Perhaps I should mention, for the benefit of those who are specially interested in this Bill, that they will find contained in it many references to an antecedent Act, the Railways Act of 1924. Accordingly there is a number of copies of that Act of 1924 on the Clerk's table, and if any Senator interested in this particular Bill wishes to do so, he can get a copy on applying to the Clerk.
RAILWAYS (EXISTING OFFICERS AND SERVANTS) BILL, 1926
Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a second time."
CATHAOIRLEACH
An attempt is being made to show that this amending Bill, the second to the Principal Act within about eighteen months, is merely an effort to correct a drafting error or two in the Railways Act of 1924. Nothing could be further from the truth. There was only one obvious error, a drafting error in the Act of 1924, and that being against the employees, the Minister had not the slightest intention of amending it by a Bill, nor was he asked to do so. In brief and in simple language, this Bill constitutes a deliberate attempt to deprive over 17,000 railway employees of every vestige of protection conferred on them by the Railways Act of 1924. The Minister may outrival Biddy Moriarty in his choice of epithets in support of the Bill and in denouncing his opponents, but the bald and shameful fact remains that, if this Bill passes the Oireachtas as it now stands, not one in twenty of the railway employees who may become redundant as a result of the operations of the 1924 Act will be able to sustain a claim for compensation.
So far as the railwaymen are concerned, unless the major defects of the Bill are remedied, the Minister may keep his ugly duckling, and unless the railwaymen are able to—unless they are able, by other than legal means, to achieve elementary justice, they have only to throw themselves on the mercy of the railway companies and hope for another Parliament and another Minister to undo this wrong. Now, in order to justify this rapacious measure, a series of taunts and foolish statements, due, no doubt, to defective information, have been made in the other House, with the result that the House has been misled and humbugged and has given its sanction to a measure which, if the real facts were laid bare, it would never have been induced to do. I propose later to give a few examples of these statements. The Minister showed, as was perhaps only reasonable, an ignorance of railway conditions, but he spoke with the confidence and authority of a man who knew his subject. One would have imagined that when he proceeded to repeal important protective provisions of one of the most important Acts passed by the Oireachtas and affecting one of the biggest single bodies of workers in the whole country, that he would at least have made sure of his facts. It is a fundamental right, as the Minister himself would admit, that there shall not be any public benefit at the expense of private rights.
Now the railway men who are acquainted with railway matters, reading the speech of the Minister, have alternated between feelings of amusement and rage at the whole series of statements made by him. The whole proceedings I regard as tending to destroy confidence in the Oireachtas, to destroy respect for its proceedings, and to destroy all faith in the justice and stability of its decisions.
In legislating on matters between employers and employees a Minister of State should endeavour, as far as his varied attainments will allow him, to be scrupulously fair and not to seek by his superior education or legal knowledge to get an assembly to pass an Act which, from the nature of its wording, is unjust. I know the Minister is in the happy position of being the representative of a constituency made up of that nebulous type called the University Elector. He can, if he so desires, flout the opinions of the workers without any fear of what the consequences will be at the next election.
The Railways Act of 1924 was an almost verbatim copy of the British Railways Act of 1921. There are a few verbal alterations here and there for appearance sake, in order to camouflage it, but little more. That Act provided for the amalgamation of fifteen or sixteen railway companies into one corporation under one management and one control. It involved the extinguishing of fourteen or fifteen railway headquarters, with their various attendant departments of general managers, traffic managers, permanent way, audit, locomotives, stores and so on. It involved the closing down of locomotive works and railway workshops, such as in Cork and in Canal Street, Dublin, and various other places. It means the closing down of duplicated goods stations in towns and in cities. It meant the abolition of the canvassing arrangements that existed previously amongst the companies. That is rendered now unnecessary because there is only one company where there are fifteen or sixteen. One inevitable result of all that was to render a large number of men redundant, men who were employed before the passing of that Act. The Act was passed for the public benefit. A principle of the Act was that no individual should suffer. Consequently provisions to protect shareholders and employees were introduced into the Bill under Schedule 3, which read that where men become redundant because of this amalgamation, they should be compensated on the basis of one-sixteenth of their salary multiplied by the number of years' service, and the resultant amount would be the annual pension for life, with an over-riding maximum of two-thirds of his salary on retirement. In other words, a man who has fifty shilings a week and who had thirty years' service accrued to him, would get twenty-five shillings a week pension, and the man who had forty years' service accrued to him, and who is earning fifty shillings per week, would get thirty-three and fourpence per week for life—not an exorbitant compensation after forty years' service.
As an indication of the amount of economy that can be effected as a result of that amalgamation, the Great Southern Railways last year worked the entire system at roughly £440,000 less than the constituent companies were working the previous year. This saving would have been very much greater were it not for the fact that a number of the economies came into effect in the last quarter of the year and consequently were not able to show themselves in full in the balance sheet. It was true the goods traffic was down in some respects, but the passenger traffic was greater than the previous year. The principal loss in revenue, or more than two-thirds of it, was due to the cut in rates and fares brought about by the Railway Tribunal at the instigation of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. In fact, the only department in which there was any increase was in respect of the directors' fees. The fifteen directors are, I understand, drawing £1,750 more than the directors managing the whole constituent companies before. But this big company can pay big fees. The directors have to meet once a month. There are, occasionally, committee meetings in between. Each of them, of course, has only four or five other sources of lucrative income.
It is not for us to complain under that head. We say: "Good luck to you; your friend, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, will enable you to save twenty times that amount at the expense of the humbler employees of the company." Now, there was one obvious defect in the drafting of the original Act. As a result of the representations made by me (and I was supported by other Senators), it was decided that men with less than five years' service who were not originally provided for would, if they became redundant, be compensated by a lump sum calculated at one month's salary for every year of service, so as to enable them to exist while looking for a job. From the drafting of the Act it was found when cases came before the arbitrator that men were entitled to nothing.
Somebody was responsible for that. I presented a simple amendment which would have met the case, but I was told by the representative of the Minister that the draftsman had provided another type of amendment which would properly meet the case. I had to bow to his superior knowledge and I moved his amendment instead of mine. This amendment was afterwards characterised by counsel as the most absurd section that ever found its way into an Act of Parliament. However, we did not ask the Minister to introduce amending legislation. We were careful about asking the Oireachtas to undo what it had done or to remedy what it had passed after careful consideration. The first people affected were the general managers of the companies that had been amalgamated and the directors. The directors were compensated for dismissal, although one might as well compensate the members of the Dáil and Seanad for disturbance if it were contemplated reducing the membership of the Dáil and Seanad. These directors were only elected by the shareholders. The Act, however, was generous enough to say, "We will not turn the poor directors out on the road." The general managers, of course, are not a trade union, and they were treated in what one might call a very generous manner by the company. One gentleman who had £2,500 a year was given £2,072, or £72 more than four-fifths of his salary, although two-thirds is the limit in the Act. In addition, he got a substantial bonus. Another gentleman with £1,200 per annum got a pension of £900 per annum for life, or three-fourths of his salary, and a little bonus, to take a holiday, of £2,500. These are only a few examples of generosity. We do not complain; the trouble only starts when, in the case of a humbler type of individual with no resources, who clearly were entitled to the same consideration—stationmasters, goods agents, guards and porters, men with big families and long service—we found that the Act was not at all what it seemed to be. In this respect I want to make it clear that I have nothing to say except what is complimentary in respect to the general manager of the Great Southern Railways Company. I have found him, in all my dealings, a considerate and honourable gentleman. I have the same to say of the directors, but railways are not philanthropic institutions, and if there is in an Act of Parliament certain provisions whereby they can get rid of what they believe are responsibilities, it is their duty, in a commercial sense, as directors, to take full advantage of those provisions, as the Minister is placing these provisions at their disposal. They will have to take advantage of them if they discharge their functions as administrators of a commercial concern.
