfare where reform is very urgently needed. As the Deputy rightly pointed out also, widows are the most deprived section of our people. The present level of allowances and pensions in respect of widows is a reflection not only on the Government but on all parties which comprise this Parliament. This problem must concern every Deputy. Certainly, it must have led to an examination of conscience by any Deputy who has any social conscience. Successive Governments have failed to realise the magnitude of this problem and it was not until recently when the widows of this country were compelled to take democratic action and form an association so that they might be in a position to fight for their rights that we woke up to a full realisation of the gravity of the situation. This problem is a serious one.

It has come as a shock to most people to find from recent newspaper articles and statements from the widows organisation that there are 126,000 widows in this country. When this figure of 126,000 was broken down on a regional basis we found that in the city and county of Limerick there are approximately 6,000 widows. In Wexford one out of every five is a widow. It is frightening to realise that statistical forecasts show that 72 per cent of all married women will be widows.

What are we doing for the 126,000 widows? We should have a look at the present situation and decide on the areas where we can effect immediate improvements and areas where we can effect long-term improvements. Statistics show that there are 40,000 widows in receipt of contributory pensions and a further 19,000 in receipt of non-contributory pensions. The contributory pension is £4 10s a week plus 18s for each of the first two children and 13s for the third and subsequent children. The non-contributory pension is £4 a week plus 15s for each of the first two children and 10s for each child thereafter.

In this day and age nobody will deny that the present level of widow's pension is totally inadequate. I am sure every Deputy and every public representative throughout the country is only too well aware of the sad plight of many of these widows, who are compelled to eke out a miserable existence and are living on the rim of starvation. I can quote numerous examples from my own constituency. I am sure Deputy Dick Barry, Deputy Dr. O'Connell and, indeed, the Minister for Social Welfare can quote numerous examples of the hardship, the stark poverty, the difficulties with which widows have to contend. We have begun to realise the national problem that confronts us in this Parliament. The widows of this country have, perhaps, remained silent for far too long. It is time the conscience of this nation was awakened to the problem and the dire need for immediate attention to this serious social problem. It is time the Government woke up and took appropriate action. I hope, now that we have an opportunity of discussing the problem and of ventilating the just grievances of these people, that the Government will take whatever action they can take.

I believe the pensions paid to widows at present are morally unjust and are a scandal in a Christian democracy. If we have any concept of social justice at all, irrespective of what party we belong to, we must admit that something will have to be done and that the resources of the nation will have to be reallocated in such a way as to ensure that this most deprived section of our people will get a fair deal. I believe we have a duty, as elected representatives, irrespective of our party affiliations, to ensure that all sections of our people are entitled, as a matter of right and not of charity, to an adequate standard of living. I also believe that we have a duty to ensure that this standard of living is not depressed as a result of family bereavement, unemployment or sickness.

When we apply this concept of community responsibility for social welfare to the situation of the 126,000 widows we see in a dramatic way how we have failed in our responsibility and how the Government in particular have failed in their responsibility to these unfortunate people. I know the Minister for Social Welfare will point, as he did in a recent very lengthy reply to a Dáil question, to the improvements in the allowances and pensions payable to widows that have been effected under various Fianna Fáil administrations. The Minister has said that the Government have done their best to give the maximum allowance possible at each Budget. In my opinion, and I think this will be the opinion of any person with any sort of social conscience, in this particular case what the Minister regards as being "best" is just not good enough.

As Deputy Barry said, I suppose it is better to approach this in a realistic, factual and unemotional manner but it is very difficult to speak without emotion in relation to the hardship, poverty and difficulties with which these unfortunate widows have to contend. Can any Member of Dáil Éireann in the year 1971 with the colossal inflationary spiral we have been living with over the past couple of years say that £4 10s or £4 5s a week is adequate to provide a reasonable standard of living for any person? Of course it is not. On the contrary I believe that this miserable pittance of £4 odd a week is just barely sufficient to keep body and soul together, barely sufficient to keep these unfortunate people from starvation level.

I hope in the not too distant future this Government or some other Government will abolish once and for all our existing social welfare code and will introduce a realistic, modern social welfare code which will meet the basic norms of what should be the social policy of any Government in a Christion democracy. Under our existing appalling social welfare code the widow is the victim of numerous rank injustices. If she is in receipt of a non-contributory pension and goes out to work to supplement it, and if she is a widow with a number of young children she has no option but to go out and work, her small pension is assessed for income tax purposes. This is an absolute disgrace. It is totally indefensible and there is no justification for continuing it.

