I am sure everybody wishes the Minister well in his years ahead of him. It has been said by a number of Deputies that the Department of Social Welfare is an extremely important Department. It is also becoming a very much more complicated Department than it ever was before. In this Bill there are many things with which I disagree in the most profound way, but it is hard to realise that a Bill of this kind was once quite unthinkable if one thinks about free electricity—a valuable advantage in these days—or the telephone proposals, the free transport scheme, the free fuel. In its own way at a very low level it is a comprehensive approach to community effort, to helping the under-privileged that was quite unthinkable only, say, 20 years ago. Therefore, one cannot feel too down-hearted at the relative lack of progress. Some progress has been made and some is being made. The basic conflict here is that the general approach of the socialist in looking at this kind of thing would be an attempt to secure a fair and equitable distribution of the wealth of the community within that community. That happens to be one of the provisions of the Constitution, though one can hardly believe that, looking at society as it is. The approach of conservatives, as would appear from their actions over the years, is that broadly the structure of society and the economic structures represented by class should be preserved intact, and that is what is happening.
Over the years in these countries, in Britain as well as in Ireland, the development of the welfare state has not really led to any great or significant redistribution of wealth. There is still the same small minority who have an enormous amount of wealth and there are the others for whom the kind of welfare scheme included here is provided, that is the extremely clever and very sophisticated method of taking much of the impact out of protest in a society broadly known as benevolent capitalism. This means simply the recycling of the workers' incomes within the same group of people —the workers funding directly and indirectly all of these benefits—but giving the general impression that the Government have become more concerned for their welfare. In fact it is the pressures from growing literacy in society which are demanding better measures of egalitarianism. However, for what it is worth one must comment on it as it is.
We have failed to secure a fair and equitable distribution of wealth. The big test for the Minister in the next three or four years will hinge on his views and beliefs in this area and, more important, on how his actions will manifest themselves during that time. Recently a Central Bank economist, Mr. Brian Nolan, gave us figures based on a survey he had undertaken in 1973. The survey showed that more than 74 per cent of our gross income went to 50 per cent of householders and that less than a quarter per cent went to the remaining 50 per cent of householders. There was that other figure that was mentioned so often— 5 per cent of the population owning 75 per cent of the wealth—but Mr. Nolan's figures are the most recent available. His report shows that a quarter of the total income went to the top 10 per cent of our people. The other interesting fact is that the bottom 10 per cent of the people got only 1.5 per cent of the wealth. Obviously, then, there is no serious attempt to bring about an equal distribution of wealth. All Government Departments have some social consequences but none more so than the two ministries that the Minister has the privilege of controlling—Health and Social Welfare. Therefore, it is on the basis of the performance of these ministeries that he will be judged in the years ahead.
As a Member of the Government there are limitations on the Minister's freedom in this regard but there is involved a very important point of principle and it will be interesting to see whether the Minister is prepared to push his principles to the point of accepting the past policies of the retention of the rigid class structures that exist in our society or whether he will try to bring about a greater measure of social justice for all. The policy being pursued in this Bill of attempting to take money and recycle it in the form of welfare benefits is also the policy of the Minister's predecessor. In one of his budget statements the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Ryan, said that the State would be involved to a lessening extent in this area. That Government in which there was a Labour Minister for Health also shared this belief in the perpetuation of society broadly as it is. There was an attempt to extend the benefits but not to touch the really wealthy groups.
The Minister has a very important responsibility here. He referred correctly the other day to his apparent indignation at the idea of the old poor law approach to social benefits. This is the workhouse concept but the Minister insisted that while he is in office the sense of stigma attaching to benefits will be shed. As everyone knows the person who had recourse to the workhouse was destitute. While he was in the workhouse he was humiliated and was made aware in no small way of his dependence on those who provided him with shelter. He was given work to do so that there was no question of his getting something for nothing. At that time there was a general stigma attached to social welfare. I recall that in my time there was one workhouse where the children were all numbered. They had tags on their clothes as if they were convicts. The system then was that if a family went into a workhouse, the father went one way, the mother another way and the children yet another way. That happened relatively recently. It will be seen, then, that what we have now is an advance, albeit minimal, on the situation which prevailed then.
As Deputy Kenny said, the Minister must endeavour to let us know what is his general attitude to social welfare benefits. There is yet a hang-over from the poor law days, the idea that anybody who takes an old age pension, a widow's pension or even free transport or free health service is doing something wrong or at least that there is something demeaning about what he is doing. That idea is fostered to some extent.