Privately, representatives of the Ministry will admit that some of the provisions of this Bill would enable the company to get out of a difficulty, but they say: "Surely you do not mean to say the general manager of the Great Southern Railways is going to take such an advantage of these provisions?" In other words, the Oireachtas is going to pass a bad law and an immoral law in the hope that outside people, with a better sense of justice, will not take advantage of that law and will act as general dispensers of equity. In order to get any compensation at all a redundant man must first of all prove that his office or situation has become unnecessary in consequence of changes of administration due directly to the amalgamation and absorption of companies affected by or under the Principal Act. In regard to the word "directly," the Minister advanced or made use of some extraordinary statements as to what it meant.
Perhaps it would shorten the debate if I mention that I offered to withdraw the word "directly."
That would be all right, but when the Report Stage came along the word was not withdrawn.
The reason was because Deputy Davin proposed an amendment and the House refused to accept it.
If the Minister says he is prepared to withdraw it, I have no more to say.
The Senator should read the reports.
I have read more of them than are good for me. In addition to proving that his services had been dispensed with because of amalgamation or absorption, he has to prove that it has not been caused by decrease of traffic, reduction or renewal of maintenance work, introduction of improved methods of working or other economic causes. We have as wide and as varied experience of railway working, and we have legal knowledge as good as the Minister has at his disposal, and we are absolutely convinced that if a man has to prove these things and to disprove all the others, no man will be able to prove his case for compensation before the Judicial Arbitrator unless he is a goods agent or a station-master whose depot or station is closed down. That is in a case where his job is abolished, but in no other case can a man prove or disprove these things. Railway work is one continuous chain from the man who first accepts the goods from the sender and hands the dockets to the invoice clerk, who invoices and sets the whole thing in motion, right up to the general manager himself. Each person is only a link in the machine. If you can show a decrease of so many passengers and of so much live stock in any one year, you can prove, as a matter of course, that that affects the work of every single individual throughout the system to a greater or lesser extent.
There has been a decrease in traffic and whom are the company to say this decrease affects because it runs round the whole circuit? The companies have only to come along and prove, with the array of experts and officials that they have, a reduction of so many tons of traffic in a single year. That affects the work of the other men in the service. Consequently under this Act their redundancy has been caused by a decrease in traffic and they are not entitled to compensation. They can take another line if they take the part referring to reduction or renewal of maintenance work. They need only reduce their maintenance work by not building wagons and carriages for three months and they can dispense with thousands of men because of reduction of renewal or maintenance work. All claims for compensation then go. When the men are dispensed with the company can then renew the full amount of work. In addition, they have to show that their redundancy is not due to any other economic cause. What in the name of Providence is that supposed to cover? It might be the war in Morocco or it might be because of the general depression throughout Europe or the Continent. A phrase like that is put into an Act of Parliament, and the official arbitrator is asked to see that all those things are proved and disproved by a humble worker with no directors' minute books, without any idea as to policy, and without any other books at his disposal. He has to prove and disprove all these things before he gets compensation of any kind. By a system of transfer which is exceedingly familiar to every railway man, a man can always be sent where there is a reduction in traffic, and can thereby be made redundant. The Minister made use of some very extraordinary statements for the purpose of inducing the other House to pass this Bill. Early in his speech, when introducing the Bill, he made this statement:—
One single case will show the absurdity that might arise under that as phrased: if you imagine a railway servant of 30 years' service in receipt of 60/- a week and that under amalgamation he was brought to a position in which he would be in receipt of 59/- a week, suffering a loss of 1/- per week; having 30 years' service the arbitrator, under the old third schedule, would be coerced into deciding that the compensation payable to such a man would be at the rate of one-sixtieth of his emoluments, multiplied by his years' service, one-sixtieth of 60/- multiplied by his 30 years' service, so that there would be for him a minimum payment of 30/- per week for life for a loss of one shilling per week.
Undoubtedly that seems extraordinary, that a man losing a shilling a week, although retained in the service, can get a pension of 30/- a week for life. That impressed the Deputies and impressed Deputy Cooper, who is no less able than he is sincere. Deputy Cooper said later:
I think the provision dealing with apprenticeship is reasonable in principle. On the whole, I do not think that it is sound policy to give a pension up to £30 to a boy of under 21 years of age. I do not think that it will be for the good of the boy himself.
That has nothing to do with this. Deputy Cooper was referring to trade apprenticeships.
I am sorry. I was referring to another thing and brought that in in the wrong place. The Minister must have been aware of the full facts when he made his statement. A case of that kind did actually arise. Here is the report on the case:—
William Boland, a charge-hand in the body-making works of the D. and S.E. Railway Company at Grand Canal Street, having on January 1st, 1925, been transferred automatically under the Railways Act, 1924, to the service of the amalgamated company, was removed by the company on February 16th, 1925, to Inchicore, where he became an ordinary hand. The company refused to pay him any compensation. He accordingly applied to the arbitrator, under the provisions of the Act, to determine whether compensation was payable, and claimed an annuity to compensate him for the loss suffered by the reduction of his rate of pay in his new employment, and the reduction in his hours of work, together with a lump sum for having been placed in a worse position as to prospects and conditions of service.
He claimed an annuity and a lump sum, just as the Minister said.
I did not. I said nothing about an annuity.
The company admitted liability. The Minister said that in a case of this kind an annuity could be claimed of 30/- a week for the loss of 3/-. In this case the man lost 3/-. The report continues:—
The company admitted liability in respect of reduction of rate of pay by 3/- a week, but not in respect of reduction of hours, and called evidence to prove that the reduction in hours was the consequence of falling-off in traffic receipts, due in part to the reduced rates fixed by the Railway Tribunal, and in part to a period of depression; the company contended that any compensation payable must be a lump sum, and that the Act could not have intended an annuity to be paid in any case where a man remains in the company's service.
The arbitrator held that the applicant was in a worse position as to prospects and to conditions of service by reason of amalgamation, and was entitled to reasonable compensation under this head; that the entire claim must fall under the lump sum clause for compensation in respect of worsened position; that the clause providing an annuity did not apply; that the loss due to reduction of hours was not due to the applicant's transfer to the amalgamated company, and that the applicant was entitled to a lump sum of £200 in respect of the change in his position and the reduction in his rate of wages.
Either the Minister knew that or was not fully informed, and consequently should not have made the statement. There was no danger of anything so absurd happening under the Bill. The arbitrator is a law unto himself. There is no appeal. Anything he says is law. Two cases were brought, and in both cases the arbitrator refused to give an annuity while the men were in the service. The Minister says that that could still happen and might happen, and for that reason the House is asked to rush the Bill through. The Minister also made another astounding statement. He said:—
I think the House will understand when I say that that is the absurd position which the arbitrator has been coerced into establishing under the old schedule as it stood, and that there were a few cases of boys under twenty who have been granted pensions of £30 per annum for life because their period of apprenticeship has been acknowledged to entitle them to rank as employees of some amalgamating or absorbed company.
