Although the objects of the various provisions of the Army Pensions Bill, 1946, are quite simple in themselves, their legal description is, perhaps, somewhat complicated, so I propose setting out section by section the meaning of each:—
Section 1 is, of course, the definitory section.
Section 2 abolishes the restrictive clause of the 1923 Act whereby dependents of deceased pensioners cannot receive allowances unless the pensioner died within four years after receiving the wound for which he obtained the pension. The Act of 1923 provides allowances for the total dependents of deceased pensioners, subject to the condition that the pensioner died solely from the wound in respect of which he was in receipt of a pension, and also subject to the restriction that death ensued within four years from the date of the wound. In the 1927 Act and later in the 1932 Act the condition remained but the restriction was removed, so that the dependents qualified under the 1927 and 1932 Acts, no matter when the death occurred, provided it was due to the disablement for which the deceased had been receiving a pension. There is, therefore, a disparity between the provisions of the 1923 Act and those of the 1927 and 1932 Acts and a recent case has brought to notice the injustice of the restriction. As far as I am aware, the case referred to is the only one involved at the moment, but about 15 cases may be affected in the course of time.
Section 3 deals with the question of double compensation in respect of the same death or injury. Under the Act of 1923, if a person be entitled to a pension, allowance or gratuity under the Army Pensions Acts, and if that person receives from an independent source compensation for the same death or injury, then the Minister in fixing the amount of pension, allowance or gratuity may take into consideration the compensation awarded. Recently, we have been advised that, as the Acts stand, we may take such compensation into consideration before the grant is made, but if the pension, allowance or gratuity be awarded and paid before the compensation is awarded, then we cannot take the compensation into consideration or alter the grant in any way. This leads to the anomaly that the claimant whose award of compensation is known beforehand suffers in comparison with the person who does not disclose that an action is pending or that compensation has been received. The section, therefore, provides that, in making the award of pensions or allowances, the Minister may have regard to any compensation granted in respect of the same death or injury even if that compensation be granted after the award of pension. In other words, it empowers the Minister to review his original award.
Section 4 provides an increase of pension for married men with children. Before the emergency, the maximum basic pension for men was 26/- a week, with an extra 5/- if the man was married. Under the 1943 Act, this rate was increased for emergency personnel to 42/- a week with an additional 10/- in the case of a married man. For officers, the pre-emergency rate related the pension to a percentage of their pay. The 1943 Act prescribed £120 a year as a minimum for all commissioned ranks and raised the married pension from £20 to £30 a year.
When the 1943 Bill was before the House, it was criticised on the grounds that the rates did not differentiate sufficiently between married men with and without children, and it was suggested that the money made available should have been allocated so as to make provision for the disabled man with children. Recently, the Government decided to make more money available for pensions and it has, therefore, been decided to use it to help those soldiers with families. The Bill, therefore, proposes that the maximum basic pension should remain at 42/- a week for men and that, if the pensioner be married, he should have a choice of either the old rate of 10/- a week, irrespective of children, or of the new rate of 7/6 a week for his wife and 4/- a week for each child. For the married man without children, the old rate is more favourable, but, if he has even one child, the new rate will be better by 1/6 a week, and by another 4/- a week for every child after the first. For the married officer without children or even with one child, the old rate is the more favourable, but, if he has two children, he will benefit under the new rate by £10 6s. 0d. a year and by £10 8s. 0d. a year for every child after the second.
The Bill gives this choice of rates to every married person in receipt of an emergency period pension who was enlisted or commissioned before the passing of the Bill, but not to those enlisted or commissioned thereafter, and such persons will be entitled only to the new rate.
Sections 5 and 7 deal with the same problem: that of the Army man who, on discharge, received a wound pension or gratuity for disablement incurred during his service, and who, on subsequently re-enlisting during the emergency, contracted a fresh disablement. There are four such cases but only three have, so far, been investigated. In these three cases, the pension in respect of the second disablement cannot be paid because, under Section 20 of the Act of 1927, no pension or gratuity could be granted to any person to whom a pension or gratuity had previously been granted. As this is, obviously, unjust we are remedying the defect, in Section 5, in cases where originally there was a wound pension in existence, and, in Section 7, the other cases where a gratuity was originally granted. The Bill provides that, where an old wound pension exists, it will merge in the new pension, and, where a gratuity was received, if the fresh disablement be due to disease and reaches the minimum degree necessary, the man will receive a disability pension, and, if the new disablement be due to a wound, the man will receive a wound pension or a gratuity, according to the degree of the disablement.
Section 6 deals with the case of officers who, having been discharged medically unfit, obtain a personal pension but who, though married, cannot receive a married pension because of the fact that, immediately before their discharge, they were not in occupation of married quarters or were not in receipt of lodging, fuel and light allowance. This allowance ceases when an officer has been absent on sick leave or has been undergoing treatment for a period of 12 months. After that time and for a further period of six months, he receives half his normal rate of pay without any allowances. It can happen, therefore, that an officer is discharged after 18 months' sick absence and, as he was not in receipt of lodging, fuel and light allowance at the date of his discharge, received a personal pension but was not entitled to a married pension. If he died from the disease in respect of which he was drawing a pension, his widow and orphans would not be entitled to any allowances under the Army Pensions Acts. It seems unjust that both the officer and his dependents should be thus deprived because of a technicality in the Acts, and, in Section 6 of the Bill, steps have been taken to remedy this defect.
Section 8, 11 and 13 merely extend the date of applications for wound and for disability pensions, and for the dependents of deceased persons. Under Section 8, the date for the dependency applications will now be 12 months from the death of the soldier, or before the 1st January, 1947, whichever is later; that for wound pensions, under Section 11, will be 12 months from the date of the soldier's discharge, or before the 1st January, 1947, and that for disability pensions, under Section 13, within four years of the soldier's discharge, or before the 1st January, 1947.