Having regard to present circumstances I do not believe that unemployment figures either here or elsewhere will fall. There is a great crisis in Britain in this regard where they say they need 2,300,000 jobs by 1981, that, otherwise, 2,500,000 of their people will be out of work. In Germany where 6,000,000 are unemployed it is reckoned that if 9,000,000 jobs are not provided by 1985 the present unemployment figure will continue. The situation is the same in the US. I cannot visualise any significant reduction in the unemployment figures in my time. This situation creates a great burden on any society. The Minister's Department are concerned almost exclusively with caring for the unemployed. Most people are prepared to accept that the widow, the aged and the sick must be helped but we all tend to resent the idea that anybody should be happily unemployed. In other words, there is the idea that in some way those people should be made suffer.
We all tend to resent the person who need not turn in for a day's work like the rest of us. There is that basic envy of the person who is considered to be a layabout or who would not work even if he were offered a job. It is popular to promote this kind of attitude at a time like this and it is in this sphere that the Minister will have to take a stand in regard to this idea that people who take benefits that they have not earned are feather-bedded within the welfare society or are not making their contribution to the demands of the State. There is a general idea in relation to welfare benefits that only people who in some way are not very thrifty or not very careful about their accounts, or who are not anxious to work hard, fall into need of such benefits. There is a clear evasion of the reality of life in our society. It is very difficult to pull one-self up by one's bootstraps. A few people do so and it frequently does them damage because they think that they are rather special people; they are the lucky ones who got away. Many people cannot better themselves in a society such as ours.
A survey of the people going to Trinity in recent years showed that the representation of working-class groups has not changed since the sixties. Most of the people there come from the employer, managerial and professional class and they represent 70.5 per cent. Only .8 per cent are from the agricultural or industrial worker class. Nobody chooses not to have an education if he can get one. There are many factors involved such as registration fees, the cost of books and the lack of a sufficient income. The son of an unemployed man or of a tradesman is very unlikely to end up in a high income type job, though access to such jobs has improved because of the technological education in vocational schools.
The low income family is an educational problem in the Republic, unlike Northern Ireland or Great Britain where grants are so much better. The costs of maintenance, books, travel and capitation fees make it very difficult and a person who is down the line financially and economically is not there by choice. He is there because of the structure of our society and he is completely innocent.
Equally, a person does not choose to get sick. No matter how careful or long-sighted one is, one does not know what kind of sickness one will get or how long it will last. A lady who loses her husband and becomes a widow cannot budget for that and cannot look ahead. Above everything, the poor man who loses his job cannot be blamed. It is obviously the responsibility of the State to see that there is full employment. There is not a hope for many—at least 100,000—in our society. Regarding the men who worked at Ferenka, the sudden cessation of employment was an appalling shock. When will they get work again? This is happening universally. It is the innocence of these groups that I should like to emphasise. It is most unfair that they are harassed and criticised in the media by some economists. People will work if the jobs are there. They have to work in such circumstances. Turning against those dependent on those of us who pay taxes, directly or indirectly, by snide or offensive remarks is most unwarranted. This is something on which the Minister should take a stand.
In relation to people who are unemployed, there is one very distressing development which I believe will continue and with which the Minister is acutely involved. There is a progressive increase in the number of people who are unemployed for increasingly long periods and who, because of this, are moving down the income scale. I am referring to people who received redundancy money and pay-related benefits in addition to the flat rate and people who were on the flat rate and who then moved from the flat rate into the position of getting no income at all or getting unemployment assistance. As everybody knows, a man may work for 30 years and he simply makes himself eligible for a limited period for unemployment benefit and after 15 or 16 months he receives unemployment assistance. Deputy Kenny asked if the Minister would talk about the people who are below the subsistence level. I cannot see how anyone could fail to accept that all these people, the widows, old age pensioners and those receiving unemployment assistance, are living on pittances. I except those receiving unemployment benefit because it is possible that they may be above or at the subsistence level. The average payment is £13.60 and the rate of unemployment assistance is £11.75.
In his other role as Minister for Health, the Minister might consider carrying out a survey into the level of malnutrition amongst people receiving unemployment assistance payments, unemployment benefit payments, widows' and orphans' payments and old age pensions. In Britain they carried out a survey of malnutrition amongst old age pensioners, who were then receiving a higher level of payment than was available here. The survey showed that there was a high level of malnutrition amongest people on those payments. How can we justify this kind of thing in a society which has just relieved wealthy tax payers of about £10 million? It is indefensible.