As I say, the other case that impressed Deputies was that of a boy less than twenty years of age who would have a pension of £30 a year for life. I calculated that the boy would have to start his railway service before fifteen years of age, an almost unheard-of thing in order to do that. He would have to have completed five years' service, to which three years would be added, making 8 years. In addition to this, this boy of twenty years of age would have to have had a salary of 87/- a week. I may as well say that there is no such thing as a salary of 87/- a week for a boy. There could not be such a case. If the Minister is able to quote a case and give names and facts I will admit he is right. No inquiries that I have made could elicit such a case and the belief generally expressed is that there is no such case.
A tremendous amount of play was made on the fact that some men were getting two pensions. In the old Great Southern and Western Railway Company there was an old superannuation fund into which men paid 2½ per cent. of their salaries, and the Company paid a similar amount. The money was invested at 4 per cent. compound interest. The men were kept on while they were able to work and when they were retiring had the accumulated amount to draw in a lump sum. Some of the old men became redundant. Their jobs were abolished and they were forced to retire five or six years in advance of the time that they would have retired normally. Consequently they claimed compensation. In some cases the Company refused to pay compensation. In other cases the Company said: "Yes, we will give you compensation. We are going to calculate the annual value of the lump sum you should get from the fund and deduct from your compensation that value." In other words: "We will take out of your life savings the compensation we would have to pay you if you were not in the fund."
It was looked upon as a terrible scandal that the man should have two pensions. One case is an outstanding case which was decided in the law courts. It was the case of a man named Kearney, who was employed in the goods department for 53 years at the North Wall, Dublin. He was in receipt of £495 a year when he retired, and he got a pension of two-thirds of his salary that is £330. The company sought to stop the lump sum to which he was entitled from the Superannuation Fund. He contended he was entitled to this lump sum irrespective of anything that could happen, that the money was his, and that the new company did not own or control this particular fund. He sued the company and got a decree for an amount that had accumulated at compound interest to a sum of £1,400. The Minister argues that the annuity value of that £1,400, if added to the pension, would give this man a higher yearly sum when idle than he was earning when he was at work. That may seem extraordinary, but if no amalgamation had taken place, that man, who is quite vigorous and hearty, would have stayed in the service of the company until he died, and would be getting his full salary of £495 and at the end of his life his dependents would have the £1,400 left to them. If he was not in that fund at all he would still have got his £330 pension. Even here the Minister rather exaggerated. He said the man was entitled to £1,420 of pension and £113 cash bonus, or a total of £1,533. Now, I had the pleasure of paying over to the man the cheque which was sent to me, and the total amount of it was £1,400 19s. 2d. So that the Minister made the mistake of £133. However, I do not make much of that point. He took the figures from somewhere, but he should at least try to get the exact figures.
A number of these men joined that lump sum fund first and they afterwards asked the company to form a fund whereby they would have pensions from it. The company said "Very well, hand us over the whole of your interest in the lump sum fund and we will bank it. You pay a subscription to us in the future and we will give you a pension in time on the basis of two-thirds of your last seven years' average." The men agreed. The company took the whole of the lump sum fund and have the use of it ever since. Ever since 1890, the year that that happened, the men have been paying contributions into that fund. The company have had to pay nothing because they have kept the men in their service. In one case a man has remained with them up to 75 years of age and another up to 80 years. The result is that they are paying no pensions, but they are getting the services of the men and have all the money. They have issued no balance sheet either, but in spite of that the Minister told the Dáil that the fund is insolvent and that any money which the men would get by way of pension from that fund would come out of the company's exchequer, although he has no evidence to prove that. All the evidence is to the contrary. We know that the money was not spent in paying pensions, and that only one or two were paid out of thirty or forty that were entitled to be paid, and there must be an accumulated amount. In addition the Minister says that that fund was amalgamated with the Railway Clearing System Fund. Another absurdity. It was not, and it could not have been. He says that the Railway Clearing System Fund is insolvent, and there, again, he shows a lamentable amount of ignorance of the facts. The pensionable age was raised to 68 years of age. I quote that as an example of the lack of information and the bad advice which the Minister has received, with the result that he has misled the other House in connection with these matters.
I do not admit that.
The Minister has, so to speak, played to the gallery by stating that this is a question between the railway users and the employees. He makes the extraordinary statement that the railway users are going to pay higher rates and fares in order that redundant employees shall get compensation to which they are not entitled. He puts himself forward as the champion of the railway users, and proceeds to be quite generous at the expense of the livelihood of these men. When a Deputy came along and mentioned the high salaries paid to directors and others, he did not say that they were too high—we do not say that they are— but he mentioned the rate of high salaries that were paid. The Minister replied, "The Deputy was referring to managers, directors and people of that sort. I have nothing to do with them. I do not own the railway company, and I have not a share in it. It is the business of the proprietors to see that the funds of the railway are properly administered." If I had brought in legislation to deal with managers, assistant managers and so on, and if these people were to get large salaries, then, of course, the Deputy would be in order in criticising me, but I have nothing whatever to do with them. In other words, the interest of the railway users may go to pot in that instance for all he cares. But when it is a case of paying compensation to men who are losing everything, then the Minister is the champion of the users of the railway companies.
The intention of the Act was to establish a more efficient railway system, and to effect economies, but while effecting these economies no men should lose their positions without compensation. The Minister argues a lot from the fact that certain economies may have been introduced by the new system of working and so forth, introduced by the amalgamated company, and that if men lose their employment through them they are not entitled to be paid compensation. I join issue with him there. Under Article 10 of the Treaty certain provision was made for people who might retire. It did not enable the Government to come along and say: "You are dispensed with because of the Treaty and because of the new methods of work that we have been able to introduce." The British Railways Act never said one word as to that either. It stated in the Third Schedule, sub-section (5):—
Every existing officer or servant whose office or situation is abolished or who so relinquishes his office or service or whose services are dispensed with on the ground that they are not required or for any reason not being on account of misconduct or incapacity or whose salary, wages or remuneration are reduced on the ground that his duties have been diminished or who otherwise suffers any direct pecuniary loss by reason of the amalgamation or absorption, including any loss of prospective superannuation or other retiring or death allowances and allowances payable to his widow or orphan children, whether obtaining legally or by customary practice of the constituent or subsidiary company shall be entitled to be paid compensation.
They do not ask him to prove something first and to disprove a whole series of vague things afterwards. The Rating and Valuations Act of 1925 of the British Parliament made similar provision and does not ask that men shall prove or disprove a whole series of things in order to get compensation. The procedure adopted in all cases of that kind is that the staff that belonged to the various companies at the time of amalgamation shall be either found work or paid compensation.
The Minister went on and said the claim of the men is that the staff of the amalgamated companies shall be stereotyped and that there shall be no reduction otherwise, and that if you do reduce the staff the companies must pay compensation. The companies had plenty of time and reduced their staffs to the minimum. Then the Act came along, and then we are told as a result of the inevitable economies effected and of central control and so forth they were able to dispense with some thousands of their employees, and only a very small proportion have been able to get any compensation so far. The Minister was shown how many could be dispensed with by a system of transfers, and he replies by saying that a man could refuse to go on transfer if he thought it was a plot to bring about his redundancy. He said if he is removed to a place where there is a decrease of traffic, and if it could be shown the man was removed on promotion, he has the option of relinquishing his post. He can bring his case before the arbitrator. The Minister is very innocent if he thinks a man can refuse to go anywhere to which he is transferred provided that the work to which he was assigned was not analogous to the work he was doing and that his salary is not disturbed.
