A permit is not normally issued where there is a suitably qualified Irish worker available to take up the position. The Government have negotiated this arrangement because of the relatively high level of unemployment and to allay any anxiety about the employment situation during a period when Irish industry would be adapting itself to free trade conditions. We should be in a position to use the transition period, with the assistance I have already mentioned, to update our skills and to supply the labour market with the necessary skilled labour force which would obviate any worry about the future after 1978.
Nationals of the EEC member states who move within the Community and seek work or take up employment must be given equality with nationals of the host country in the filling of vacancies and are guaranteed full equality of treatment in other matters relating to their jobs. There are also vacancy clearance arrangements within the EEC whereby supply and demand of labour are kept in contact with each other. This involves the issue of monthly statements listing people seeking work in any of the other member states and also listing offers of employment to a European office and to other member states. There is a very significant limitation here—and this I should like to emphasise—that offers of employment refer only to vacancies which cannot be filled from the national labour market; in other words, if we advertise or notify existing vacancies here they are only those which we cannot fill ourselves. There is nothing seriously at fault there.
An important point is that a member state can request a suspension or a suspension in part of these free movement arrangements if they feel that there is or there is likely to be a threat to living standards, or to employment in a region or a particular occupation. Free movement does not apply to the public service. There are also limitations on the ground of security and of health. Therefore, the safeguards in regard to free movement of people are adequate and satisfactory and, from the point of view of the Department of Labour, most beneficial.
The question we must ask here is to what extent this right of workers to move freely within the Community will affect this country. I do not expect that there will be any great influx of workers into Ireland for the simple reason that workers move to the areas where most work is available. I suppose that is fairly evident to everybody. Experience shows that for a person seeking work the attraction is towards the centres where there is full employment, in other words, where there are more jobs than people to fill them. We are unlikely to reach that happy situation in Ireland for some time to come. Here I would say that, despite the best estimates that can be made, I believe that once we get moving towards full employment, nothing succeeds like success. That is my own personal view founded on some experience.
As indicated in the White Paper, the creation of a net additional 50,000 jobs over the transitional period is envisaged. This should lead to a progressive reduction in unemployment and involuntary emigration. I use the word "involuntary" in relation to emigration, because I suppose there will always be people who wish to emigrate. So long as they are not driven to emigrate for economic reasons, then we can say we have not an emigration problem. It is interesting that we should be talking about this question of emigration now at a time when emigration has been running at its lowest ever figure and, we must admit, creating problems that one did not anticipate a short time ago.
I should like now to say a few words about industrial relations. We have all been concerned with certain areas in which we will be obliged to comply with Community law and many people, trade unionists in particular, apparently believe that we may have to align our industrial relations system with the type of system operating in the EEC member states. I should like to take this opportunity to assure these people that this will not be the case. There are no binding Community instruments in the industrial relations area and, because of the diversity of the industrial relations systems in the various countries, I cannot see any major changes in this field; in other words, we will be free to pursue our own system. I would hope, of course, that as members of the enlarged Community we would take from the Community all that is good in order to bring about better industrial relations. Nothing is imposed on us and we are under no obligation to adopt any Community law in particular circumstances.
The Government have examined the alternatives to full membership of an enlarged Community, an enlarged Community which will include Britain. It is rather surprising at this stage to find people accusing us of not having examined the alternatives. We did not apply for membership yesterday. It is a long time since our application was submitted and surely it has had sufficiently serious consideration by everybody by this. Those who argue against membership have had plenty of time to prepare a proper case. They do not seem to have done this and, in the absence of a proper case, one can only conclude that they have not bothered.
We are satisfied there is no realistic alternative. Deputy O.J. Flanagan said last night that we have always said there was no alternative. In actual fact, there are several alternatives, but there is no realistic alternative compatible with the objective of increasing employment and improving the standard of living. That is the assertion we make. Some opponents to full membership point to the fact that countries like Sweden, Switzerland and Austria are not seeking membership but have applied for trading arrangements; if they are getting free trading in the industrial sphere there is no question of their adhering to the common agricultural policy. This has been answered several times and I think everybody is now familiar with the position; it is absurd to compare the position of countries with less than 4 per cent agricultural exports with our position with approximately 50 per cent exports.
If we were to seek a trading agreement instead of full membership our industry would face free trade competition in any event. Those who talk about associate membership signify to me that they see some good in membership but would prefer to trail behind instead of being full members. These people do not seem to have the faith they should have in our people to play their full part as members.
On the social welfare side, there has been a good deal of misunderstanding about the effect of entrance to the Community on our systems of social security. There is a great variety of social security systems in the member states. Each has a compulsory general system for wage and salary earners up to a certain income for the nine benefits covered by the International Labour Convention on minimum standards of social security. In addition, there are special schemes for certain occupations such as mining and those who are self-employed in farming. Social security contributions and benefits are usually related to incomes. In general, the systems adhere to the insurance principle. Most of them rely on employers' and insured persons' contributions for the bulk of their finances. They draw on the Exchequer to a limited extent only. While there is a broad similarity in scope in the general systems of the Six and the methods of financing them and calculating contributions and benefits, there is no uniformity in the rates of contributions or benefits.