Again, if a widow who is one of the 19,000 receiving a non-contributory pension goes out to work her position is still worse in that her pension is reduced for every £1 she earns and when she goes over £4 15s a week her pension ceases altogether. It is time this Government and this Parliament woke up to their responsibilities as regards the underprivileged sections. No section is more underprivileged than the section to which this motion refers. I have never believed, while I am a Member of the House, in being merely destructive but facts must be stated. I also like to be constructive and I want to make some suggestions. While I may be out of order in referring to the Minister's statement on the Estimate for Social Welfare I presume I can make a brief comment on the paragraph which is specifically relevant to this motion. Towards the end of the speech the Minister said:

Deputies may have recently seen an announcement in the newspapers that the European Code of Social Security was ratified on behalf of the Government... Under the Code the prescribed standards of protection are of two kinds: benefits must be available to prescribed classes constituting a minimum percentage of employees or residents and the levels of benefits must be not less than defined minimum standards.

Here is the important point:

For ratification, compliance with standards is required in at least six branches of social security. Ireland has accepted the obligations of the provisions of the Code relating to sickness benefit, unemployment benefit, old age benefit— which counts as the equivalent of three branches—family benefit and survivors' benefit.

I presume widows would come in under this category but when the Minister is speaking I hope he will clarify this——

We are the eighth of the 17 member countries of the Council of Europe to ratify the Code...

If we have ratified this Code and if ratification means that we are to bring our social benefits, particularly benefits for widows, into line with European countries, the Minister has a long way to go and a big task to undertake to gear up widows' pensions and other social welfare benefits to European level.

Now that we are on the eve of the Budget, as Deputy Barry said, the motion is being debated at a good time. I hope the Minister for Social Welfare will be able to prevail on his colleague, the Minister for Finance, to make the necessary money available to effect at least some alleviation of the hardships, privations and problems with which widows have to contend. In relation to non-contributory pensions, particularly, it is time to have a realistic reappraisal of the means test and bring it into line with the cost of living. At present a widow receiving £4 15s a week does not qualify for a non-contributory pension. Out of this amount she must pay rent, provide for food, clothes, light, heat, house maintenance, insurance and so on. This cannot be done. The first and most important step the Minister could take would be to amend the means test. Every time I think of that test and every week when I meet a half dozen or more people who are being refused on technicalities in regard to the means test and are having their pensions reduced, it makes me furious. The means test is diabolical and should be abolished. If the Minister cannot abolish it immediately I hope he will take steps to amend it so as to enable a reasonable allowance to be paid, particularly to widows.

There is another problem. Working widows paying full contributions and in receipt of contributory pensions on their husband's contributions should receive full sickness and unemployment benefit due to them on their own contributions. At present I understand they receive only 50 per cent of the maximum despite the fact that they themselves are paying contributions. Having looked at welfare codes in Britain and some continental countries I note that in many cases there is provision for a special allowance for widows in the period immediately following the husband's death when the need is greatest. A temporary special allowance is paid for six months after the husband's death to help tide her over what is perhaps the worst period.

I do not want to monopolise the time of the House. Deputy Barry has outlined the case pretty well. I hope the Minister—this is something he can do immediately—will look again at the means test in relation to non-contributory widows' pensions. The Widows' Association of Ireland have submitted a memorandum to the Taoiseach, to the Minister for Social Welfare and to various other Ministers. They have made representations to Members of this House, including myself. I do not wish to go into detail about the memorandum but I want to put on record the fact that the association has placed its views before the Taoiseach. I am sure the Taoiseach has passed on the memorandum to the Ministers most directly involved, the Minister for Social Welfare and the Minister for Finance. Until we reach the stage where we will have a proper, comprehensive national pensions policy we shall have a continuation of hardship and suffering, not only for widows but for many other categories of pensioners also. I appeal to the Minister to accept this motion and while he is working out the possibilities of introducing a comprehensive social code for widows and their families to do his utmost to ensure that he will get from the Minister for Finance the maximum amount possible and that he will be enabled in the coming Budget to do something for the 126,000 people on whose behalf we are pleading here this evening.

Dr. O'Connell

On behalf of the Labour Party I say that we most definitely support this motion. The only criticism we might have is that the motion does not spell out exactly what we want for widows. I remember that the first question I asked when I came into this House in 1965 concerned widows. I have been on every year since then about the problem of widows. As a family doctor I had been aware of the problem of widows for many years before I came into this House. I have seen widows make sacrifices which people would not think possible. Widows have been discriminated against and there is no use saying we are all at fault here.