It shows he has no conception of the effect of the existing Act, and this is a complete misconception of the whole thing. The company first prepared an amending Bill and handed it to the Minister. He has admitted that, and it was on the strength of that Bill, without consulting any representative of the employees whose interest he was about to assail, he introduced this amending Bill, and he even went so far as to introduce things the company did not ask him to introduce. I understand the company never asked him to introduce a seven years' limit. The effect of that will be that five years from now the vested interests of every employee which were protected up to that date, and protected indefinitely by the Principal Act, go by the board. You might as well say that seven years after the Treaty was passed every civil servant who remained in the service of the Irish Government will be at the mercy of the Government, and would be no longer protected, and that the Local Government officials after that period would no longer have protection. The Act as it stands has a series of provisions saying that a person shall not be worse off, and if worse off he shall be superannuated, that his superannuation rights shall be protected, and so forth. According to this Bill, if after five years a railway servant becomes redundant he has no protection whatever. One glaring and audacious aspect of the measure introduced was that not only was it retrospective in character, but it proposed to re-open cases already decided by the arbitrator.
The Minister, in order to save the Government a defeat, agreed to withdraw that section, but, like the juggler who makes a rabbit go up a chimney and then pulls him down his sleeve, the Minister introduces the retrospective measure in another form. He got a quiet Deputy who seldom speaks to introduce that retrospective section, but all he does now is to exempt cases decided by the arbitrator, and cases settled. The cases settled already are, in the main, cases in which the men have compromised their rights under the Act rather than go to law. They have accepted less than they were entitled to, and I think as far as the arbitrator is concerned there were only 40 or 50 cases of that kind, while there are hundreds of cases pending, as long as from January, 1925, or nearly eighteen months ago. They were kept off by a specious method of delay. Certain cases were set down as test cases, that would be observed as a guide to all the others. This case went against the company, and the test case was afterwards not accepted as a test case. The result was a considerable delay, and we now know why; their good friend the Minister was waiting to come along with an amending Bill to make matters worse. Immediately the arbitrator knew that this Bill was to be introduced, and when he heard the remarks that had been passed about his findings he refused to hear any more cases from the 25th March, the day before this measure was introduced. There was no one to hear any further cases that came along.
Is the Senator insinuating that the arbitrator heard comments the day before the Bill was introduced?
The arbitrator heard of most improper comments long before the Bill. Comments were made in my own presence and that of deputations that should not have been made. If there is to be any respect for the law representative people attached to Government Departments should not adversely criticise the decisions of judges. As I have said, the arbitrator refused to hear any more cases, and on the 1st day of May—I do not know the cause of the delay between the 25th March and the 1st of May—he handed in his resignation. I do not know the cause. This is the 3rd June, and although hundreds of claims are waiting to be heard no arbitrator has been appointed. It is the duty of the Chief Justice to appoint a successor to him. If he were appointed and the cases heard the men would get the benefit of the Act as it stood. Is it any wonder they think, and perhaps wrongly think, that there is some significance in the fact that no arbitrator has been appointed?
Is the Senator making any adverse comments on that?
I am making no comment at all. I am simply excusing comments made outside by men who cannot understand these intricacies. By a fortuitous set of circumstances they are being deprived of the benefits of the Act that was in operation long after they had become redundant, with the result that they come under this atrocious measure and thereby lose all chance of proving their cases. A new section was brought in instead of the section deleted, which provides that the new Act shall apply to all cases that were not settled by the arbitrator, or by agreement before 26th March, 1926. That means that with the exception of probably 60 or 70 cases decided, all the cases ranging back to January, 1925, come under this. If that is not retrospective legislation, I want to know what is? I think it is a scandalous proposition 18 months afterwards to come in and deprive the men of rights they had under legislation. The Minister kept on talking for hours in the Dáil with regard to two cases where there was a doubled pension or superannuation. All these men we have heard of with the exception of two or three, are not likely to be affected by double pension or superannuation, for they are not in any pension fund and are not affected, so the Minister can cut out all that about the two pensions. At most, if he put everybody on it, it could only apply to 150 men. A man, in order to be affected at all, would have to be over 60 years of age, and there is a very small percentage over 60 years in the railway service, except those old men I have been speaking about.
We have very good reason to believe that although there have been minor improvements made in the Bill in the other House, they are absolutely worthless, because there is set up before us, before we can get the benefits of these improvements, an absolutely insuperable barrier. It is the duty of the Minister to introduce such improvements as will enable it to be reasonably possible for men who are entitled to make a claim for compensation and to sustain it, but the Minister, like a precocious young man without any experience of the world, refuses to admit he is wrong. If a young man is afraid to admit he has made a mistake, and is thereby perpetrating a great injustice, then it would be better that youth should learn some experience before it gets to the helm. The Bill, as a whole, is a piece of legalised robbery. It is a disgrace to Parliament, and is going to destroy the confidence of the people, who have stood by Parliamentary institutions and the Constitution. They believe that they should get a fair show here, and that they should be just as strongly protected as if they were investors.
If there was a raid made on the right of private investors by the Principal Act, what an outcry it would raise—that it would be ruining credit and a public disgrace! But you can come along to raid seventeen thousand workers, or as many as are to be made redundant, and take away their rights. You thereby raid the resources of themselves and their dependents. If you are going to perpetrate that scandal do you think that that will have no detrimental effect upon the country as a whole? The evil effects of this Bill are not going to end here. The man who goes up and claims compensation to which he was entitled and finds that he cannot get that compensation, will remember what Parliament did and he will remember that they took away the rights which he always had and which were confirmed by the Railway Act of 1924. As far as we are concerned we will advise our members to ignore the Act, and not to apply for any compensation because they cannot get it, and to rely on their own strength and the honesty and the justice of some future Minister or some future Government to undo the great wrong that the present Minister has perpetrated.
I would like to add my protest to that of Senator O'Farrell as regards this Bill. I think it is altogether incorrectly named. It proposes to be a Bill to make better provision for the compensation of railway servants who lose their employment. I have looked very carefully through this Bill and must confess nowhere do I find any section or sub-section that points to the making of better provision for those who lose their employment. I think it is wrongly named. I think a better name for the Bill would be "The Right of Parliament over all bodies and officials, to confiscate any vested rights they have by reason of the position they occupy." The railwaymen were always looked upon as something comparable perhaps to men employed in the Excise or other bodies directly under the Government. Their position was secure so long as they gave service. Their employers in all cases, I might say, were very considerate of the welfare of the men under them. We have it stated here that up to the age of seventy or eighty they have kept these men in their service. Whether that was for a benevolent purpose remains to be seen, but if the men were content to remain there we had at least a body of employers who encouraged and facilitated them in the retention of their positions by putting them into posts that they could fill with efficiency. Here we have a Government coming along and introducing a Bill based, as we are prepared to state, on inaccuracies and an insufficient knowledge of the real facts of the case— coming along with this Bill, and filching from these men all the rights that they conferred in their regard no less than fifteen months ago.