Between 1976 and 1977 there was a large decrease in the number receiving pay-related benefits on top of the flat rate. In 1976 the figure was 20 per cent and in 1977 it was 17.5 per cent. Most people seem to think, and it is generally put about, that people who are unemployed are doing all right because they are getting pay-related benefits or big redundancy payments or have some other unknown income. In spite of the myths about this subject, pay-related benefit is paid to only one in six people on the unemployment register. In the same period the number of people on redundancy declined from 4,000 to 3,300 and only 3 per cent of people on the live register actually get redundancy payment.
What is happening now is that people are unemployed for longer periods. Some 50 per cent of people on the live register are unemployed for a period of six months or less and a third of people on the unemployment register are unemployed for a year or more. Taken together with the wage agreements which have pushed down living standards and the failure of successive Governments to deal with the unemployment crisis, there has been a progressive assault on the standard of living of families who are unemployed.
Of the 105,000 people on the live register 16,000 got no payment at all although they were unemployed. Obviously, they were dependent on others who were paid minimal amounts. Some 46,000 of the 105,000 are on unemployment assistance and they have 60,000 dependent children. Therefore, if this is a below subsistence payment—and I believe it is— there are 105,000 people, 60,000 of whom are children, who are living in these conditions. Is it not a completely shameful situation that this should go on? At the same time that we allow this kind of thing to continue, we do not increase the wealth tax as we should have done and we reduce the corporation profits tax, the capital gains tax and VAT on farms. What serious justification can the Minister give for penalising 60,000 children, the dependent, defenceless members of our society? They are penalised in so many ways. Not only do they have to live on bread, margarine and tea for most of their lives so that they are undersized, underweight and suffer from malnutrition—a very bad start from the health point of view—but they will also find themselves unable to get second- or third-level education. Being unemployed through no fault of one's own is penalised by our society.
Of the 105,000 on the live register 42,000 are on unemployment benefit. Some 24,000 are on a flat rate and there is no supplement. Incidentally, despite the enormous figures mentioned, the average supplement is about £7. Some 15,000 are married and their dependants number 43,000. Therefore, 100,000 children are living in families in receipt of unemployment assistance or unemployment benefit. Is that not a scandal? Is nobody surprised or upset about it? And now we are asking for increased contributions.
Whether a person is employed or unemployed, the assault is directed specifically against the worker. The wage agreements became wage cuts. Over the period of the various wage agreements from 1970 to 1977 the wage rise was 94.3 per cent and the price rise was 103.4 per cent. This society directs its assault on the worker while easing the burden on the wealthy class. Members may have seen in the last few days an advertisement on the back page of newspapers which stated, "Tax refugee anxious to return to Ireland. Wants to buy a house, £200,000 available". Is that not totally revolting in its barbarous insensitivity in what is meant to be a poor country such as ours: £200,000 just for the house?
I hope the Minister will bear these things in mind when he is defending his Department and the moneys he will be paying from time to time. I am certain that as time goes on there will be more of these assaults on the unemployed. It will be said it is time they were put out to work, that they were put into the Army or that their allowances were cut because they cannot continue to be dependent on the rest of us, the taxpayers. Of course, it is one of the most carefully fostered myths of all that these people in some way are getting hand-outs from the wealthy few. As I said earlier, with modern benevolent capitalism the wealthy do nothing whatever to fund the schemes. It has been very cleverly arranged by those who believe in this kind of thing to see that they pay the minimum. Far from the poor wallowing in the alleged comforts of such schemes, it has been found that it is the middle income group who take up the schemes. The poor do not go for all the services. As Deputy Kenny said, many people do not know about the benefits available and no serious attempt is made to help them to know about what is available. In a survey of the free meals scheme in Britain it was found that there was a 30 per cent failure to take up the scheme and in that figure much the highest percentage not taking it up were the poor people who needed it most.
When it comes to the payment of tax about which the wealthy classes complain through their leader writers that it is going up and up all the time, in fact the people who mostly exade tax, according to various surveys, are the so-called entrepreneurial groups, the self-employed, medical people who work in private practice and consultant practice, legal people, lawyers, wealthy farming classes of whom there are a percentage, and people with investment incomes. Those are the people who fiddle their tax accounts. Those are the people who do not pay their way and who run for cover from even the minimal wealth tax introduced by the inter-Party Government and head off for wherever it is with their money and then come back when it is safe.