I indict the present Government for the discrimination against widows in this country. I asked the Minister for Social Welfare in 1965 if he would introduce an amendment to the Social Welfare Act to provide for widows on the contributory scheme who went out to work. In the case of those widows who go out to work, if they become ill they get half payment, or if they are unemployed they get half payment. I saw this as an injustice for years. The widow with children who goes out to work, if she becomes ill cannot remain ill. She has to go back to work when she is not fit to return to work. I asked what could be done about this. If a married woman, whose husband is working, goes out to work and becomes ill she gets full benefit. I asked the then Minister for Social Welfare if there was any provision for this. He said there was not. When I asked him why we could not do it he said it would involve changing the 1932 Act.

I brought this matter up again and again but still nothing has been done about it. Only the Government are in a position to change this. They have the power to do something about this, but are not prepared to do it. Those widows are being discriminated against. If any one imagines that widows and their families are living normal lives, I say they are liars. I have seen those children whom one would regard as deprived children. I have seen the medical and social consequences of their plight. When a woman decides to stay at home to mind her family she decides to live at or below subsistence level. If this widow decides that her obligation to her family is to mind them herself she must make the sacrifice to live at below subsistence level or depend on charity or public assistance. If she decides that her children must be minded by someone else, she will provide them with their physical wants but she will deprive them of the emotional rights and the emotional security which are due to normal children. Those are the decisions a widow must make on the death of her husband.

When widows go out to work to provide for the physical needs of their children those children are emotionally deprived or undernourished. We talk about human rights in this country, but yet we deprive widows in this way. The Association of Widows is a marvellous thing because it will do more than we do in this House. You need pressure groups like this. They should be in force outside the gates of this House, demanding that the Government introduce a proper social welfare code for them. We in this party who are aware of their problems are crying in the wilderness because our cries are falling on deaf ears.

We treat widows as second-class citizens, people we do not want to know about. Their problems can be anybody's problems. Those people can find themselves overnight in this terrible predicament when their husbands die. We can all salve our consciences by going outside the House and saying, after we have spoken about the plight of widows in this House, "We have done our part for them." This is not good enough. It galls me to hear the Minister saying, "We are all concerned about widows." If the Minister is so concerned about them he should put pressure on the Minister for Finance and get some money to do something for them. When I asked the Minister if he would bring in legislation to give the widows a decent living he had a cynical smile but did not do anything.

Mr. Enright

This is a motion I thoroughly agree with. I am certain all of us are conscious of the hardship and suffering which widows and their families are caused by the inadequacies of the present rates of payment to widows. The Department of Social Welfare is not giving them the proper status. This Department is not considered worthy at present of having a Minister in sole charge of it. This is a Department which requires the attention of a full-time Minister, a Minister of vigour, energy and of the highest intelligence. People in this country regard the Department of Social Welfare as a Department which is a comfortable one, which can be looked after easily enough, one which can run itself. We must get our priorities right if this country is to be held in the esteem in which it should be held. The Department of Social Welfare must be one of the key Departments. We pride ourselves on being a Christian country but the Department of Social Welfare is not afforded the attention it requires. If the Government do not provide sufficient attention, care, energy and resources to help people in unfortunate circumstances then the country as a whole is failing in its duty.

The Department of Social Welfare requires one of the best Ministers in the Cabinet. When the present Minister was looking after the Department of Labour as well as the Department of Social Welfare, the Department of Social Welfare was thought to be able to look after itself, but this is not so; the Department of Social Welfare needs a Minister to look after it all the time.

I have been in communication with the Department about a widow's pension and the case has dragged on for nearly four months. The widow in question, whose husband died suddenly, has eight children and she was left without a pension for almost four months. I received numerous replies and acknowledgments that the matter was being looked into: "Fuaireas do litir agus táimid ag feachaint isteach sa scéal," but it took four months to get the matter finalised. During that time the widow had another tragedy. One of her children was badly burnt. Fortunately the child lived. That incident shows the hardship she has had to suffer. During that time Offaly County Council and the St. Vincent de Paul Society contributed towards keeping this woman and her family together.

I realise that delays can occur in a Department which has such a vast amount of correspondence and that it takes time for officials to investigate each individual claim and decide whether or not a person is eligible for a particular pension, but I cannot understand how delays of four months can occur. A complete overhaul of the Department is very necessary. I do not want to criticise the Department for their failure in this particular matter, but this is not an isolated case. I know of many cases of delays in administering pensions and payments by the Department of Social Welfare, and some of these delays may be due to insufficient staff.