In section 4 of the Bill we have a most mysterious division of sub-sections. I have been trying to make it out. I believe it would take a very competent mathematician, combined with a man of great legal skill, to unravel the mysteries contained in this strange section and its still stranger sub-sections. We have sub-section (a), sub-section (aa), sub-section (b), sub-section (cc), and so on, ad infinitum. I have been looking for the sub-section x, that unknown quantity that would seem to indicate the amount of better provision that has been made for the workers who are redundant, and as far as I can make out the value of x is much less than nought. What was the reason of this Bill? The method of its introduction was evidently very strange. The Minister came to the lower House with apologies for its introduction, and in the First Reading of the Bill he actually proposed quite a number of alterations that he intended to make in the Bill as it proceeded. That was a very strange and sinister thing to do. Was it a fact that the Bill was handed to him from some other quarter, or was it a child of his own creation?
It would seem to me that the inspiration came from some other source, or he would not have fitted parts of this infant Bill in such a way that it would be necessary to say to the House, "I have forgotten the head of the Bill; I have forgotten one shoulder; I have forgotten some other things, but I have happily got a Deputy who seldom speaks in the other House to affix a tail to it or to affix what perhaps is still more important, from my point of view—a sting for those whom it is intended to injure." Some thousands of workers are affected by this Bill, and I say not alone are the workers affected but their employers are affected. Its passing will mean no better provision for the workers and no better service for the employers, but it will create continual doubt and distrust as between employers and employed in a quarter where there was confidence up to the present, where there was mutual trust, mutual forbearance and mutual consideration. That will be one of the horrible effects of the passing of this ugly little Bill. The employers may benefit to the extent of a few hundred thousand pounds. They may benefit to the extent of half a million pounds, but what is half a million pounds compared to that feeling—is it ample compensation for that feeling of distrust which this Bill will give rise to, not alone distrust towards the employers but distrust in all forms of Parliamentary procedure?
For four months in the year 1924 this and the Lower House considered the Railway Bill. We had at that time, I believe, some five or six Senators in the House intimately connected with railways—railway directors and railway managers. It was not one of those rushed Bills for which an apology might be made. It was fully considered in the coolest possible manner for almost four months, and fifteen months afterwards we find the Minister and the Government coming along confessing ineptitude on their part or ineptitude on the part of Parliamentary representation and introducing this Bill to correct their alleged errors in one that had been so maturely considered. I think it is an insult to the dignity of this House to accept for a moment that they will allow that Bill to pass into an Act of Parliament without challenging it. If mistakes have been made we are all partners in the mistakes. Even the members of the Labour Party were to some extent partners. They tried to remedy this particular clause that is now the cause of the trouble, but if my memory serves me right it was turned down ignominiously.
The Minister and the Government now perhaps elated by the success in their triumph over the workers in other departments of public works think that they can get over the railway men against them with the same immunity as they got in the case of the workers of Limerick. It is a serious matter, if an immense body of 17,000 and their sympathisers, a body of men who made the existence of this Seanad and Oireachtas possible, men in key positions, are made to feel that they can have no longer confidence in parliamentary institutions, that their only weapon of redress is the weapon of despair—the strike weapon or what perhaps is worse still the weapon of civil strife about which we know too much in the past in this country. We hear murmurings and discontent in many quarters. We know what those murmurings have grown to in the past against an alien power. We know from what small growths they arose. We have sections of people, and those sections are continually increasing in this country, who incline to the belief that nothing perhaps but a further resort to some measure like that which threw off the shackles of alien power must be resorted to before their just rights are served out to them.
This business of retrospective legislation is I think a dangerous procedure. It has been stated that only in cases of great national emergency should it be used. Does any one tell me that this miserable Bill will relieve anything like a state of national emergency, or does a state of national emergency exist because a few hundred people are now getting something that the Minister alleges they are not entitled to, but which we allege they are entitled to by reason of their thrift in the first place, and by reason of vested rights now tried to be filched from them? The Labour Party accepted the Bill of 1924 because it seemed to point to them towards the nationalisation of railways. They are rudely awakening now to the fact that it is not nationalisation of railways. It is a policy conceived in the mind of the Government, call it what they please, a policy of oppression, and a policy by which the bone of discontent is being flung in between the employers and the employees. We do not want class war in this country. But many acts of recent legislation passed by the Government will eventually, if persisted in, drive the people to this class war that we want if possible to avoid. Now who are the people consulted before this Bill was drafted? I should think that the companies and the men could have settled this matter amicably between them. Eventually the companies were consulted.
The men were consulted in a sort of fashion. They were consulted in this way, that they were asked to come in and bare their bosom, their plans and their ideas, to the Minister while he had this Bill up his sleeve, and I understand he refused to give any information as to what the provisions of the Bill were. I think that is a very bad method of remedying wrongs or correcting errors. Five-sixths of the men who have got compensation under this Bill were compelled to appear before the Tribunal at a cost of sums varying from £50 to £350. Compare that with the British Act of 1921. There men who are redundant put forward their claims and their claims were accepted as a matter of course. Their claims were never challenged. Their records were there in the hands of the railway companies, just as the records of the redundant men were in the hands of our own railway companies. But different from the British practice of granting those men automatically their pensions, five-sixths of these men were compelled to appear before a Tribunal. What is the object of that? It appeared to be to pave the way for the introduction of a Bill of this kind. They legislated by getting in the thin end of the wedge as was done when the Railways Amalgamation Bill was passed in 1924. It was done with the object, at a later stage, of introducing a more sinister Bill divorced from the conditions of the people concerned. We incline to the belief that this is one of the things that will kill all hope of Parliamentary institutions in this country. I have nothing further to say about the matter. But I would warn the Seanad, and I appeal to them to be careful before they pass this Bill that is founded, as we can prove here, upon inaccuracy and misunderstanding of the whole position. It is a Bill whose effects will not end with the railway company, but may have serious consequences as between the employers and the employees throughout the country.
I feel I must oppose this Bill. I am largely in agreement with Senator O'Farrell in his contentions about the provisions of this Bill which is intended to amend the Principal Act. The Principal Act gave certain rights to existing servants, and I do feel there is absolute truth in what Senator O'Farrell has said that the men in big positions had got away with the advantages that arose out of the railway amalgamation. Now, when we come to deal with the smaller and more helpless people, this Bill is being introduced to prejudice their emoluments. This is a Bill dealing largely with the matter of redundant men.
I think the Minister himself is responsible by an Act which he introduced subsequent to the Amalgamation Act for many of those men being redundant. The Railway Tribunal at the beginning of 1925 brought in a general reduction in rates for all goods carried over the Southern Railway system, that is in connection with an internal rate. Through rates were not touched. The Minister brought in a Bill after the Amalgamating Act, I think it was called the Railway Directorate Act, wherein the London, Midland and Scottish Railway was, by Act of Parliament, put on the Board of the Southern Railway. It might not have any bearing on it, but it is peculiar that, while internal rates were reduced by an all-round percentage, through rates were not touched in any way, not even that portion which would have to be applied by the Clearing House to the mileage over the Southern Railway. That is to say, people who had to send their goods across Channel where through rates exist did not take the usual rate because it was excessive. To some extent this accounts for our rates being as they are. They motored their goods to the ports and sent the goods to their destination. I think in that way they got the advantage of a differential rate, but that was to the prejudice of the railway which is the natural carrier of the goods.
I do not think I should refer in this Bill to this matter, but I do not think a wise choice has been the predominant factor in retiring men who are redundant. Other considerations have been taken into account. In connection with that I spoke to Sir William Goulding and I mentioned it also to the Minister. Before a Bill of this sort becomes an Act, I suggest that a Committee should be appointed from both Houses to consider the action that has been taken under the Amalgamating Act, to see what difficulties have arisen, what expenditure has been entailed, what extravagance has been entailed on the railway, and when that Committee reports, then it will be time to curtail the benefit conferred on men by Acts already passed.
