I greatly regret that I cannot give my blessing to this Bill. This is the first occasion on which I have spoken in this House on a controversial measure, so it may be as well to explain my own outlook on these matters. It is that we, in this Second Chamber, ought to state the truth as we see it without regard to whether or not we gain thereby any access of popular favour. I am very glad to know that there are many members in this House who have the same viewpoint as myself on that point. The reason I cannot swell the chorus of praise is because of my concern for social reform and for the betterment of the poor. In view of the enconiums tendered to the Minister during the past few days, this may seem somewhat of a paradox but I shall hope to resolve that paradox a little later.
I am in very general agreement with Senator Tierney's point of view, though by no means on all points. I, certainly, do not intend to express myself so trenchantly as he did. I was wondering which I admired more, the Minister's introductory speech on the Second Reading of this Bill in the Dáil, because of its sheer ability, or the sphinx-like impassivity he was able to preserve during Senator Tierney's philippic—or perhaps I should say his poker face. Possibly, he was secure in the knowledge that this Bill, without substantial change, is certain to take its place on the Statute Book.
One further point before I come to my main objections. I was reminded of it by one of the remarks made just now by Senator Ruane. I think that any claim advanced here by a Senator that his point of view is in accordance with the teaching of Catholic sociologists is a mistake. It merely leads to cross-disputes between people who take opposite points of view on a particular measure as to which of them is the true interpreter of the sociological standpoint of the Catholic Church. Senator Tierney commenced by correcting—if I understood him correctly— what he said had been alleged, the view that the provision of children's allowances was in accordance with Catholic teaching. He had no particular difficulty in showing that it was not, except as a palliative. Senator O Buachalla takes the opposite point of view and Senator Foran—quite legitimately—also takes the opposite point of view. Senator Ruane has reinforced what Senator Foran said. They are all entitled to their opinions. This whole business is likely to be somewhat disedifying and I think it is better dropped. People like ourselves can study to the best of our ability, and do study, the Papal Encyclicals and articles by leading Catholic sociologists here and in Great Britain and America and we can make up our minds, as responsible Parliamentarians, what we think is really the truth on a particular issue before the House and state it. The actual authority behind our opinion is, I think, best left alone.
Now, I come to the Bill. We are living in very abnormal times and conditions will, certainly, not get better within the next few years. I should think it must be admitted that there is no immediate necessity for the Bill. In other words, if the Bill were not introduced, if this social reform, admittedly desirable in normal times, were left alone, we would get on as we are getting on at the moment. I fail to see that there has been any substantial public demand for it in spite of what Senator Campbell said last night and what Senator Ruane said this afternoon. What I should like to know is: what are the future demands on our finances by means of post-war schemes for employment, and so forth, likely to be? Senator O Buachalla told us that the State is not a bottomless well. We shall have a great influx of migratory workers to this country after the war from Great Britain. We shall have a considerable demobilisation of the Army. We do not know what our position will be in regard to importing the raw materials for our essential industries. When I say that "we do not know", I mean that nobody can tell at the moment how all these different factors will impinge on our financial economy. It is quite certain that private finance will not be able to bridge the gap between abnormality and normality in this country. The gap will have to be bridged by schemes undertaken by the Government and financed out of taxation. The extent of that financing nobody yet can tell. Therefore, I think it would be prudent to save up for the rainy day. Even when we shall have done all we can do in the post-war epoch to provide for employment, there will still be a hard core of unemployment, a certain modicum of destitution, that will need an increase of our existing social services. Therefore, I should plead for caution in this matter of State expenditure which is not absolutely essential at the moment.
My second point is that, owing to the war, it is not possible to make a proper statistical survey of other schemes. As the Minister told the Dáil, provision for children's allowances is in force in several countries. So far as I have gone into the matter, I do not think that there are more than a couple of countries where there is neither a means test nor a contribution from the worker. At any rate, the Minister referred in a cursory manner—he could do no more—to the countries that had these schemes and he admitted his inability to give details because of the conditions prevailing. One of the important details would be details of administration. Senator Sweetman raised that question last night. He asked what part of the £2,250,000 it was estimated would go in administration. We do not know, but it is certain that new hordes of officials will be created under this Bill. I myself was an official once and I regard all officials as parasitical. A figure of £2,250,000 was given us. That is a respectable figure. But the cost may be very much more. Our existing social services cost £10,000,000. At one swoop, on one social service alone, which is not necessary at the moment and may be of doubtful value, we are going to spend 25 per cent. more in these abnormal times.