There is no European normal standard of social security to which this country would be obliged to conform as a condition of entry. Under Article 118 of the Treaty, the Commission is required to promote close collaboration between member states in almost all fields of social policy. This is something we should welcome. While the Treaty of Rome does not contain any specific provision for the introduction of a single or uniform system of social security throughout the member states, it does refer to harmonisation and the regulations, as I have pointed out, refer to collaboration. There is, in fact, a gradual trend in the Community towards convergence of the systems of social security and it is expected that this broad tendency towards harmonisation will make itself felt in Ireland after entry.
The Community regulations dealing with the social security of migrant workers are binding on member states and over-ride any reciprocal agreements unless these are specifically provided for; these regulations result from the Community objective of permitting the free movement of labour. They cover all questions arising in regard to social security in the case of wage earners and dependants who move within the Community. They relate to social security benefits for sickness, maternity, invalidity, old age, survivors, whom we refer to as widows and orphans, employment accidents and diseases, death, unemployment and family payments. The latter we call children's allowances. Basically, the objective of the regulations is to ensure that nationals of one member state will not suffer any handicap in acquiring title to and payment of benefit by moving to another member state. Migrants carry their acquired rights to social security with them when they move from one member state to another and, when a claim for benefit is made, insurance in the former country, or countries, is fully reckonable for the purpose of satisfying contribution conditions and, when payment is authorised, it may be made to a person resident in another member state.
The manner in which these objectives are to be achieved is dealt with at length in the regulations. After Ireland accedes to the Community these regulations will replace the existing series of reciprocal arrangements we have with the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland. They differ in some respects, but we will have a much better set of reciprocal arrangements as members of the enlarged Community. The present reciprocal arrangements we have do not cover children's allowances. When the new regulations are operative it will be possible for an Irish worker in Britain to be paid British children's allowances for his family in Ireland.
In regard to unemployment, provision is made for full merging of previous insurance. That is, when a worker has, following employment in one state become unemployed in another state. Up to now this existed only in a limited way and there was provision for payment of unemployment benefits for a limited period only to persons who go to seek work in other countries. In other words, in relation to national insurance and the benefits derived from it, one can say that these benefits are interchangeable, payable from one country to another as if they applied to only one country.
I should like to make one point which I think is very important concerning social insurance. It is dealt with in the part of the White Paper which deals with the implications for the Exchequer of entry to the Community. An annual net saving of £25 million to £30 million will result from entry. It is the firm intention of the Government to draw on this substantial sum to cushion, for those in receipt of social welfare payments, especially pensioners, the effects of living costs brought about by any increases in prices of essential commodities as a result of entry to the Common Market.
I wish to repeat what others have said that we do not envisage any significant increase in prices as a result of EEC membership. There have been several wild, distorted allegations made that the cost of living will increase sharply when we join. These allegations are, of course, groundless. The only two products in respect of which significant prices rises are expected are milk and beef and the result will be a very modest rise in the overall cost of living. Moreover, it is important to remember that outside the EEC we will still face the necessity of raising farm prices anyhow in an effort to bring farm incomes up to the level of people in industrial employment. If this is not done by higher prices, it must be done by increased subsidies and the burden of these subsidies must, in turn, raise the cost of living for all taxpayers. That is an important point for the anti-marketeers who would say that we could do all these things outside the Common Market without any serious impact on the taxpayer.
In regard to savings on agricultural subsidies I have the authority of the Government to state that social requirements will be a first charge on savings in this respect. I would hope that the improvements in social welfare rates, the expansion of existing schemes and the introduction of new schemes as outlined in the Third Programme for Social and Economic Development would be accelerated and the day brought nearer when we can achieve that improved position. We have at the moment preliminary arrangements made for bringing in pay related benefits so far as some of our social welfare benefits are concerned. This we would hope to extend to pensions. We recently raised the insurable limit to £1,600. We would hope to abolish that and introduce insurance on a broader scale even for self-employed persons. These things will be brought nearer by our membership of the Common Market and, indeed, our need to harmonise and to collaborate with other countries whose systems admittedly are better than ours. For the nine basic benefits under social security we have a sufficient coverage to justify our association with the other countries. I have already referred to these. There is sickness, maternity, invalidity, old age, survivors, which is widowhood, accident/diseases, death, unemployment and family payments, which are children's allowances. We have the necessary spread of the social security code to justify our membership. I would not say we actually have but we desire to extend and I personally think that the expansion of the scheme and the improvement of rates are things which are being advocated by everybody and the limit of which is set only by the availability of resources.
I hope and I feel confident that the area in which we could show the most rapid advance on becoming a member of the Community would be in a general improvement of our whole social welfare code. There is no mystery about what we require. There is nobody trying to deny that we would like pensions at an earlier age, an increase in the amounts being paid, an extension of some of the schemes that we are already operating and a general improvement in the rates all round. This is something that gives one an exciting interest in the years immediately ahead as far as social security is concerned.
I should like to refute something that has been used in a rather naïve manner for the purpose of making the small farmers of rural Ireland fear what might happen in the Common Market. The phrase "small farmers' dole" is being used which is a phrase I do not like. What is being said is that unemployment assistance will not be payable to small farmers. I should like to repudiate that. There is no such thing as a scheme of small farmers' dole. Unemployment assistance is paid to everybody in the same manner, requiring the same qualifications from small farmers, tailors or butchers. There is no difference. When this reference is made to small farmers' dole people are referring to the method of assessing means which is based on valuation and has nothing to do with the other necessary qualifications of being capable of and available for and genuinely seeking and being unable to find employment.