I heard for the first time either in this or the other House that I was very young. As time brings me nearer to Senator O'Farrell's age I hope it will not bring any closer approximation between me and him in any other regard. We have had a series of what must be described as attacks uttered with a great deal of vehemence on my knowledge of railway Acts and railway working. I do not pretend to any great knowledge of railway working or railway Acts in contrast with the Senator. But I listened to those misrepresentations and inaccuracies of mine brought out in such a way that the people here could not understand them. I do not know even if Senator Dowdall, who now comes forward as an antagonist, really understands what the misrepresentations are. He was careful not to tread on the dangerous ground of detail and give us any of the points in which inaccuracies of mine have misled people.
I did not refer to them at all.
We will get Senator O'Farrell on to those misrepresentations. Possibly this House does not understand the reason of Senator O'Farrell's vehemence. I can understand it. The Senator was injudicious enough to rush into print with a letter which I was able to make considerable play on afterwards in the Bill.
The Minister is not correct. I did not rush into print with any letter. I addressed a letter to the Minister.
I should have used the phrase "rushed into typescript." I do not mean that the Senator wanted to conceal the thing but Deputies, who had it in their hands, read it without indicating who the author was. I had to bring that out and certainly there was a view in the Dáil that the Senator would not be anxious to have his name associated with the letter because for a person who was secretary of the Railway Clerk's Association it revealed an entire lack of familiarity with certain railway matters under consideration and I think it was simply that I had, thrown on me, the duty of enlightening the House with Senator O'Farrell's lack of familiarity with railway conditions that he seeks to have the same point made to-day in connection with me. The difference between our positions is that I do not pretend to have any exceptional familiarity with railway conditions but I have enough to answer Senator O'Farrell in the point he made to-day that this is an attempt to correct drafting errors. He contends that there was only one drafting error in the Bill. I propose to show that there were at least three and the basis of the amending Bill is the correction of three very bad errors which occurred in that Bill. I want to point out that. Another remark of the Senator was that the Bill was a verbatim copy of the British Act camouflaged so that it would not appear too openly to the people here. The implication was that the third Schedule was put forward here as the product of brains in this country but was copied from legislation on the other side. If the Senator searches the debates on the Railways Act, 1924, he will find a complete and definite assurance from me, given several times to him, that it was founded on British legislation and in so far as it seeks to amend errors now it is amending errors whereby this third schedule goes far beyond the corresponding British legislation.
In the wrong way.
The old Act went far beyond it in the wrong way and we are now seeking to bring the whole railway situation, as affected by recent legislation, back to the point as I put it to this House that it was desirable it should be set at. It is said that this is an attempt to divest seventeen thousand railway employees of every protection given them by the 1924 Act. I do not like to come down with too great vehemence upon words not properly considered. I suggest to the Senator that it is an exaggeration which passes the bounds of any comprehension, to say we are divesting all the railway men of every protection given to them by the 1924 Act. Again I propose to show that there is no lack of protection, but there is a definite obstruction put in the way of people getting compensation for things for which compensation was never intended. We get the ad misericordiam argument always put up in this connection: If the Bill passes not one in 20 of the railway men entitled to compensation can substantiate their claims and the result will be the usual threats; there is not going to be any resort to the courts, according to Senator O'Farrell, but a resort to industrial action and his colleague Senator Cummins speaks of civil strife. That founds itself on this. It has been put in so many words by Senator O'Farrell. The railway company has its experts, people who know all about railway working. The unfortunate railwayman is outside with no help and cannot prove anything. It is recognised in the Bill and with that object the onus of proof is thrown on the railway company. When the railway company has made its case before the Court a man can be asked to disprove it. The Committee was so agreed, that it was specially pleaded for when that Bill was going through the other House. The Labour Deputies made that definite appeal.
Juggling.
I do not like the Senator to be passing those comments upon his colleagues in the other House. The juggling was this. It was put to me that it would throw a burden on the employees. It does not meet our point in detail but to some extent we are putting it on the railway company. Here we get the basis of the argument that the railwayman is in such an inferior position that he cannot prove anything. If that argument is acceptable to this House it may be made in a stronger degree on the Committee Stage. There is only one way out of it and that is that you are simply to compensate every railwayman put out of the service.
Might I correct the very obvious mis-statement of the Minister? If section 4 is referred to, the first sub-section, line 40, states that the man must prove, first of all, that he is redundant in consequence of changes of administration due directly to the amalgamation and absorption of companies affected by the principal Act. All the company have to do is to try and prove that he is redundant because of various other causes. A man has first to establish his own case that he is redundant, and then he has to counter the various other causes set up by the railway company. The proof is not placed on the railway company.
I replied to that point before, and I can reply to it now again. The Bill says: "Every existing officer... who relinquishes his office" within a certain period "... on account of his office or situation having become unnecessary." Up to that point there is not a word about whom the burden of proof rests on. There is no definite specific statement on whom the onus of proof rests.
Does the Minister suggest——
CATHAOIRLEACH
You must give the Minister fair play. If there is anything the Senator wishes to explain or correct afterwards he will have an opportunity of doing so. Constant interruptions make it impossible to follow the arguments.
Up to a certain point there is not a word about the onus of proof. The section goes on—"caused by decrease of traffic." I put it in the other House, where the Chairman is not a lawyer, and I put it here, where the Chairman is a lawyer, and the Chairman can give this House the benefit of his advice, that what would happen would be, that the man would have to make a prima facie case, which, if indisputable, would get him his compensation, and then the amalgamated railway company has to step into the breach and disprove all these things. I think there is a recognised rule of evidence that where there are two parties to a particular action one is in an admittedly superior position to the other, as he has things entirely within his knowledge, which the other person could not be expected to have. The onus of proof that would necessarily rest on the claimant in this case would shift to the other person; the onus of proof—though nothing is said about it —would rest upon the person in the superior position. That is the argument which the Senator describes as juggling. If a railway man is in so inferior a position that he cannot be expected to prove anything, and if the House accepts that, logically the House must go further and say, "Very well; for every person put out of the railway service, whether by reason of economy or by reason of a traffic decrease, or something arising out of the Act, compensation must be paid in such cases." I suggest that there is no evidence at all that the man is in such an inferior position, that in every case, irrespective of the cause, compensation should be granted to every retired or dismissed railway servant. It is hardly relevant to the point, but the Senator, referring to economies effected by reason of the amalgamation meant close on half a million pounds, said there had been some drop in traffic! The decrease in traffic amounts, in a particular year, to 15,000,000 ton-miles traffic. That is what the Senator describes as some drop in traffic! That is his method of giving accurate information on the economies effected. I give that figure, and if the Senator does not think it specific enough I will get it put into whatever form in which he wants it.
I want to protest against one other thing. It is a small matter and I think the Senator did not mean what he said. He said the Government draftsman was to blame for some mistake. I hope when the Senator used these words that he was not passing any comment upon the man in question, who is the most hardworking servant of the State.
When I referred to the Government draftsman I referred to a mysterious personage. I did not refer to any particular individual. I do not know who the draftsman is.
Let the Senator say that the Government or that my Department gave wrong instructions, but leave the Government draftsman out of it. If there is any man to whom this State owes much it is the Parliamentary draftsman. He is a man who has got through masses of legislation that were certainly never called for in the early years of any State. As the Senator says, he did not refer to any individual, I am satisfied. I would be very reluctant to believe that anyone would pass any comment on that particular individual.