Section 9 is an administrative matter and deals with the payment of travelling expenses and subsistence allowance to applicants under the Army Pensions Acts. Section 21 of the Act of 1927 and Section 20 of the Act of 1932 restrict the payment of those expenses and allowances to claimants who attend before the Army Pensions Board in Dublin, because both Acts contemplated that all claimants would be examined by the board in Dublin. Last year, however, it was found necessary in the interests of the many persons claiming under the 1943 Act to appoint pensions medical officers throughout the country so as to expedite the determination of claims. By means of these medical officers, all claims outstanding in Cork, Limerick, Clare and Kerry were cleared, but we were unable to re-imburse the expenses of the claimants. Section 9 has, therefore, been introduced to enable us to pay such expenses and thus to expedite the determination of claims.
Section 10 relates to the dependents of deceased Army personnel, that is dependents such as parents, grandparents, brothers or sisters as distinct from widows and orphans who are already provided for under the Act of 1927. The Acts of 1923, 1927 and 1932 distinguish between total and partial dependency. Where a person was wholly dependent on a deceased person an annual pension, technically called an "allowance", was granted, but where the dependency fell short of total, it was deemed to be "partial", and a capital sum, called a "gratuity", was payable. The amount of the gratuity varied with the degree of dependency with the result that some dissatisfaction was caused by the award, and it was decided in the 1943 Act to drop the term "partial dependent" and to introduce a new category of dependency, called "main dependency", which provided for a reduced annual allowance in such cases. We were advised, however, that to establish main dependency, a person's income from all sources should be less than the contribution made at the date of his death by the soldier to the dependent, and this had the effect of operating against the majority of claimants. There seems, therefore, no alternative but to revert to the old scheme of gratuities, and Section 10 of the Bill, accordingly, distinguishes between three types of dependency— whole, main and partial. For wholly dependents it provides an allowance of £52 a year in the case of a deceased officer and £26 a year in that of a deceased soldier, and there may be granted as many allowances as there are total dependents: for main dependents, the allowances will be the same, but there will be only one allowance even if there are many main dependents; for partial dependents there will be a gratuity to one or more dependents, but the gratuity or gratuities payable may not exceed in the aggregate a sum of £112 10s.
Section 12 deals with ex-members of the Forces who were discharged suffering from tuberculosis but who failed to obtain a pension, because the disease was regarded by the Army Pensions Board as not being attributable to service. About 1,000 men have to date been discharged from the Army medically unfit whose disability was then or subsequently diagnosed as tuberculosis, and about 415 have applied for pensions; of these, 300 have been awarded pensions but over 100 failed because their condition was not regarded by the board as attributable to service. While it may be urged that many of these men were physically fit when they joined the Army, and that, consequently, their condition on discharge must have been due to service, the fact is that when they were being recruited in 1940, the medical authorities had to examine the thousands of men who were responding to the national call. They were, therefore, under considerable pressure, and, apart from that, had not the necessary equipment to carry out final tests. They had to rely on a general clinical examination with the result that many men who were actually suffering from disease were unavoidably passed medically fit. However, as far as tuberculosis is concerned, we are now making a genuine effort to deal with it in Section 12 of this Bill.
Section 14 concerns the extension of special allowances. The Act of 1943 dealt with the special problem of men and women who fought during Easter Week, 1916, and who are incapable of self-support by reason of age or permanent infirmity of mind or body. It has been urged that a case exists, though not, perhaps, with the same degree of urgency, for the extension of this allowance to all persons in receipt of pensions under the 1924 and 1934 Acts. If the allowance be extended from the 1916 category of pensioner to the general pre-Truce class, we shall have at some stage representations for the extension of the allowance to persons who can prove effective though not pensionable pre-Truce service.
For that reason, the Government has decided to deal with the whole problem now instead of doing so by stages and, in reaching that decision, they were influenced by the fact that under the 1924 Act the board of assessors reported membership even when there was no active service and, therefore, no pension; while under the 1934 Act, the Referee confined himself to the active service aspect exclusively, so that many members with good service but short of active service received no acknowledgment of the part they had rendered in the struggle. The Bill, therefore, in Section 14, provides that the allowance may be granted to any person incapable of self-support by reason of age or permanent infirmity of mind or body who has been awarded a medal for continued membership of three months ending on 11th July, 1921, of the various Forces set out in the 1932 Act. This proposal, therefore, may to a certain extent solve the problem often raised in this House of doing something for men who are incapable of self-support, and who are not in receipt of pensions although they may have rendered good service to the country in the struggle for independence.
Section 15 is intended to speed up the administration of the Acts. As the Acts stand at present, every application for a pension or gratuity, however unmeritorious it may appear, must be referred to the Army Pensions Board, unless it is obviously frivolous. This means that many claims which do not fall within that category but which, nevertheless, have not prima facie any chance of succeeding must be referred to the board, and this, in turn, involves travelling expenses of the claimants and cost of maintenance and investigation in hospital. In Section 10 of the Act of 1943, the Oireachtas empowered the Minister not to refer an application for an allowance to the board where he was of the opinion that the investigation by the board was not necessary for the purpose of enabling him to decide whether or not a grant should be made. All that is sought now is to extend similar powers to the Minister in claims for pensions and gratuities as distinct from dependents' allowances and the applicant will not be prejudiced by the proposal because, if he appeals, his case will be sent to the board.
From this brief outline of the principal features of the Bill, Senators can see that it is an enabling Bill in the truest sense of that term. It improves the conditions of those already in receipt of pensions, and it extends the pension code generally to persons hitherto not within its ambit. For that reason, I feel sure it will receive the approval of this House.