The ordinary wage earner or salary earner pays his way simply because he has to pay his way through the taxation system. He is not able to evade even if he wishes to evade. In regard to who pays this money which the Minister will be handing out in various forms of welfare benefit from time to time, there is a common fallacy about the unemployed, the widow, the old-age pensioner, the blind, the disabled and health service people that, in some way or other, wealth is being transferred from the wealthy to them through the services. That is not true either.
The fact is that the taxes paid by the worker, the ordinary people, the mass of the people are very considerable. Because they are paid in the form of purchase tax, or value-added tax, or direct or indirect taxes of one kind or another, they do not seem to be quite as dramatic as other taxes like the capital gains tax or the wealth tax appear to be if you read the leader writers' moans about the weight of these taxes on the wealthy classes.
A very interesting document to read on this subject was issued by the magnificent organisation the National Economic and Social Council for which most of us should be deeply grateful, a wonderful organisation throughout the years of their existence. Recently they produced a document called "Universality and Selectivity Strategies in Social Policies" which is well worth reading by anybody interested in social welfare generally.
A good case is made for believing that the consumer pays most of the taxes, not only his own through direct and indirect taxation. For instance, a landlord in deciding how much rent he will charge assumes he will be paying tax and therefore the rent will include tax and the flatdweller who pays the rent for his flat is, in fact, a ratepayer in the sense that rates are paid. Equally, when any of the great industries produce a commodity for sale, it is no problem for them to include in the price of the item for sale a part of that price which will meet their tax needs. Therefore the so-called employers' contribution to all of these benefits is a very doubtful entity, putting it at its best. The consumer pays not only his own contribution through tax and through the increased contribution asked from him by the Minister, but also he pays in indirect tax, in rates and on consumer items. If Guinness have to pay a lot of tax, all they do is put a farthing on the pint. The consumer pays the farthing, pays their tax, and Guinness go on declaring bigger and bigger profits every year. That is no problem to them.
The whole idea of a welfare state or a welfare society is a myth in the sense that it is the community deciding they will distribute their welath, in the words of the Constitution, to achieve a fair and equitable distribution of that wealth. That does not happen. To say that the wealthy minority have softened their hearts and are more concerned about the widow, the orphan, the old age pensioner, the blind, the disabled, the sick, is wrong. That has not happened. Whatever about the total truth about that, one important fact comes out of it, that is, the responsibility on the Minister to highlight these realities about who pays in a society such as ours. The money is not coming from the pockets of the wealthy few to fund these services. It is coming from the pockets of the people who benefit from the services, the sick person in bed, the old person, the disabled, the unemployed, or whoever it may be. As is known, one has to pay into redundancy schemes, insurance schemes of all kinds, unemployment, health insurance, and so on.
That being so, it would seem to me to be quite wrong for the unemployed or those who benefit from these services to be harassed in any way directly or indirectly by implication by people who criticise them and say they are benefiting from the State and not putting anything back. They are putting everything back. They are funding these services themselves. In the next three or four years, if the present trend continues where in Britain there is such an enormous level of unemployment that they cannot take our emigrants, the Minister will have to give serious consideration to the development here of persistent high what you people call structural unemployment.
A person who has worked for 30 years, kept a good house, a good standard of living, looked after his children, fed them, clothed them, tried to educate them and give them a good opportunity in life, is now kept on subsistence level unemployment benefit for a minimum period of 15 months, or 18 months, or whatever it is. It is a relatively tiny period. As I showed, a growing number of people are now being pushed forcibly down in their living standards because they are losing redundancy, pay-related, flat unemployment rate benefit, and are on subsistence level.
In 1976, 45 per cent of the people were on assistance and in 1977, 52 per cent of people were on assistance. Obviously this will increase. Is the Minister content about this? It is very sad to think adults responsible for young people are being forced gradually to watch their aspirations being negatived completely and even their existing living standards eroded and reduced as a result of the meagre benefits paid to them in unemployment assistance.