With complete candour and honesty, the Minister gave the Dáil specimens —only specimens—of the taxation that would be necessary—income-tax, 1/- in the £; tobacco, 1/- per lb.; tea, 2d. per lb.; sugar, ½d. per lb.; beer, 1d. per pint. Taken together, these taxes would produce £2,250,000. Part of this would be direct taxation, but the greater part would, I think, be indirect. If you increase direct taxation beyond a certain point, you are going to constrict employment. We have already had certain companies complaining of the corporation profits tax. The Minister for Finance, in his last Budget speech, said that to maintain the corporation profits tax at its existing level would have a hampering effect on the expansion of our native industries. Similarly, in regard to income-tax. I think that it is true to say that the more you increase direct taxation beyond a certain point, the less employment you are likely to give. Our salvation in the future will lie in our being able to give employment to as many of our people as we possibly can and in having as few of our people as we possibly can on these social services. Indirect taxation will, of course, bear more heavily on the poor than on anybody else because the poor cannot stand it as the middle-class can. We have comparatively no rich in this country.
What is the object of the Bill? Nobody has maintained that it is the encouragement of large families, as was the object of similar legislation in other countries. The Minister himself —again with complete candour—told the Dáil that it would not, in his opinion, encourage large families. It was assumed by the Minister, and universally assumed here, that it would alleviate poverty. I am not so sure of that. I, certainly, think that it is a matter for demonstration. Take the case of a man with three children who is just above the poverty line. He gets no benefit under the Bill, but, in view of the indirect taxation he will have to pay, he will be somewhat worse off and may be driven below the poverty line.
A man with four children who is just short of the income-tax level will get a benefit. I do not know how many such men there are in this country; it is a matter of statistics. The man who is just above the income-tax paying level will get some benefit, but it will be inconsiderable.
The Minister referred to a number of countries where these schemes are in operation. Some things of interest may be said about two of them, Italy and New Zealand, with which I happen to have some personal acquaintance. In Italy, the National Fund for Family Allowances, as it was called, was founded in December, 1934. It was the direct result of the establishment in the same year of the 40-hour week. The 40-hour week would benefit the unemployed because it spread-over the available quantum of labour, but it was particularly injurious to heads of families with dependent children. The family allowance, when established, was intended to supplement the wage of those working a 40-hour week. Benefits were confined to heads of families employed in industries working a regular time schedule of that number of hours—40 hours a week. The fund was established by a contribution from all workers equal to 1 per cent. of the gross wages paid and the contribution from all employers was equal to 1 per cent. of all wages paid. It was restricted to industrial workers.
A very striking point about all social reform is that you cannot stop once you start. You must go on, and that applies just as much in a dictatorial country as Italy was before the fall of Fascism as it does in a democratic country. As was said by Jefferson:
"human nature is much the same on both sides of the Atlantic and will be influenced by like causes."
A very true saying. Senator Tierney can put that alongside his quotation from Pindar. We do not know very much about Pindar, or whether family allowances were paid in Thebes!
To come to Italy: only 18 months after that law had been promulgated, that is to say in July, 1936, the scope was considerably extended. It was made compulsory to include all industrial workers with children under 14 years of age, whatever the duration of the working week, whether 40 hours a week or greater, as in the motor factories in Milan and Turin. The allowance was fixed at 4 lire per week for each child under 14. Additional funds were necessary and the employers' contribution was supplemented by a grant from the State but the employees contribution of 1 per cent. remained. In the last year for which I can get figures, 1938, the total annual expenditure was 344,000,000 lire of which the employers' contribution was 215,000,000 lire, the workers contribution 86,000,000 lire and the State contribution 43,000,000 lire. The astounding fact is that in the case of a Great Power such as Italy was before her downfall, the State was paying a family allowance of 43,000,000 lire which I suppose, at the rate of exchange, would be slightly under £2,000,000, whereas this small country with its not potentially rich population, is going to pay £2,250,000.
