The Minister on the Second Reading Stage of this Bill in the Dáil intimated that it was purely administrative. I must say that considering the amount of unemployment in the country at the moment we very much regret that the Minister did not introduce a Bill which would be some help to people who are unemployed through no fault of their own. We have to bear in mind the conditions of people to whom it is new to be unemployed, people who had been in fairly constant employment for many years but who, through the unsettled conditions in this country or through having joined the National Army, and so forth, now find themselves in an extremely bad position. The Minister said in the Dáil that if he were to introduce a Bill of that kind it would have to be a comprehensive measure. I think the time has arrived when a comprehensive measure dealing with this question of insurance should be introduced.
As a matter of fact, it is extremely difficult for people who have to handle and deal with questions of claims for unemployment benefit as they arise, to deal with them without having to refer to three or four Acts of Parliament. I urge that some effort should be made to co-ordinate all those Acts and so render it unnecessary for one to have to look from one Act to another and from that again to another to know how one stands. There are in this Bill some things very different from administrative proposals. The Minister proposes under the Bill to seize the contributions for which unemployment benefit has not been paid to persons when they would reach a certain age. Under the previous Acts provision was made that persons who were insured under the Unemployment Insurance Act should, when they reached the age of sixty years, be entitled to receive the amount of the contributions they had paid less the amount of benefits drawn, plus compound interest on the contributions made. Under this Bill the Minister proposes that persons who have been insured heretofore and who have fifty odd contributions to their credit will be entitled to get credit for the amount of the contributions they have paid according to the original Act. But for the future no person who is insured will be entitled to receive a refund of the contributions which they paid less the amount of the grants they have received. I think that is something more than administration. That is a provision which is really something more than a measure making administrative changes in the Act.
There is another important question which was discussed in the Dáil and that is with regard to the position of ex-National Army men. Quite a number of these men have suffered a good deal of hardship because of the change which has taken place. That question was debated at great length in the Dáil, consequently there is no necessity for me to deal with it here. The position was that up to a certain date men who were discharged from the National Army would be entitled to a certain credit for contributions from insurance and would be entitled to certain benefit. But men who re-attested or who were kept on for a longer period lose the benefit. There are numbers of cases of men who had been in fairly constant employment and who had many years' stamps to their credit, but who on account of being kept on the Army beyond a certain date, kept on for a longer period, found that they had no contributions to their credit when they left the Army. If the same men had come out earlier they would be entitled to benefit. I think some effort should be made to put that matter right. The Minister when dealing with this Bill in the Committee Stage in the Dáil on more than one occasion said that certain changes that were proposed would bring the Saorstát into line with the alterations that have been made in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I want to point out to the Minister that there were other changes made in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, changes of which the insured people did not get the benefit here. I think if the Minister is going to bring us into line on certain matters he should bring us into line on all matters and give the workers here the same benefits as they receive in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Another matter that is of some importance and that was dealt with in the Dáil is the question of some reciprocal arrangement between the Governments of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and our Government with regard to the payment of benefit to persons who work in one State but live in the other State. Those who have experience of dealing with these claims have come across numbers of cases of extreme hardship. People who through no fault of their own have been deprived of the benefits of their contributions are suffering much hardship to-day. A man may be working across the Border, his insurance card may be stamped, and he may have paid contributions at this or at the other side of the Border. Unfortunately when he or people like him become unemployed they find they are nobody's children. That is an outrage and some effort should be made by the Minister to end such a state of things. I know that he has done the best he could to get over the difficulty, but I think it is time that some arrangement should be arrived at which would enable those people to get the benefit which, in all justice, they are entitled to.