Does the Minister propose to make any stand with his Government to see that unemployment benefit will not be the lowest benefit paid out to anybody and that this benefit will be related by him to some sort of link with the household budget to ensure that it will not be as low as subsistence level, that it will be at least sufficient to give people a chance to look after themselves and their families reasonably well? As the Minister is aware from his constituency work, there are still certain people administering those services who do not appear to have learned that the days of the poor law are over. They are still administering it in the style of the old relieving officers of the old poor law administrators. People will not go to those officials because they are frightened of them. They will not do so because they feel such officials humiliate them, harass them, question and cross-question them and, eventually, make them afraid to look for any of the benefits to which they have a perfect right because after all the money does not come from those people, it is taxpayers' money.
This brings me to the question of the means test, whether a service should be a selective one for a small group of people within a community or whether it should be universal, rather like the British universal health service, or whether the service should be related to the needs of people rather than to the economic standing of individuals in society. The Minister must know that this has become an infinitely complex subject. While the provisions of this Bill are grossly inadequate they are much better than previous Bills in the provisions but not in the amount of money because that is worse. The assessment of means is something to which I have great hostility. My earliest experience is in relation to a health service and I recall talking to Bevan at that time. His attitude was that he was ideologically opposed to a means test but, even more, he believed that administratively it was an absurdity because the administrative machinery provided to administer a particular social welfare service cost so much that one was better to make it a universal scheme rather than a selective one. The documents in relation to such schemes are so incomprehensible, certainly not capable of being understood by anybody except those with a wide knowledge of the subject, that one must long for the type of scheme where there is eligibility because of citizenship and because of need.
It has always struck me as being very incongruous in a society which is so concerned about the preservation of the privacy of the family, the individual and so on, that we should be so wedded to the idea of accepting this means test assessment. Anybody who has attempted to help people in their constituencies to decide whether they are eligible for any of these benefits knows what I mean. There is an inquiry into the income of the family, the income of dependants and the various dependants of the dependants. There is a difficulty where a wife does not know what her husband earns. The whole business is a humiliating experience and, frequently, a disturbing one. In most cases it is a confusing experience leading to various repercussions. The individual is left with the feeling that it is not worth bothering about, as I have been told. People have told me they would not seek a particular benefit because of the humiliations associated with it. There are historical associations and a difficulty in deciding the various family incomes, the question of overtime, weekend money and bonuses. There is the idea, like that which exists in the United States, that people ought to phase themselves down in their income in order to come into benefit in a health scheme.
The whole question of eligibility where a means test is concerned has become more frustrating, complicated and difficult to assess. One also gets a general feeling in the community of confusion where people know of others getting benefits but are not aware of the background details. That leads to a conflict within a community between the beneficiaries and those who do not benefit. The whole thing in its effect is very retrograde. This problem of the application of a means test has grown up over the years. The Minister is aware that the grand provision of the Health Act of 1947, an Act introduced by a Government of the Minister's party, was the pre-no-means-test at point of use provision. Obviously, it was a wonderful system, it worked well, was efficient and was not over used. In fact, it is not being used at all at present. The system worked itself out because nobody, with the exception of a hypochondriac, chooses to get sick. The general principle of universality is obviously one associated with a socialist approach to society and one which might not appeal to the Minister.
When one takes the various provisions in the Bill, the telephones, fuel, transport and so on, and the fact that the Minister must try to decide on eligibility, one must come to the conclusion that the Minister has a much more complicated job now than any of his predecessors had. I should like to know his attitude. Does he share the belief that people are not paying at point of use but they are obviously paying in taxation for the various services? Can the Minister establish that the people who benefit from these services have a perfect right to them as a result of that? Is the Minister concerned with the question of take-up of a service? It is notorious that in a means-tested service there is a deficiency in take-up. It is not used by the optimum number of people and is not really working efficiently. If the Minister is not interested in the humanitarian side of his Department is he interested in its efficient operation, that is making the best use of the money he is paying out? Does he want the optimum number of people to avail of the services?
That is a very important point. If that is so he will, first of all, have to defend the rights of people. As Deputy Kenny said, he will have to mount a programme of information and provide a simplified version of the provisions of the various schemes—they are very complex. He should promote this scheme in the same way as they promote the various commodities in the advertising programmes on television. This should be done with a little bit more drive than the existing Department of Health advertising programmes. If the Minister wants an optimum take-up of the services is he prepared to begin an educational information service in regard to the kind of facilities available and for whom within the social welfare code?