I now pass to New Zealand. I happened to be in New Zealand when the family allowance question was before the public there, a few months before the General Election of 1938. It was first introduced in 1926 and was known as the Family Allowance Act of 1926. There was no popular demand for it. The Coates Government (Conservative) was then in power but was about to go to the country. In competition with the Labour Party, as usual, certain promises were made, one being that the Family Allowances Bill would be introduced; so that this particular chicken came to roost when the Coates Government got in. There was very little public discussion in the House of Representatives, but such as it was I read it. It was mentioned that the object was to encourage large families. As Senators know New Zealand is a country five-sixths the size of Great Britain and yet has only the same population as this State. The Act provided for an allowance of 2/- per week for children under 15 years of age in excess of two children where the total family income of husband, wife and children did not exceed £4 a week. During the debates Mr. Martin Savage, Leader of the Labour Party, and afterwards Prime Minister, a grand old Irishman, whom I knew personally, said that Mr. Coates and his friends had stolen the idea from the Labour Party. That is rather like what we have been hearing during the last few weeks when this Bill was before the Dáil. Mr. Savage said that 2/- a week was not enough, and he was in favour of 10/- a week, not very unlike Senator Mulcahy's suggestion that there should be a marriage allowance. All the Parties during the debate said that they had thought of it first. "Codlin was the friend, not Short." In other words, they were putting the State up to auction, as happens in so many democratic countries. One can find the counterparts in the New Zealand debates of Senators Mulcahy, Foran, Campbell and O Buachalla.
Senator O Buachalla—who, if I may say so, is a Senator with whom I am glad to know I have much in common—made a somewhat inconsistent speech. He pleaded—and pleaded very movingly—for certain things to be done: capes on the L.D.F. model to be provided for children and shoes for the barefooted. I think he hoped the time would come when the allowance might be made available for every child and not for every child exceeding two. He also said that he hoped a contributory scheme might come later on, but he pointed out that the coffers of the State were not a bottomless well. It is the universal experience in modern government that, when the State has provided some benefit, it cannot modify that benefit adversely, still less take it away. Every additional service given merely whets popular expectation and any attempt to cut it down is met with anger and dismay. Let me make my point clear. If the times were normal, if the war had not occurred or if we had sailed through the difficult post-war period and were in calm seas again, I would be in favour of a Bill of this kind, with certain modifications, a Bill that I would be sure would benefit the people I want to benefit, namely, the children of the poor. For reasons I have given, I do not think I can support this one. Senator Sweetman said the Minister must have statistics about other ways of spending the money. I doubt very much if he has. This Bill is, to a large extent, a leap in the dark.
Two things are of paramount importance for this country. One is the establishment of a Ministry of Reconstruction. I do not want to pay fulsome compliments, but I have no doubt in my mind that the proper man for the job is the Minister listening to me now. So far as I can see, whatever thought is being given in Governmental and Civil Service circles to the very vexed problem of reconstructing this country from the bottom up when the war is over is being done in piecemeal and disparate fashion. At any rate, so far as the public is aware, serious plans are not being prepared now. If they are being prepared, this House and the Dáil should be made aware in outline of what is going on, so that responsible men here and outside can contribute their quota of knowledge and help. In some countries, notably Canada—which is at war, and we are not—the Prime Minister, Mr. MacKenzie King, said that the times demanded something more than the Civil Service could give, and he made a public appeal. He is getting men who were earning thousands of dollars a year and they are working for a mere pittance for him, for patriotic reasons. I feel that similar appeals from Mr. de Valera would assemble what was called a Brains Trust when President Roosevelt first came into power after the Wall Street slump, when everything was going west. President Roosevelt gathered around him some of the best brains in business life. What is needed in this country is more business in Government and less Government in business.
