If there be any questions arising out of the Minister's statement, when this motion was last under discussion, perhaps Senators will raise them now before Senator Hayes concludes.
Emergency Powers (No. 98) Order, 1941—Motion to Revoke (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That Seanad Eireann is of opinion that Emergency Powers (No. 98) Order, 1941 (Compensation) Scheme, 1941, dated 17th September, 1941, should be revoked.—(Senator M. Hayes.)
On this matter, A Chathaoirligh, I think we may take some credit to ourselves for having been successful in persuading the Minister to alter materially the original Order. The procedure which is adopted here is that you move to revoke an Emergency Order, not because you want the whole Order revoked or because you object to the principle of the Order, but because that is the only method which is open to us to put before the Minister certain arguments for amendment of the Order. Now, that procedure was adopted here, and we may take to ourselves, as I have said, the merit of having persuaded the Minister, and I think that while taking that merit to ourselves we could also congratulate the Minister upon the procedure he has adopted. He listened to the debate here, he promised that he would consider the matter, and then he came back and gave us a very comprehensive and full statement of his intention, which really involves the issuing of a completely new Order. With the Minister's procedure we could find no fault whatever, and we ought to be grateful to him for the manner in which he dealt with the matter.
In regard to the merits of what he has done there are, of course, certain things as to which we have not been satisfied, but it would be right to say, to begin with, that he did fully meet certain points of detail which were made. For example, he is providing, in the new Order that he proposes to make, entirely for a child under 14 years who is dependent or who has been personally injured. He is providing also for the case of the adopted child, and he has entirely altered the maximum sum of £600, which was to be a lump sum grant, and changed it to a weekly grant. He has also agreed, contrary to the provisions of the original Order, that where a person has suffered a personal injury by bombing, and the employer makes any contribution, that contribution shall not be calculated to relieve the State from the amount which the State, under the Order, will be compelled to give.
Now, in these matters the Minister has entirely met opinions expressed by myself and by other members of the House. He has also altered, as far as I understand it, the maximum figure, of 30/- a week for a married person, up to 30/- a week for the man, 7/6 a week for a wife, and 4/- a week for each child. I think I am right in saying that there is no maximum. That, of course, makes a very material difference between the Order as we found it and the Order as the Minister now proposes to make it, but it seems to me, as I said on the previous occasion, that the Workmen's Compensation Act was adopted simply because it was handy and because it did not necessitate any great thought upon the matter. The Minister still clings to a certain degree to the principles of the Workmen's Compensation Act, an Act which I think is entirely unsuited to the circumstances contemplated by this Personal Injuries Order. I wonder whether any consideration has been given to what the standard is here below which a family reaches what is called the poverty line? A family which is below or on the poverty line is ill-nourished, the children are incapable of properly benefiting by the education provided for them by the State, and they are eventually a liability and a burden on our various social services, such as hospitals, unemployment assistance, and so on. I think it should be agreed that a person who has suffered injury owing to enemy action or owing to bombing accidents should not be compelled to rear his family in conditions such as I have described. For a man and his wife and three children, under the revised Order, the figure available will be 49/6.
I notice that in Great Britain a calculation has been made for York by Mr. Rowntree, who made out that in 1936 a man and his wife and three children would require at least 43/6 in order not to be below the poverty line. That figure in England would probably now be in the region of 60/- or £3 a week. I wonder whether any steps have been taken to establish any figure for this country? I doubt if the cost of living, in Dublin at any rate, or in any of our towns, is substantially less than it is in Great Britain. There may be a difference between rural and urban conditions, but, in any event, the measuring standard to be adopted, I think, should not be that of the Workmen's Compensation Act; it should be to keep the person from dropping below the poverty line and from rearing children in such a way as to make them subsequently a burden on and a cause of further expenditure to the State.
