Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 31 May 1950

Vol. 38 No. 3

Social Welfare Bill, 1949—Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister for Social Welfare (Mr. Norton)

This Social Welfare Bill, 1949, is a relatively simple Bill and one will not find any great difficulty in following its general structure. In order to facilitate Deputies and Senators in examining the financial provisions of the Bill, a special memorandum on the subject was issued to them and I hope that the receipt of that memorandum has enabled Senators to become familiar with its financial provisions.

The main object of the Bill, quite frankly, is to clear the ground for the implementation of the wider scheme of social security which the Government intends to introduce. When the Department of Social Welfare was created early in 1947, it was then intended that that Department would deal with all the various social services, that they would be merged into one common whole and integrated in such a manner as to enable them to be administered by one Department. At that time, in fact, all the various social services were administered by different Departments and those services were all brought under the head of the Department of Social Welfare. One service, however, still remained outside the ambit of a Government Department; that was the service relating to national health insurance. That service, as the Seanad will know, was administered by the National Health Insurance Society. If one is to give consideration to the question of planning and implementing a comprehensive social security scheme it is obviously necessary that the position of national health insurance in relation to that scheme should be considered and a mere perfunctory examination of the situation will convince Senators at once that it is desirable that that scheme should be brought within the ambit of the Department of Social Welfare so that it can form part of the foundation on which it is hoped to rear a still larger and a still wider structure. It is, therefore, felt to be necessary that the National Health Insurance Society should be integrated in the Department of Social Welfare and that that integration should take place in advance of the introduction of the wider scheme of social security, so that when the Department is planning for the implementation of the main scheme it will have within its ambit the National Health Insurance Society and be able to give cognisance to the existence of that society as a branch of the Department's activities.

In other words, before any comprehensive scheme can be introduced and implemented by the Department, it is vitally necessary that the National Health Insurance Society should be part and parcel of that wider comprehensive scheme and that it should be part of the organisation on which that wider scheme will be built. This Bill, therefore, recognising that fact, proposes to take into the Department of Social Welfare the existing national health insurance service so that an efficient machine can be built up for the purpose of implementing the wider social security scheme. That efficient scheme can only be built up if at the outset we integrate that vital part of the scheme, the National Health Insurance Society, in the Department of Social Welfare and plan on the basis that in future it is to remain a part of the Department of Social Welfare. That represents in the main the objective of the Bill as far as the National Health Insurance Society is concerned. We can come to the question of the staff later.

Part II of the Bill provides that the existing position of the Exchequer in relation to national health insurance will be maintained until the new scheme comes into operation. In other words, there will be no alteration in the basis on which the State gives subventions to the National Health Insurance Society for benefits and administration and, as far as there is provision for payment by the society to the State, that position will likewise be maintained. The position by which the State pays to the society or the society repays to the State will be stabilised under the Bill until such time as the comprehensive scheme is introduced when, of course, the whole matter will come up for further review.

In Part II of the Bill, provision is made for the dissolution of the National Health Insurance Society and the transfer of its functions to the Department. Not only will the functions of the society be transferred, but the liabilities of the society will be transferred in addition. The Bill provides that not only will the society be dissolved and transferred but that the staff of the society will likewise be transferred except in two or three instances where we feel that a case for transfer, as such, is not established.

At present the staff of the Society amounts to about 600 people. These are composed of officers who are the secretary and treasurer, the clerical and administrative staff and outside these groups there are agents and other staffs. You may take it that approximately half the staff of 600 represents indoor, clerical or administrative staff and that the other half represents full time or part time agents largely part time agents in field work.

This Bill proposes to take over the entire staff of the National Health Insurance Society. Those who are pensionable officers in the society will be taken over on a tenure in no way unfavourable as compared with their existing tenure. They will suffer no reduction in salary on transfer, and, where they are pensionable, the pension scheme to which they will be assimilated in the Civil Service will be a better pension scheme than they enjoy to-day. So as far as the remainder of the staff is concerned, these part-time agents and other staffs, they will be taken over on their present tenure with not less wages or salary, and, in so far as it is possible, will be assimilated to their appropriate Civil Service grades. I may mention here that, in the case of the clerical and administrative staff taken over, that is, the entire staff, they will be assimilated to the appropriate Civil Service grade. Where you have, for example, in the society a person employed on clerical work on a salary scale which compares approximately with the scale of a writing assistant, the assimilation will be to the writing assistant grade; where a person is paid on a salary scale comparable in general with the scale of clerical officers, the assimilation will be to the clerical officer grade; and where you have persons employed by the society on scales which compare with easily ascertainable scales in the appropriate Civil Service grades, the assimilation will be to the grade in the Civil Service which is the nearest appropriate grade. So far as the staff of the society are concerned, they have these assurances: (1) that the entire staff, with the couple of exceptions I have mentioned, will be taken over; (2) those who are pensionable officers will have not a worse but a better pension scheme; (3) there will be no reduction in the wages or salaries of the staff taken over; and (4) they will, as the House will probably agree, have a better tenure by reason of the fact that they are employed by a central State authority rather than by a National Health Insurance Society liable, as it is, to undergo changes in its structure from time to time.