Before I get to the Section referred to I see that there has been the usual reference to the salaries paid to the directors. Senator O'Farrell said it did not matter whether they exceeded the limit. Senator Dowdall suffered also from this very strange delusion, and said that the big men got away with the money, and that this Bill only gets at the small men. I would like to see the limit of salaries to be allowed to directors. I do not know where the Senator got his point of view that the Act put any limit on retiring directors.
I never mentioned that.
Senator O'Farrell mentioned the directors. He talked about one gentleman getting, I think, £2,072.
That was the general manager.
Let us get to the general manager. Is there anything in the Act with regard to the limit of salaries of such people as the general manager?
Not salary, compensation.
Is there anything laid down with regard to the limit of compensation for these people? If there is, there is a very clear case for setting the law in motion and getting the money back. I would like the two Senators to give me the information on which they based their case. With regard to these people I said there was one way in which this matter could be adverted to. I have heard a whole lot about these salaries. I have no precise information about them. It is not my business to inquire. We have no control over the railway. That is for the proprietors of the railway system and, if the proprietors think that the directors, the general managers, or the sub-general managers, have got too much money, there is a very obvious way of countering that. I say, further, and I say it with great confidence, that there might be a way of having this matter referred to. If such allowance or compensation appears as a charge on revenue in any year, the revenue accounts can be examined before the Tribunal, and there might be, definitely, a case for not having certain sums counted into the ordinary profit and loss, or the ordinary trade or revenue accounts, when they come to be considered before the Tribunal.
We have not nationalised the railways yet and there is no way in which a member of the Government can take any action against the directors of a railway company with regard to what they have done with the moneys which are the moneys of the proprietors of the railway. Senator O'Farrell referred to the word "directly." About that I do not want to make any comment here. The word "directly" appears in two Sections. I offered to hold it over until the Report Stage in the Dáil, if amendments, which had been moved, were withdrawn but the Deputy who had one of those amendments, on the Paper, pressed it to a division and was beaten. The position I was in then was this: I was willing to withdraw the word but an amendment, to that effect, having been defeated, another amendment to delete it could not again appear on the Paper. The word "directly" appears in Section 4. I was willing to have it withdrawn from there but if it appeared in Section 2 and was taken out of Section 4 the arbitrator considering the matter afterwards might take up the position that there was some point of view which had to be specially adverted to, having the word removed from one section and retained in another. I made a promise to have it taken out in both Sections. It is not for me to say how this is to be done in the Seanad but, so far as I may give a lead, I am prepared to state, now, that I have no objection to having the word deleted in both Sections.
The case Senator O'Farrell made in his letter was that I said that one of the drafting errors arose in Clause 5 of the Third Schedule of the 1924 Act. I pointed out the absurdity that might easily arise if a case were brought in under that particular Section. The arbitrator I felt would be coerced to give a particular judgment and I made the case of a person who having 30 years' service and who for the loss of one shilling a week would secure a pension of 30/- a week for life. It would have that absurd result, that by losing one shilling on 30/- a week the loss of that shilling in these particular circumstances would have led to that result. Senator O'Farrell said two cases had been tried not under that Section but under Section 4 and that no such result occurred.
Under Section 5 a claim was made by a person for pension, and under Section 4, a claim for a lump sum, and it was decided that no pension could be given to anybody who remained in the service of the company.
I take Sections 4 and 5 together. If Senators will look at the Bill they will see that it is proposed to wipe out Section 4 and to amend Section 5 in a certain way. That amendment is necessary. I take the case now. A railway servant with thirty years' service is in receipt of 60/- a week. Under the amalgamation he is put in a position in which he received 59/- per week. That is a loss of one shilling per week and he has thirty years service, and Section 5 says: "Every existing officer or servant... whose remuneration,"— I am omitting certain portions—"or emoluments are reduced on the ground that his duties are diminished, or who otherwise suffers any direct pecuniary loss by reason of the amalgamation or absorption... shall be entitled to be paid compensation by the amalgamated company, the amount of such compensation to be determined by the amalgamated company... in accordance with the following rules: that is to say (a) the compensation shall be an annual allowance to be paid to the existing officer or servant, during his life, not exceeding in any case two-thirds of his remuneration and emoluments, and subject to that limitation to be calculated at the rate of one-sixtieth of his remuneration and emoluments for every completed year of his service with the amalgamated company, or any amalgamating or absorbed company with an addition thereto based on the number of completed years of his service."
Apply that to the case I have given and all that class of case. All I propose to do is to wipe out that in its application to such a case and to make it quite impossible for any case of the sort to be decided upon. I say it is quite open to happen upon the reading of the section. I have legal advice that it is possible, and now that attention has been directed to it, many claims would be pushed forward for that particular kind of man.
On the question of apprenticeship, I do not know whether Senator O'Farrell is making the point as to the exact amount. I doubt very much if there is any case of £30 per annum, but I say now, and I make the statement after hearing Senator O'Farrell, that there are several cases of boys under twenty, and certainly a fair number of cases between nineteen and twenty-two years of age, in receipt of pensions for the rest of their lives of between £18 and £20 a year.
Seven shillings a week.
I have not worked it out, but I repeat that there are cases of boys between nineteen and twenty-two years of age in receipt of sums of £18 or £20 a year. I suggest that is not what was meant. I suggest further that apprenticeship was never considered to put a man so definitely in the railway service as to guarantee continuity of employment, and as to entitle him to be ranked as employed by the existing company for the apprenticeship period. That is one of the confiscatory sections alluded to here with so much heat. Senator O'Farrell referred to the section that I have cited in order to avoid a man being in receipt of money from two sources, the Superannuation and the Compensation Funds. He says in answer to me that there are very few people who would ever be in receipt of money from two sources. If that is so, the section will be very limited in its application and will only affect a very limited number of people. Let us see what is the state of the case. There were three funds. Apparently I had some wrong idea that they were amalgamated, but what has happened is something that an ordinary layman would understand by amalgamation. The assets may not be mixed, but people were transferred from one fund and are being paid out of another. One of these funds is actuarially sound, if a certain rather favourable state of circumstances continues. Nobody can guarantee that it will continue, and that fund has only about forty or fifty persons, perhaps not so many. I call that the B Fund. There are two funds. I used the phrase about these in the Dáil that they were insolvent. It was pointed out to me that that might, if literally interpreted, have a very bad effect. I corrected that by saying that these two funds were actuarially unsound. That description I repeat. They are not insolvent to this extent, that people who have paid in contributions are not going to fail to get the benefit from them. The benefit that can be got will come not from any pool accumulated by the railwaymen, but from the general and joint resources of the company who guaranteed it. These two funds are, A Fund, and the Railway Clearing House Fund. The Great Southern and Western Railway Superannuation and Annuity Fund was inaugurated in the year 1880, and to this fund the whole of the then existing clerical staff, with a few exceptions, and all future members of the staff as a condition of their employment, were enrolled. The basis of the superannuation scheme was a contribution of 2½ per cent. of the members' salaries, and a like contribution by the company, both to be accumulated at 4 per cent. compound interest, and the total sum to be paid to the member on his retirement or to his representatives at his death. Owing to the meagreness of the sum so provided the company in 1899 agreed to the withdrawal from this fund of members who desired the prospect of a more generous annuity in lieu of the bulk sum provided on retirement. The seceders surrendered to the company their interest in the superannuation fund, and in return the company undertook that they should receive the benefits of the Railway Clearing House Superannuation Fund.