I should like also to take exception entirely to the Minister's statement in the original debate that to advocate justice and additional payments for this particular section of the community, for citizens who are bombed and who suffer personal injury, is to advocate new taxation. I think that argument is not sound. It is very belated when it comes from a Minister who himself, I think, has over and over again said that he was proud of increased expenditure and of increased taxation. It is rather belated to produce that argument when that argument was not produced, for example, when the Seanad was revived and Senators' allowances fixed at the old rate; when the allowances for Deputies were raised and when Ministers' salaries and emoluments were really in effect raised. We may need to have retrenchment but, if we do, at least we ought not to have it at the expense of being unjust to any particular section of the community; we ought to have retrenchment at everybody's expense. I think it does not lie in the mouth of the Minister, or the people who so substantially increased our expenditure and taxation in the period from 1932 to before the war in 1939, to say when a particular proposal is made that it involves new taxation, and that this is the particular point at which we must now stop.
I wonder whether any calculation has been made as to what we may have to pay for personal injuries and how long we may have to pay it. I am not particularly expert at figures or at finance, but assuming we have to provide £1,000,000, we can get £1,000,000 at 3¼ per cent., or £32,000 a year, and pay it back at the rate of £50,000 a year, which seems to be a rather small figure —the £82,000 decreasing year by year, of course.
May I say one or two words as to the debate on the motion originally? Senator Foran took exception to a statement that compensation should be given on the basis of the earning power of the person injured. I think that was a perfectly sound principle which the Minister has not adopted. I think that Senator Foran, in objecting to that principle, and in calling it the principle of recognising social standing and social status, was simply indulging in the same kind of lazy thinking that put the Workmen's Compensation Act into this Order. Earning capacity and social status are not the same thing, but the difference in earning capacity has been recognised and is being constantly recognised by way of compensation. It was recognised, for example, after the 1916 Rising in the distribution of money at that time by the National Aid Society and the White Cross. Indeed, there is no place where social status and different earning capacity are more clearly recognised than in the trade union movement. There is an immense difference between an official of the Irish Transport Workers' Union and the casual docker. Those of us who have had an opportunity of living in working-class houses and of understanding working-class people know that a carpenter and a builder's labourer are members of two different social castes and classes. Perhaps that is one of the difficulties of the trade union movement from a certain angle. I feel that Senator Foran was throwing out rather lazily an opinion about something which he had not read and in which he has not taken a very considerable interest.
With regard to the general position, may I say to the Minister that he seemed to me—and it was rather unusual for him—to be particularly annoyed with Senator Douglas on the last occasion. He said that Senator Douglas was vociferous. I do not know that there is any adjective in the English language which would have less application to Senator Douglas than that particular one, and I am sure the Minister will recognise that now. At any rate, between Senator Douglas and myself and certain other people, our voices were raised, and they proved to be efficacious in getting the Minister to go a certain distance. We hear of the power of faith to move mountains. The voices that moved a Minister for Finance to added expenditure on certain schemes are comparable with the faith that moves mountains. So far as we are concerned here, the Seanad can do no more in a matter of this kind dealing with finance than put its view on record and endeavour to persuade the Minister as best it can to make an improvement. We have done that in this case, and I should like to express on my own behalf, and I think on behalf of every Senator, my satisfaction with the procedure the Minister adopted in dealing with this matter. I think it is only fair to him to say further that he has gone a certain distance. All we can do about the matter in that case is to congratulate ourselves on having been able to accomplish a certain amount, and on having been met courteously and fairly enough by the Minister.
With regard to the motion, I presume it must be withdrawn, because it was put down for the purpose of enabling a discussion to take place and to get an improvement, and that improvement has been accomplished. While the improvement, particularly the improvement in principle, does not go as far as many of us would like to see it going, we have to acknowledge that it does go a certain distance, and to be grateful for the support we got in the House and for the hearing we got from the Minister. On that basis I ask leave to withdraw the motion.
I want to say with regard to Senator Hayes' reference——
Has not the debate concluded?
The debate has concluded.
I want to tell Senator Hayes that it is not lazy thinking on my part——
The Senator may not proceed.
I want to say to Senator Hayes, with all his professed knowledge of trade union ideas on these matters, that he is very ignorant of them.
Senator Hayes has concluded. I will not hear the Senator further.
I know that, but Senator Hayes took advantage of his position to make an attack when he knew there would be no right to reply, and that was rather shabby.
The debate has concluded.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.