This is the Bill by virtue of which the Army is retained in the coming year. If it is to be retained as a satisfactory Army, it is essential that its personnel be satisfied and happy and not feel that they are labouring under any injustice. It follows, too, that not only must the present personnel be satisfied and happy but they must be satisfied and happy in regard to the precedent created by the way in which their former comrades have been treated. I want to refer to two net issues on this Bill, as I think that as long as the men who have left the Army recently have a grievance, it will not be possible for the present personnel to be as happy and as satisfied as they should be and as every member of this House would wish them to be.
Early in 1945, the Government decided on demobilisation and issued a White Paper showing what was in their mind and showing their intentions. The White Paper indicated, amongst other things, that the Government proposed to dispense with the services of those who had been in the Army for a sufficiently long period to qualify for full pension rights. That was indicated quite clearly in the White Paper. Following its issue, an order was given — whether by the Department or by the Chief of Staff I am not in a position to say, and I do not think it makes very much difference—to commanding officers to explain the White Paper to the men under their command and in that explanation to advise men to whom this demobilisation referred to get out of the Army as soon as possible. They were instructed to advise them to seek civilian employment as soon as it was possible so to do. Presumably, those commanding officers were so instructed for two reasons — first of all, so that the men concerned might be set up in civilian employment, and, secondly, so that, once the need for their retention had passed, the State could avoid the burden of paying them and keeping them in the Army itself. Without any question, that was a very wise, a very prudent and a very proper instruction to give to commanding officers. It was carried out, and the Government, of course, were fully aware that it was so carried out. Demobilisation was quite deliberately arranged in various stages so as to ensure that, in its impact on ordinary civilian life, there would be the least harm done and it would be dealt with in a gradual way. Again, that was an entirely proper thing to do.
Then suddenly came an entirely new decision. The men with the initiative, with the ability, with the drive and foresight, with the desire not to be a burden on the State any longer than was necessary, had left the Army in pursuance of the instructions and orders given to them and had got civilian employment; but the people who were left there to the very end, who had not taken the advice given to them by the Government through their commanding officers, were the people who came in and, because of the Government decision, got the increased pensions. The Government decided that only the people who were in the Army after the 1st September, 1946, would get pensions at the increased rates. I suggest that that was a gross injustice, after the Government had advised people, in the national interest — and very properly so — to get into civilian employment as soon as possible. Any person who left the Army as a result of those instructions, who resigned before he was bound to do so, should be treated just as well as the people who stayed on until the last moment and did not heed the instructions given.
In consequence of this, there have been very grave injustices indeed in the pensions which have been granted. I suggest it would be only fair play for the Government, even at this late hour, to decide that in regard to the increased rates of pension there should be a retrospective clause, so that those pensions would be payable in respect of anybody who resigned after the date of the White Paper. Those who did what they were told, what they were asked to do, should not be penalised for having carried out the instructions. I do not propose to weary the House with exact details as to the amounts involved, but it may be taken very roughly that at least a 25 per cent. loss is being suffered by those men by reason of their having carried out the instructions and orders given to them.
It would have been better if the increased pensions had been announced at the same time as the White Paper but, perhaps, it would have been impossible to correlate the two. However, since it has been done in that way, I appeal to the Minister and the Government to remedy this injustice, to ensure that those men who went out readily to do what they were asked to do, to seek employment in civilian life, may not be penalised, for that is the way they are being penalised.
I want to refer to another matter which appears to have caused some very considerable confusion and dissatisfaction. There appears to be great difficulty in understanding the way in which the boards for disability pensions under the Military Service Pensions Acts operate. Time and time again, members of both Houses of the Oireachtas have brought to their notice cases in which men have been discharged from the Army as being physically unfit and when they are heard before the board it is found that their disability does not arise from Army service during the emergency. I fully appreciate the medical difficulties; I fully appreciate that for a board to arrive at a decision in respect of illness is entirely different from the problem that is before that board if it is to consider the disability arising from wounds; but I would suggest that the approach is wrong.
We understand that during 1940 a great many people were taken into the Army very quickly and, therefore, perhaps they did not get the severe medical examination which would have been possible if their entrance to the Army were not coincident with the high pressure of Army work in those difficult days of 1940.
There have been cases in which long-term soldiers during the emergency suddenly got ill. These soldiers as a result of that illness were declared physically unfit and were discharged from the Army on that basis. Then when the medical board came to examine them, they were told that it could not be shown that their illness arose out of service during the emergency period. I have before me one letter from the Minister's Department dealing with the case of a man who joined the Army in 1924 and who, during the course of his service, was examined by a medical board on numerous occasions. During his service he got frequent recommendations for sports and other feats calling for physical fitness. During the manoeuvres of 1942 he got pleurisy. Up to that time, he had never been sick in the 18 years of his Army service, but having got pleurisy in 1942 on Army manoeuvres, his health began to fail, and finally in May, 1946, he was discharged as physically unfit.
I am not a doctor but I find it very difficult to understand how it can be alleged that a case such as that — there are other cases which I have heard of myself and of which I have heard other Deputies and Senators speak — did not arise out of Army service. It all appears to turn on the fact that it is essential for the soldier himself to prove that his disability arose out of service during the emergency period. These men joined the Army when they were required, they joined in the hour of the country's need and I suggest it is entirely wrong that they should be put on this very difficult matter of proof. The proper way to approach the situation where a soldier is discharged from the Army because he is physically unfit is to grant him a pension unless the State is able to prove that his disability arises from some reason outside his Army service, in other words the burden of proof should lie on the State. It would be the duty and the job of the State to show that if a man did become unfit he was not entitled to a pension because the disability did not arise out of his service. The onus of proving that would be on the State instead of being, as it is at present, on the soldier concerned.
Certainly, judging from what I have heard in respect to these claims and the manner in which demobilisation is carried out, I think I can say that if a similar emergency were to arise in future, some of these people would hesitate before stepping into the breach, knowing that they were going to be treated again in the way that they have been treated in the past. There is a considerable number of cases in which I suggest injustice has been inflicted and I think the House should suggest to the Minister that these injustices require to be remedied as soon as possible.