Some people appear to be quite happy that this money is not being spent. More and more people are going on to assistance and this means that less and less money is being paid out by the Department of Social Welfare to the unemployed. Some Ministers have taken the view that the less they spend the better. If the Minister accepts the general thesis that the consumer is paying for those services and has a right to them the logical follow on seems to be to explain as simply as possible to the consumer that those are his rights and this is how he can get access to them.
There are a few general approaches to that kind of thing. One idea is known as the passport form of approach where the individual who is in benefit from one service reaches 65 years of age and comes in for benefit as an old age pensioner and is then automatically informed that he or she is in benefit in relation to all the other parts of the social welfare code and there is no need for that person to apply for free electricity, free transport, free fuel or any of the other services. Those services should automatically be made available to the recipient. Would the Minister agree with that kind of approach to the administration of his Department and the services under it?
There is also the package scheme where there are a number of benefits. If an individual is eligible for one he is then informed that he is eligible for all the other services and is automatically given them. Would the Minister agree with that? It is quite obviously a fundamental change in the approach of successive Ministers for Social Welfare over the years. I feel it is a perfectly legitimate one and is long overdue. If the Minister is really serious in his suggestion that we should end the poor law approach to social welfare he should take this more positive approach to the administration of the social welfare services. It is pathetic to see the difficulties people find themselves in begging to get access to the various social welfare services. It must be possible so to restructure the services that a person coming of age into benefit of one kind would automatically benefit from all the other services and would be informed of the benefits he is entitled to.
I, together with other Deputies, deplore the fact that children's allowances were not increased. This is completely inexplicable in the context of giving away £10 million. Over the years most of us have asked for increases in the old age pension, widow's pension and children's allowances and I recollect many Ministers saying they could not afford those increases. This is one occasion on which the Minister simply cannot say that. The Government could have afforded to increase those benefits either by retaining the various taxes which were omitted, corporation profits tax, capital gains tax, wealth tax or by increasing them, taking the money off the wealthy people and giving them to mothers of young families by increasing children's allowances. We have had an extra-ordinary reversion this year of the old Fianna Fáil approach to this kind of problem. I recollect that most of those benefits have come from successive Ministers in Fianna Fáil Governments. They can claim credit for most of the social welfare code. This reversion of traditional Fianna Fáil policy is a very disturbing one. It is particularly inexplicable in our society where we encourage large families. I saw last night at one of the political clinics a lady who has ten children. This is the kind of pitifully dependent individual in our society who should not have been passed over and whose children should not have been passed over in favour of the wealthy class, the refugee coming here to buy a £200,000 house.
I asked the Minister a question recently in relation to an old people's home in our constituency in which there are gas fires and electric heating. I asked if those people could get money in lieu of fuel under the free fuel scheme. A very welcome provision in the Bill is the fact that girls can get unemployment assistance. I believe the figure for young unemployed boys and girls is 60,000. Is it not one of the most poignant indictments of capitalism that those young people will go straight on to the labour exchange and on to this miserable unemployment pittance? The social and economic consequences to those young people is immeasurable because they will be trying to get married, rear families and get jobs for which they are not eligible. The whole sorry story is reflected throughout the European countries. I understand that 40 per cent of the six million unemployed in the EEC are under 24 or 25. We must be grateful, I suppose, for benefits received. It is good to see that they will be brought into the unemployment assistance scheme. I had thought that the figure was 17,000 until I read in the brief that something like 60,000 will apply. They will not all be eligible but an enormous number of people will go on to the live register. I wonder if the Minister for Economic Planning and Development, Deputy O'Donoghue, bears that in mind when he talks about a progressive reduction in the numbers applying for unemployment assistance.
I am glad the Minister has reduced the old age pension requirement for emigrants to 15 years. That is a welcome development because most people who went abroad went because they had no choice. This Minister is taking on this most important and influential Department at a very fascinating time in our history. We all agree that we have moved from one very grim and harrowing era in our lives into a new kind of approach, where we at least accept communal responsibility for the underprivileged in our society. When I talked about this kind of thing 20 or 25 years ago I always had to hide behind a speech by an English priest about the British welfare state. At that time if one talked about this kind of thing one was considered a communist. I felt that by hiding behind this article I would be considered respectable. It was called "The Welfare State, a Christian Opportunity", and I suppose in a way that is what it has been. There is no doubt that this is a Department in which an enormous amount of work can be done. It will be a very testing and instructive Department for all of us in relation to the Minister who occupies it.