Another aspect of the Bill, and one with which the House will probably be concerned, is the provision in Section 21 which enables portion of the funds of the society to be invested in the purchase of equipment and premises for use by the Department, and for use especially in advance of the comprehensive scheme. It is proposed under the Bill to enable—in fact, it might be argued that to some extent the power resides there at the moment — the accumulated or portion of the accumulated invested funds of the society to be utilised for the purpose of purchasing suitable central premises which will house the staff of the Department. That purchase will be made by means of liquidating investments at present held by the society, or held by the Minister for Social Welfare or the Minister for Finance on behalf of the society, and in the Bill provision is made that, so far as the State is concerned, it will repay to the funds of the society for the use of the members of the society a sum of money not less than the sum of money which these investments yielded.

In other words, if money is utilised for the purchase of central premises for the use of the Department, that money will come from accumulated funds, probably from funds now invested in British securities, and, while the funds so liquidated for investment in the central premises will not, on such investment, secure dividends from the sources from which these dividends were previously receivable, there is nevertheless in the Bill a provision whereby the State will pay to the benefit of the fund a sum of money not less than what these investments previously yielded. That ensures that there will be no loss whatever to the funds of the society by reason of this investment procedure contemplated in the Bill. In fact, to some extent, it might be said that the funds of the society will gain as a result of the proposed purchase of central premises which are likely to appreciate in value and, in addition, the State will be responsible for maintaining the buildings purchased from these invested moneys.

At present, as any Senator who has close contact with the Department is aware, the activities of the Department are spread over a variety of offices in different parts of the city. If you want to inquire about an old age pension matter, you have to go to Lord Edward Street; if you want to inquire about a widows' and orphans' pension claim, you have to go to D'Olier Street; if you want to inquire about a children's allowances claim, you have to go to Earlsfort Terrace; if you want to inquire about a national health insurance claim, you have to go either to Upper O'Connell Street or the Custom House; and if you want to inquire about unemployment assistance or unemployment insurance matters, you may have to go to any one of three or four buildings in the city.

With the purchase and equipment of a central headquarters for the Department in Dublin, it will be possible for the Department to shed practically all these offices which are now occupied and thus make them available for use by other Government Departments where accommodation is inadequate, or the mere fact of shedding these buildings now occupied by branches of the Department may arrest the trend which has been so noticeable for many years past of acquisition of private buildings by Government Departments for the housing of staff for which no Government buildings or Government accommodation proper is available. This scheme, whereby a central headquarters will be purchased for the accommodation of the staff, should make other accommodation available for the relief of governmental congestion from the administrative point of view or should enable private dwelling-houses, now necessarily used for governmental purposes, to be handed back. So far as the Department is concerned, the intention frankly is to purchase the Store Street premises. It is hoped that that building will be able to accommodate approximately 900 to 1,000 members of the staff of the Department.

If we can succeed in accommodating that number, the other buildings I have mentioned will be available for other use. Lest any Senator might think that it is possible to accommodate the staff in the Store Street building and leave sufficient space available so that the bottom portion can be let as a bus terminus, let me say at the outset that the closest possible examination by our own higher staff and by competent architects and consultants has convinced us that there is no hope whatever to be found in any wishful thinking along those lines. It will take the entire building to accommodate the staff of the Department of Social Welfare if in fact all the staff can be accommodated within the building.

One thing is certain — there will be no surplus space available there. We will be lucky if we can manage to accommodate the entire staff within the building. There will be no spare space, and anybody who imagines that he has an easy remedy for making the building the headquarters of a public Department and a bus depot at the same time will find that that is not physically possible on the accommodation that is available there and the number of members of the staff who have to be fitted into the building. Negotiations are at present proceeding with Córas Iompair Éireann with a view to the acquisition of the building. It is intended that when the building is acquired it will be completed and adapted so far as is necessary to the requirements of this Department. We feel that no insuperable difficulty will present itself in carrying out the necessary adaptations to make the entire building suitable for the use of the Department. These are the main provisions of the Bill.

The remainder of the Bill deals with a number of technical matters relating in the main to the transfer of funds, property and liabilities of the society and for the discontinuance of certain provisions originally rendered necessary by earlier English Acts, no longer necessary once the National Health Insurance Society is integrated in the Department of Social Welfare.