The second thing I would like to see here is a commission on social welfare —not an inter-Departmental committee, but a commission. It could be somewhat on the lines of the commission which has been sitting for some years on vocational organisation, except that this commission would be asked to do its work very much more expeditiously, because of the urgent necessity of the times. Such a commission would include social workers, and persons of distinction in every field— in business, in the professions, in the Civil Service, and they would survey the whole field of social welfare and social reconstruction and see what could be done and where and how best to do it. The terms of reference might include this matter of allowances for children. My point is that the Ministry of Reconstruction which I have envisaged would be able to plan more clearly—and more clearly still, as time went on—exactly what could be done in regard to people employed. The other side, the commission on social welfare, could proceed pari passu with that in the exchange of information and see what employment the State could give, and stimulate industry to give, so that the poor should get no poorer but that poverty should be alleviated.
I was struck by what Senator Campbell said last night—I am sorry he is not here now—that he and others preferred to see people fend for themselves without Government assistance. That is largely the sentiment which permeated Senator Tierney's more trenchant speech and, in that respect, I am in full agreement with them.
I come now to some points of detail, in regard to this Bill, which will only take a moment or two. I have read the Bill with extreme care and I think it is admirably drafted. Once you grant the premises that there ought to be children's allowances on this basis, the Bill itself seems to have provided for most contingencies and loopholes. Section 3 is somewhat diffuse and, when the Bill is printed as an Act, will probably run to six or seven pages, which is rather long for one section; but I do not see how it could be broken up conveniently. Section 11 (1) deals with the repayment of children's allowances overpaid and provides that, if allowances have been paid to which a person is not entitled, he is liable to repay them. It goes on: "or, in case such person is dead, the personal representative of such person". I do not want to over-emphasise this point, but I feel that, when a man dies, his delicts should die with him. The amount covered in one year by that particular phrase would be trifling and possibly the Minister might consider dropping it altogether. Supposing a man dies and there has been fraud, misrepresentation or honest mistake by him or by the Government, is it worth while pursuing it as against his personal representatives? As I have said, I do not wish to make too much of that point.
Section 19 has been briefly adverted to already by Senator Sweetman. I had better quote the section in full:
"(1) If in any respect any difficulty arises in bringing into operation this Act, the Minister, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, may by Order do anything which appears to be necessary or expedient for bringing this Act into operation, and any such Order may modify the provisions of this Act so far as may appear necessary or expedient for carrying the Order into effect.
(2) No Order may be made under this section after the expiration of one year from the date of the passing of this Act."
Some such provision is undoubtedly necessary and exists in other Acts. Years ago—I think it was the first year the Minister was in office—I remember his defending a section of that sort from the chair where he is now, in connection, I think, with the Unemployment Insurance Bill. It was necessary because you could not quite foresee all the snags or pitfalls that might arise. Senator Sweetman expressed the hope that nothing vital to the Bill would be altered in that way. It is unreasonable, and certainly not in accordance with the best Parliamentary tradition, that an Act of the Oireachtas should give carte blache to the Government to make an alteration without reference back to Parliament in any form and without Parliament's formal knowledge. I know that this is only for 12 months, but an Order made within 12 months will not necessarily be brought before us and, at any rate, it will be a permanent alteration in the law. That, I think, is not desirable and I propose to put down an amendment for the Committee Stage roughly on these lines, that any such Order should be laid on the Tables of both Houses and shall be subject to the annulment provision, and also that any such Order shall have validity only for 12 months after the passing of the Act. My object there is that, while I do not want to do anything to incommode the administration of the Act by the Minister and his staff, on the other hand it seems to me that my proposal will safeguard Parliamentary tradition. What would happen if such an amendment were passed would be this: that some time, perhaps in nine months—at any rate some time before the end of the 12 months' period—a Children's Allowances (Amendment) Bill would be introduced and the whole matter would come before both Houses and, dealing as it would with mere matters of administration, it would not meet with any great opposition—certainly not from myself. With regard to the Statutory Rules and Orders that will be made by the Executive, under Section 20, I have a strong feeling that there should be a provision to ensure that they will be laid before each House of the Oireachtas, with the usual provision as to a possible motion for annulment within 21 sitting days.
