I listened to some Opposition speakers this morning criticising this Bill. We have a huge problem here, that is, that expenditure on health services is going up and up all the time. It is no harm to ask anybody who is in a position to do so to make some contribution towards his own health charges. That is not a mortal sin. According to Deputy Tully today everything in the Bill is wrong. He has a free scheme for everything but he avoided saying how we were to subsidise the free scheme. We would all be happy if we could strike oil and say to our people: "We will not ask you to pay rates, rent or anything else. We can provide everything from our mineral resources." We must be practical.
A large number of people are in the voluntary health insurance scheme. I pay about £36 a year into that scheme. Mention has been made of the small amount contributed by farmers with valuations of from £20 to £60, and the whole family is covered. Those of us who are members of health boards know the continual pressure that is on us to have hospital bills reduced or abolished altogether. The day has come when we should realise that we should all help each other. We are a Christian community and we should be capable of realising that. At present £7 would not be sufficient to cover a person for one day in certain hospitals if he had to have treatment. Now he will get treatment independently without having to go to any public man and ask him to have his hospital bills reduced. We are up against this day after day.
There should be a small contribution from every section of our people if that were possible. Referring to this Bill as another Finance Bill is all cod. Up to now children who are retarded mentally or physically and who have been in hospital for many years have been paid for by their parents in the middle income group and possibly the remainder of the family have been neglected. There are a number of sad cases like that. I believe our people should welcome any opportunity to help one another. I was the secretary of a parish council, a voluntary organisation, during the war, and I had about seven people cutting timber. There were about 30 old age pensioners in the area. This was the first time I ever practised Christian socialism. I asked the people who were able to pay a few shillings more to do so and in that way we were able to give timber to the others for nothing. I think it was three cwts. a week.
I back what the Minister has done because I believe it is the right approach. Nobody can say that it is too much to ask from anybody. Charges in hospitals and nursing homes today are very high. A member of my family was in a private nursing home for a few months last year and between doctors' fees and everything else the charge came to about £65 a week. I know that the ratepayers will now pay also but we are all ratepayers. Those of us who are members of the voluntary health insurance scheme are ratepayers and we get no relief or benefit from the health services. Of course there are hospitals and doctors at our disposal and in the case of fevers and certain other diseases the treatment is free. We should be big enough to say: "Let us all try to help one another."
If the Minister were St. Patrick or St. Peter and if he had a golden wand, he could not keep health charges down because more and more of our people are looking for treatment. Our standard of living has improved and our health services have improved. Working conditions for our people are better. People are living longer and they are anxious to go to a hospital or a home in their old age. Possibly they are suffering from some disease and their children cannot keep them at home. As I often said in the old days nobody went to hospital unless he was dying. Trends have changed. Our hospitals and our homes for the aged are more modern and I hope that will continue to be the case and that we will provide the best facilities we can. I should like to see that spirit of independence coming back into our lives again. If the lowest paid workers and people of moderate means paid only £1 a year everybody would realise that he was doing something to help others. In this way the rates could be brought down.
The Minister for Finance can only get money from the taxpayers. We are all anxious to see the cost of living being kept down. We are all anxious to see social services improved. We are all anxious to see everybody getting a better slice of the cake. We must be serious and practical in dealing with this problem. I heard words like "niggardly" and "mean" used by some speakers this morning. The money for any improvements must come from the ratepayers and the taxpayers. All of us pay tax and the great majority of us are ratepayers. All of these moneys go into a central pool. I welcome this advance and my only regret is the Minister has not gone further. The contribution of £7 per annum is very moderate when one considers that a person would not be maintained in a hospital for that amount of money for even two days.
Many insured persons will benefit from the abolition of the 50p per day charge for hospitalisation. Every encouragement should be given to each person in the community to involve himself in voluntary work, even in a small way. As to the collection of the £7, small though the amount is, I thought it might be collected quarterly or by way of stamps but I do not know whether that would be feasible in the case of self-employed workers. There is no use saying that anything introduced by Fianna Fáil is wrong. Deputy Tully enumerated everything that he would wish to see done but as soon as we impose extra taxation for the improvement of services, there is a cry from the merchants of Venice. It is regrettable that this approach has been witnessed here so often. The Minister for Health is making great advances in the field of health and I hope that the lead he is setting will be followed by intelligent people outside. Our people are very good when it comes to helping each other. During the harvest campaign of 1946, of which I was one of the organisers, I remember an old Dublin woman coming to me with two ounces of tea and a half pound of sugar which she wanted me to take for the volunteers because, as she said, she was not in a position to help with the work herself. At the time there were about 80,000 volunteers engaged in saving the harvest and we had obtained permission to buy provisions and, also, we were receiving many gifts. However, rather than offend that old lady, I told the personnel officer to take the gift but to take also details of her name and address so that we could send her four pounds of tea. That is only one example of the goodness of our people. The rates position has got out of bounds but the reason for this is that in order to help certain people, they have been relieved from paying any rates.