A widow who does not receive her pension has to seek credit from shopkeepers until her case has been settled. The strain of living like this must be intolerable. Her position is bad enough when her husband dies but it is made much worse by having to provide food and shelter for her children while waiting for her claim for a pension to be considered. The Department should investigate the reason for these long delays and if extra staff is required, the officials should explain the position to the Minister and more staff should be provided.

With ever-increasing costs the present widows' pensions are not sufficient to keep body and soul together. I recently purchased some meat in a butcher's shop and I was amazed at the price I had to pay for it. With a pension of £4 5s and approximately 15s for the first and second child it would be impossible for a widow to purchase meat for her family. It is impossible on the present scale of non-contributory widows' pensions for a widow to buy clothes and all the other things a mother has to buy for her family. A pension of £6 or £7 would be more realistic, but it would still be barely sufficient to keep a widow and her family above the bread line.

It it a matter for each local authority to decide whether or not a widow is eligible to pay rates. I may be somewhat irrelevant in referring to rates but I recently came across a case of a widow with two children, living in a county council house, paying £6 a year rates. I asked that the rates in her case be waived but I was told that the rates were roughly 4s or 5s a week and this was not a very big sum. I raised the matter at a local authority meeting and I was told that this woman occasionally worked for a neighbour and she was not therefore entitled to have her rates waived. Widows with children attending school should not have to pay rates. A sum of £6 a year may be relatively small in the eyes of Members of this House and others outside it but, to someone living on an income of £200 or £300 a year, £6 can be a lot of money. Rates should be waived.

An Ceann Comhairle

There is no point in discussing the question of rates.

Mr. Enright

The Minister should recommend to the Minister for Finance some alleviation in his forthcoming Budget. This is a matter that should be examined. Widows deserve special care and attention.

Mr. P.J. Burke

This charitable party on this side of the House has always been anxious to do its best for the weaker sections of our community. We are deeply concerned about the plight of widows. The last speaker made a good case but he was just a little too political and I must reply. On every occasion on which we proposed increased taxation in order to increase widows' pensions the Deputy and his party voted against that increased taxation.

Mr. Ryan

That is not so and the Deputy knows it.

Mr. J. Lenehan

Ah, shut up.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. P.J. Burke

If, in the forthcoming Budget, it is proposed to increase taxation to alleviate the lot of the weaker sections of our community I want an assurance now from Opposition Deputies that they will vote for that increased taxation, vote with us and not against us. I make the point now because of our experience in the past.

I would like to see everybody looked after properly. I would like to see the standard of living of our people improved. If I had my way, and our resources could afford it, I would like to see every widow with at least £10 per week and not just the £6 advocated by the last speaker. We have always bent over backwards to help the weaker sections of our community but we cannot move any faster than our resources will allow us. We are responsible for introducing widows' and orphans' pensions, children's allowances, waiver of rates for widows and many other benefits. In County Dublin widows are assisted by the Dublin Health Authority. We do not want to see anyone in our society hungry or in need.

We are a Christian, democratic party concerned with the welfare of all sections, irrespective of class or creed, and we will continue that policy. If we fail in that policy our failure will be irretrievable. I have met a number of widows and I have great sympathy with them. A woman who loses her husband suffers a very big loss. If she has no family she is all the lonelier. These are matters we take into consideration. It is easy enough in Opposition to say that we will do this, that and the other. I trust our resources will be sufficiently buoyant to enable us to give more assistance in the Budget to those who need assistance.

The waiver of rates has been helpful in the case of a number of widows. Officials may administer the scheme a little stringently but they have to do their job and they are subject to auditors, to the manager and everybody else. I have made repeated representations for a waiver of rates in the case of widows, old age pensioners and others, not always successfully. Nothing can be done if there is a child working. The Act has to be administered, but it was a break through in legislation designed to help the weaker sections of our community. We have done a great deal for widows in County Dublin.

I want an assurance from the Opposition now that they will support increased taxation for the benefit of the weaker sections of our community. A widow who works and, having finished working, draws unemployment benefit gets a very small amount because she has a widow's pension. It would be a great help to her if no reduction were made. There are details I have discussed at our party meetings, but I do not want to detain the House with these. Both the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Geoghegan, are giving very serious thought to all these problems. I admit that in certain cases there may be delay in granting pensions. This is understandable in a huge Department like this. The only suggestion I can make is that perhaps more inspectors should be appointed in order to enable the investigation to be carried out more speedily. The Minister is a humane man and I know he does not wish anybody to suffer unnecessarily. In County Dublin if we find there is delay in providing a pension for a widow, with or without a family, we try to help her through our welfare society. I want to take this opportunity of thanking the very efficient staff of the Dublin Health Authority for the humane way in which they consider all these cases, not withstanding the fact that they have to do their duty under the Acts.