A number of the sections deal with such problems as one might call the cutting out of the dead and unwanted timber consequent on the transfer. The rest of the Bill contains machinery provisions which may lend themselves to more intimate examination on the Committee Stage, though I should be happy on this stage to endeavour to elucidate any point in the Bill on which Senators feel clarification is necessary. We might get a better discussion on the detailed provisions, however, on the Committee Stage.

I commend the Bill to the House as a Bill absolutely essential to clear the ground for the preparation, introduction and ultimate implementation of the comprehensive social security scheme. I feel that the integration of the society in the Department is necessary and my predecessor, Deputy Dr. Ryan, when discussing the same problem on the Estimates for my Department in the Dáil last year, acknowledged that he himself, having examined the problem from the same standpoint, had likewise come to the conclusion that the integration of the society into the Department was desirable in advance of the introduction of the comprehensive scheme. He, like myself, realised that, having absorbed the society into the Department, one could then think of our social services as a comprehensive whole and plan in the knowledge that national health insurance was a problem which had to be dealt with by the Department in the future and not by an outside society.

I recommend the Bill to the House as something which is necessary preparatory work for the main social security scheme, as something which is indispensable to the efficient and smooth working and administration of the comprehensive scheme which will come in due course.

Mr. Hawkins

The Bill before the House is termed a social welfare Bill, but the term is somewhat misleading. I would like to draw the attention of members of the House to what the Bill proposes to achieve. It proposes, first, to dissolve one of the first social security organisations set up in this country by an Act of Parliament of 1911. If we go back to examine the circumstances of that time, we find that as a result of the passing of the 1911 Act we had a number of national health insurance organisations set up throughout the country. I think that at one time the number of societies reached the figure of 100. That was possible because the various societies could at that time make their own regulations and cater for certain sections of the workers. Some were in a position to give greater benefits than others. The time came when, in 1933, it was found that in the interests of national health insurance, steps should be taken to bring about a unification or amalgamation of all societies. Many of the societies in operation at the time were almost on the brink of bankruptcy which would be, of course, a considerable loss to the worker. Under the 1933 Act there was a re-organisation and unification of the societies and provision was made for the setting up of a board of management. That board, to my mind, was the first real attempt by the State to provide an organisation on a vocational basis. There was a representative of the Government and the Government appointed the chairman. There was a representative of the workers and one of the employers. Not alone was it vocational in that sense but it was also national, as provision was made for representatives from all over the country, from each province, to come and give their views and suggestions in the administration of the society.

The first duty we should have in discussing this Bill is to pay a tribute to the persons charged with the management of this society over so many years. By their wisdom and ability and by the manner in which they conducted the affairs of the society, they have presented us to-day with, as it were, a balance sheet which shows that over that period of years no less a sum than £6,750,000 was set aside for the purpose of making future provision for national health insurance. The suggestion will be made by some who do not understand the working of the society that it was a rather foolish policy to build up such a huge sum while at the same time giving such small benefits. That position arose from the provisions of the Act. People who thought it well to set up such an organisation as the National Health Insurance Society felt that such a society should be always in a position to cater for every insured worker. As a result, we have the position that there is a sum of £6,750,000 now to the credit of the society. I suggest that it is because that £6,750,000 is there in securities that we have the Bill that is before us to-day.

Before I deal with that aspect, I should like to dwell for a short time on the question of the present formation of the society. For some considerable time, we had in this House and through the country generally an agitation for the development of vocational organisation. Here is one organisation that was built up on a vocational basis. The Bill proposes to dissolve that organisation and to hand it over completely, to be run as part of the Civil Service. We have already taken three or four steps in the direction of a comprehensive social security scheme and the Minister's argument will be that this is just another step. I hold the view that it is a step in the wrong direction and that, if we are to have a comprehensive social security scheme, there is no reason why that scheme cannot and should not be administered by an organisation such as the National Health Insurance Society is at present. It would be a good thing if the members of the Seanad directed their attention and the attention of the Minister to the question as to whether, when we are embarking on this new undertaking, we should not first see if we can bring the persons concerned together and have them draft a scheme and direct the management of that scheme. If we could build up an organisation representative of the employers, the workers, the medical profession and social welfare organisations who are interested in the question of social security, and have them to draft a scheme of social security that will be acceptable to the people as a whole, not merely for one particular section, and have it administered by their representatives on a board of management, such as the National Health Insurance Society is at the present time, we would be taking a step in the right direction.

Senators and persons inside and outside Parliament, who have given lip service to the idea of vocationalism and who have indicated the great benefit that such a development would be to the country, have here an opportunity, under the new scheme of things, to give effect to their confidence in vocationalism.