Might I ask the Minister where he is reading mythical stuff from? It is absolutely incorrect wherever he got it from.
I am going to continue. About the same time the directors closed the Great Southern and Western Superannuation and Annuity Fund to new members, and made it a rule that all entrants to the service should become members of the railway clearing system superannuation fund. Members who withdrew had their own contributions, and those of the company, with accumulated interest, placed to the credit of a suspense account, commonly called the Great Southern and Western Superannuation Fund A, and to this account were credited their contributions and those of the company together with half-yearly interest, and against it were charged the outgoings, including pensions calculated according to the rules of the Railway Clearing House superannuation fund as in 1900. This fund is now exhausted, and the benefits of the members to the extent that they are no longer covered by the contributions, are dependent upon the company's guarantee. The number of the staff who are entitled to benefit under this contract is 48. In the Railway Clearing House superannuation fund there was, I think, at the end of last year a total membership of about 1,300. Following actuarial investigations the benefits provided by this fund have been reduced since 1900, and the actuarial investigation of 1910 revealed a deficiency so serious that the railway companies and the Railway Clearing House decided to meet the deficiency, and for this purpose they undertook to bear the payment of pensions on the then existing scale each for their own staff who retired after the age of 60 up to the age of 68, thus relieving the funds from the greater part of the burden for pensions, with the ultimate hope of restoring it to a position of solvency.
That is the position of the funds I described as actuarially unsound. If Senator O'Farrell brings forward any figures which disprove these I will be glad to have them. The position with regard to these two funds is that they are met by the guarantee of the company, and the contributors are dependent for any benefits they receive on the joint resources of the company, and the continuing solvency of the company, and not upon any pool built up out of the contributions from the two sources. I think with regard to these two superannuation funds the only comment I have to make is, you have there two unsound funds which certainly include in them by far the greatest number of the railway employees who are in any fund, and you have this position first of all, that whatever benefit there was therefrom, or whatever funds for benefit purposes, were accumulated by 2½ per cent. on salary paid by the man, and a like subscription paid by the company. To that extent, even from the beginning, half the fund was built up by subscriptions coming from the company, and the matter has now got actuarially unsound, and payments have to be made by the railway company out of their resources.
Taking that fact into consideration it is inequitable to ask the company to pay compensation at the rate of two-thirds the men's emoluments, and then to pay their own subscriptions to the men's benefit fund to make up the deficiency of the whole fund where the fund is not actuarially sound by reason of the subscriptions being too small at the beginning. We are making a further provision which really amounts to this, that there shall be deducted from the compensation the amount equivalent to what the railway company's contribution to a man's pension actually is. I put it to the House that that is fair. Section 2 is, of course, entirely for the benefit of the railway employee. Senator O'Farrell has made great play with this, that he introduced an amendment, and instead of that there is a Government amendment which has been described by counsel as rubbish or nonsenical. I do not pay much attention to what counsel say when they are making a case for their side. One is not disposed to look for accuracy or an impartial statement in such circumstances.
That is rough on the lawyers.
I do not see anything at all rough on counsel in that statement. I think it is quite an ordinary thing if a person is briefed to make a case, and just like the Senator made his case, by putting his plea in a particular way, or as I made my case. I submit my case here to those who are acting as jurors, and they can give their verdict as between the two of us. The Senator made the point in the course of his speech that was open to the inference that if we only accepted the Senator's amendment in the old Bill all would have been well. Why not put this amendment down now? Let the Senator produce his own amendment against the provisions of the Bill, and let us see how it will compare with the Bill now here, or the section he has described as absurd.
The arbitrator's resignation has been referred to at great length. I am sorry again to have any comment made here which might lead the arbitrator to believe that anybody had passed comments on his decisions as being outside the law given in the Schedule. What I said was that the arbitrator was coerced from what he had before him, into these decisions. What I did show was that these decisions do not represent what was intended by the Oireachtas, and that I should have to give the arbitrator a better schedule, the decisions based on which will bring about the state of affairs desired by the Oireachtas. As to retrospection, we can deal with that when the Bill reaches its Committee Stage. I was rather interested on entering the Seanad—I happened to arrive while the previous Bill was under discussion—to find that the date of the introduction of the Bill has been settled as the date in which the Act begins to operate in both cases. I cannot see how that can be considered retrospection. We will meet that aspect on the Committee Stage, and I do not intend to go into it now. There are just one or two other minor matters. Senator Cummins asked who had been consulted, and he said further, that I had refused to give information as to this Bill. I cannot remember any occasion on which I refused to give information.
That statement was made in the Lower House.
I am not to be bound by every statement made in what is described as the Lower House or in the Press, and which remained uncontradicted. Life is too short to have to contradict all the inaccurate things that are stated. I state here now definitely that I did not refuse to give information about this Bill. I was once asked a question as to whether the Bill was in the course of preparation, and I said "No." I was asked to give some indication of what would be in my mind when that Bill would be in the course of preparation, and I said I could not forecast that. As far as consultation is concerned, I did not ask anybody to come near me. I did say, in answer to a question in the Dáil, that if the railway employees made representations to me in the matter, I would receive them, and the only deputation that applied for a hearing was received. There was only one deputation, which I received. I want to make one final comment. We have got a sort of melodramatic statement from Senator O'Farrell, and the more sombre tragic statement of Senator Cummins, that if this Bill passes we are going to have industrial or civil strife. I have heard these statements in the Dáil. On one occasion I retorted in a certain way, and I was told by a Labour Deputy that the men would not like my taunt. At the risk of them not liking my taunt, I am going to repeat that there were people in this country prior to this year, who attempted civil war, and they were met and dealt with, and if people think that they are going to coerce anybody by threats of industrial or civil war, they had better remember what happened a few years back.
Playing to the gallery.
I am not trying to play to the gallery, but I am trying to rebuke people who have attempted to play to the gallery. If there is going to be any appeal to force, then I say the result of the challenge to the State in its early days, should be remembered by those people before they embark on force again.
I should like to say that my statement was clear and definite. It was that my advice to the railwaymen is, unless they are able by their own industrial power to enforce elementary justice, if this Bill passes they have no alternative to throwing themselves on the mercy of the company until such time as some future Minister and another Government will undo the great wrong that the present Minister is perpetrating. I never mentioned civil strife nor did I mention industrial strife except to that extent and the Minister in making this melodramatic peroration is really trying to influence people outside from a point of view that was never intended.
I refer to the statement of Senator Cummins.
Question put.
The Seanad divide d. Tá, 19; Níl, 6.
Tá.
- John Bagwell.
- William Barrington.
- Mrs. E. Costello.
- Countess of Desart.
- James Douglas.
- Sir Nugent Everard.
- Michael Fanning.
- James Perry Goodbody.
- Sir John Purser Griffith.
- Right Hon. Andrew Jameson.
- Sir John Keane.
- Earl of Kerry.
- Thomas Linehan.
- John MacLoughlin.
- James Moran.
- Joseph O'Connor.
- Michael F. O'Hanlon.
- Thomas Toal.
- William Butler Yeats.
Níl.
- William Cummins.
- J.C. Dowdall.
- Michael Duffy.
- Thomas Farren.
- Francis McGuinness.
- J.T. O'Farrell.
Motion declared carried.