In regard to the employment of widows, the placement officers do an excellent job in placing people in employment. If a widow is living on her own and is unemployed, especially if she is rather young, time hangs very heavily and she would be better off working. Some of these people get employment themselves and others depend on the placement officers in the Department of Social Welfare to help them.

In conclusion I want to say that we on this side of the House are all for improving the lot of the widows in so far as the resources of the country allow it.

Mr. Tully

Deputy Paddy Burke has inadvertently put his finger on the nub of the problem. He seems to think— and I expect he is speaking for Fianna Fáil—that if a widow gets home assistance then she is all right. I know he has a kind heart and I reminded him it would be an unusual thing to have a debate about widows in this House when he would not be present: I met him in the Library and I am glad he came in here because he has made a contribution which has helped to put the matter in the proper perspective.

What is wrong with the whole code in regard to widows is that the people who have drawn up this code that is in existence and those who are administering it over the years do not seem to understand or do not seem to be anxious to try to understand that there is a very big difference between a widow, particularly a widow with a small family, and any other social welfare recipient. Deputy Burke's comment that Dublin County Council and the Dublin Health Authority were very generous, were giving home assistance and therefore everything was all right, seems to be the attitude of the Government to this problem.

Where there is a growing family, where the father is working with a small wage and they are just keeping their heads above water, as so many thousands of families are in this country, and then suddenly the husband dies, apparently it is not understood that, apart entirely from the fact that the source of income ceases, there is another very important aspect which must be considered, that is, what will the widow do to start life again? If she was employed before she was married, has some experience of employment and has somebody to look after her children, then she may be able to work after a while and at least earn some income which, added to the miserly social welfare benefit which is being paid, may enable her to pay her way; or if she has been working when her husband was ill, as so many of them are, to try to keep the home together, then she will continue to work and still try to keep the family together.

However, she is suddenly faced with the problem, if she has a family, of trying to rear that family in the way in which youngsters do require to be looked after, and to bring in enough money to pay for what they need. Goodness knows it is impossible to tell children, particularly those who are used to getting a reasonable amount of good food and fairly good clothing, that suddenly the whole situation is changed and that after a few months when they require a replacement of clothing or shoes, the money is not there to buy them. The State does not seem to understand that the small amount of social welfare benefit given is not the answer to the problem.

If, as Deputy Burke says, the widow is older and has no children then most likely she has gone past working or she may be in a part of the country where work is not easy to get; she is then left with a much smaller amount of social welfare benefit. If her husband was insured then she gets a contributory pension and if she is able to earn a few shillings she can keep it. If her husband was either self-employed or for any other reason was not insured, then she gets a non-contributory pension, and the gentlemen whom Deputy Burke says he wants more of, the inspectors, will appear. I do not know why he wants more of them. I would suggest to the Minister that they should be removed altogether from the scene, because the bane of the widow's life is the inspector who goes around to count the chickens, to find out if there are apples on the apple trees, if by any chance she is earning a shilling more than she said she was earning, to see if she got a spade and dug the garden and put down a hundred plants of cabbage for her family or planted some potatoes. Then she must have a reduced amount of pension paid to her.

The Parliamentary Secretary is shaking his head, but I have given instances in this House of this happening and we will produce them again if they are required, because I am sick and tired of looking at the antics of these people who themselves are quite comfortably off and therefore do not require to worry about whether, when they go home, there will be enough food on the table. It is a disgraceful situation in a so-called christian country that this sort of thing is allowed to continue, and it is continuing. The widow goes out to work. She has not worked before and she is doing something which she normally would hope she would never have to do. She earns a certain amount of money and then there is a check-up to find out if what she is earning brings her income over what the State says she is entitled to earn before her pension is reduced. Therefore the pension is reduced. If she falls sick or is unemployed—again Deputy Burke was quite correct—she pays the full amount for social welfare stamps but she can get only half the benefit because she has a widow's pension. Again the State says it would be too awkward to have two different rates; it just could not get around this and therefore everybody must be charged the same. Could anything be more ridiculous? Does the State not understand, if somebody who is paying 13s a week could get away with half of that, the difference that 6s or 7s would mean to the family at the end of the week? People who have a good deal of money never seem to understand that there are hundreds, yes, thousands of people in this country who, if they have not the cash with which to buy something, regardless of how important that item may be, must do without it. At least one Minister expressed surprise here some years ago when I pointed this out to him. He tried to give the impression that if somebody was short a few pounds, he could go to the bank and get money. He did not seem to understand that not everybody goes to the bank. Maybe he had been looking at a Dutch film that was produced some years ago in which parents pretended they had money in the bank so that their children would have a sense of security. Many people are restricted to a very tight budget. Perhaps it is unfair to blame the Minister or his Parliamentary Secretary for the situation because, on the face of it, they are doing what they think is right. They are merely following in the footsteps of those who went before them.

