With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle I propose to take Questions Nos. 2 and 3 together.
I am glad to have this opportunity of making a statement to the House about this matter of great concern to all of us.
Because of the interruption of postal services it has not been possible to distribute to old age and other pensioners the new pension books payable from Thursday and Friday of this week. Ordinarily these books would have been distributed during the last few weeks to the various post offices throughout the country for collection by the pensioners when they received their last payment on the old books last week.
I accordingly made alternative arrangements for paying the pensions in question which I announced in radio and television broadcasts on Monday, 26 March. In brief, these arrangements are that in the case of a person who normally gets payment at a post office which has remainded open the pensioner will bring the stub of his old book to that post office and will be paid at the rate shown in the book for the time being. Where the person normally went for payment to a post office which is closed, the pensioner will bring his book to the local centre of the St. Vincent de Paul Society and will be paid in the same way. The money for the payments to be made by the society, together with any expenses incurred by the society in the administration of these arrangements, will be provided from the funds of my Department.
A preliminary announcement regarding payments by the St. Vincent de Paul Society was made in all the daily newspapers on Wednesday 28 March. Details of the centres at which payment will be made were given in last Sunday's newspapers. The exact location and the times of operation of each centre will be published locally. Payment will be made in all cases by cheques drawn on the society's account in their banks in Dublin. Adequate security arrangements have been made by the society.
In regard to the society's part in these arrangements, I should like to reiterate what I said in my broadcasts and make it absolutely clear that the situation is that we have asked the St. Vincent de Paul Society to place their offices and their personnel at our disposal to make these payments on our behalf and they have very generously agreed to do this. However, they will be paying out the benefit which people are fully entitled to and no one should feel inhibited in any way from availing of this method of payment so kindly being provided by the society.
I regret that it will not be possible to pay pensions at the increased rates announced in the budget for the time being. These rates were due to come into operation this week. The balance due, however, will be paid as soon as this becomes possible.
In my broadcast I also asked health boards and community welfare officers to do everything possible to ensure that nobody suffers any hardship as a result of the present situation and I have told them to be as flexible as possible in meeting any difficulties which may arise. I appealed to all the voluntary organisations throughout the country to undertake a special campaign of vigilance of old people in their areas during the next few weeks and that they should make sure that all those concerned, and especially people living alone, are made aware of the arrangements which will operate for the duration of the postal dispute.
The total number of new books to be issued is about 375,000 while the total number of recipients of pensions and allowances is about 326,000. The difference is accounted for by the fact that in a sizeable number of cases pensioners receive two books. This occurs particularly in the case of those in receipt of living alone allowances. I should also mention that the payments to recipients include increases in respect of some 46,000 adult dependants, about 65,000 child dependants and about 3,800 prescribed relatives.
It is estimated that more than 200,000 pensioners will continue to receive payment of pension at post offices which have remained open. The remainder, that is, approximately 100,000 pensioners, will be catered for by the arrangements made by the St. Vincent de Paul Society.