In reply to a question some days ago, the Minister emphasised that when increases were given percentage-wise widows received more than was required to cover the cost of living increase. In effect, what the Minister was saying was that a widow who received an increase of 12 per cent was better off than a worker who, working full-time, received an increase of £2 from the 1st January which amount represented 10 per cent of his wages. What the Minister forgot was that this was 12 per cent of a very different sum of money. It is this sort of thinking that is behind the present system of social welfare benefits particularly as they relate to widows and orphans. The same situation arises in respect of employment. Even in the Civil Service, a widow who goes back to work and who may be doing exactly the same work as her male counterpart, is paid the same salary as a single girl. Whereas the man who is working beside her will be able to claim for his children, she will not because she is a widow and is regarded as a different sort of human being altogether.

I would ask the Minister not to feel smug after he has given 15/- or £1 extra this year to social welfare recipients and to say that that is much more percentage wise than they would require to meet any increases in the cost of living. Rather, I would ask him to consider whether the present code is right and, if he decides that it is wrong, then let his name be written in the history of this State as the man who so decided and who took the necessary steps to have it changed.

Deputy P. Burke talked of increases being given within the amount of money available. We talk about the amount of money that is available for anything but everything depends on whether we want to spend that money for a particular purpose. If we want to spend it for a particular purpose we must take the necessary steps to get that money by means of taxation or otherwise. As Deputy Ryan said, it is untrue to say that the Opposition parties have voted against increases for widows or for anybody else. Many years ago when I first came here, I saw the present Government party voting against the Budget but nobody accused them then of voting against increases for people who were in receipt of social welfare. Down through the years, it has been the practice to vote against certain items in the Budget but during the last couple of years in particular when it was stipulated that certain increases were for the purpose of covering social welfare benefits, nobody voted against these even though the taxation required in order to provide that money was considered to be excessive.

It is unfair that anybody should try to make political profit out of this problem. It is not a political issue; it is a matter that affects every Deputy. There are widows in all constituencies and these widows vote for various parties and will continue to do so regardless of what decision is reached here. Therefore, it should be quite easy for all parties to agree on a code for widows. People who are ill or who are unemployed will normally be able to return to work after a period of time but widows, regardless of whether they are young or otherwise, are likely to be dependent on the State for the remainder of their lives. Not enough interest is taken in this problem by people who are outside this House.

Mr. R. Barry

That is true.

Mr. Tully

Those of us who are members of local authorities must find it remarkable that if an applicant for a house happens to be a widow, somebody will say: "You know she is a widow and the rent is fairly high," as if the mere fact of her being a widow should necessitate her being treated differently from anybody else. Very often a person capable of paying a high rent is given the house. This approach is wrong. Again, if a widow who has a couple of young children applies for a job, she may not get that job because of the thinking on the part of employer that she would not give the necessary attention to her work. It would appear there is a bias against widows in our society. This attitude is bad enough in private employment but it is much worse when it permeates State or semi-State employment.

Recently there seemed to be an idea that the bar against the employment of widows in certain State or semi-State institutions was being removed. I could never understand why such a bar existed particularly in cases where there was a shortage of staff with particular skills or qualifications. Many years ago somebody got the idea that this bar was good in that the opportunities for young girls were not reduced. This argument has been continued to be used by unscrupulous employers and also by people in State employment. Another aspect of this matter which concerns me is that widows are often employed as temporaries to do work for which permanent employees are receiving higher wages or salaries. This arrangement seems to suit everybody except the unfortunate widow. Therefore, if she is continued on a temporary basis everything is grand. I would ask the Minister again to look at any statistics he likes with regard to payment to widows in this country and he will find that there is no other class of persons who are treated so badly nor will he find in any of the Western European States any widows who are treated as badly as the widows of this country are.

Debate adjourned.