There is the other point, that the Bill makes provision for the taking over of the funds of the organisation. We know from the White Paper issued by the Minister some time ago that the funds are in the region of £6,750,000. We know from the terms of this Bill that a considerable sum of that money will be utilised in purchasing a headquarters for the Department of Social Welfare. It seems to me to be an extraordinary thing that one very small part of all the various groups of persons and organisations and the State Departments that will be taken into this great organisation which, to my mind, will be one of the greatest industries ever established in this country, because it certainly will be housed in one of the biggest buildings in the city, should be called upon to provide the building for the Department of Social Welfare. There are the widows' and orphans' section, the old age pensions section, the unemployment assistance section, the unemployment insurance section, the childrens' allowances section. All these will be incorporated in the comprehensive social security scheme but, as I have said, only one small unit of the whole will be called upon to provide the building. It is an extraordinary thing and it is made possible by the fact that this organisation is the only organisation that has the money.

I do not propose at this stage to develop the question as to the advisability or otherwise of taking over Store Street. We will have an opportunity on Committee Stage to deal with matters of that kind. The Minister states that the money is now invested in British securities and, by the manner in which the statement was made one would think that there was something terribly wrong in having moneys invested in British securities. I would like the Minister to tell the House the amount of investments that the present Government have in British securities. Instead of statements made in what one might describe as a sarcastic manner, tribute should be paid to those people who, by their wisdom, foresight and financial ability, and through wise investments, whether in British securities or otherwise, have brought about the position for the National Health Insurance Society that there is now a sum to their credit of £6,750,000 million. We are told that the moneys now invested in British securities will be taken and invested in bricks and mortar and, as far as I can see, more in glass that in bricks and mortar, in Store Street, and that there is a guarantee in the Bill that the National Health Insurance Society will not lose one halfpenny, that by some extraordinary means, provision will be made for payment into the funds of a sum equal to the amount that the moneys now about to be invested in Store Street would gain if they remained in British securities. It is easy to make that arrangement. It is not a matter that would surpass the capabilities of the Department of Finance or the Department of Social Welfare but there is a question that I would like the Minister to answer.

We assume that in the very near future the comprehensive social security scheme will be introduced and, under that scheme, provision will be made, as outlined in the White Paper, for certain benefits to those in receipt of unemployment insurance or other allowances. These services will be made available in relation to the levies placed on the workers and the employers, and unless some very definite arrangement can be made whereby the fact that there is held the sum of £6,750,000 to the credit of the national health insurance workers and that they can get the benefit of that sum together with the record of their present contributions, then I cannot see how the fund will lose nothing. To put it more clearly, will the Minister guarantee to this House that, when the composite national health insurance scheme is in operation, there will still be in one of his offices particular record taken of the £6,750,000 that is invested on behalf of the insured workers and that there will be recognition taken of that money in making up the benefits the workers may get under the scheme as a whole?

We have had, of course, the Minister's attention drawn on a number of occasions to the fact that Dublin has overgrown. The suggestion was put to the Minister in the Dáil that he might give consideration to the removal of this Department either to Cork or Galway and, naturally, I would press forward the claim of Galway. In reply to that suggestion, the Minister pointed to some of the difficulties. I am not prepared to accept the views of the Minister that transference of the Department to the provinces would present any great difficulty at all. The Minister has said that we are dealing with human beings and not with something that can be removed at will. I admit that, but I would point out that the bulk of our institutions are staffed with human beings who have come from the country. I think that something in the nature of 80 per cent. of the Civil Service are boys and girls who have come from rural Ireland and if we are going to continue, as we have been doing since this State was established, to follow the course that the only way in which boys or girls in Ireland can get into the Civil Service and enjoy its special privileges is by spending their lives in Dublin, then we are going to foster the trend towards Dublin. When a boy or girl finds that he or she can only get into the service by coming to live in Dublin, they will do so. When, on the other hand, a father and mother wishing to put their families into the Civil Service find that the only way they can do so is to bring them to Dublin, then you are giving an inducement, not only to the boys and girls, but to the parents, to tear up their roots in rural Ireland and come to the capital.

There should be no difficulty in establishing the headquarters of the new organisation in the provinces since it is not one that will have to arrive at day to day decisions. All its functions will be set out by regulations and any person with any intelligence would be able to follow from those regulations what work he was to do and the amount to be paid in the various categories. That work could easily be done from a headquarters in the provinces and I would strongly urge the Minister that he should reconsider his decision on the matter of decentralisation, by examining sincerely and sympathetically the proposal to have this Department set up in Galway, Cork, or some of our other cities.

If the Minister is not prepared to do that, then I will put forward another suggestion and that is that he should set up a Department in each of the provinces to be responsible for the work of that province with an executive office for the Minister and his staff in Dublin. I feel sure that he could find enough Corkmen in the Civil Service to administer the Department in the Munster province and enough Dublinmen to administer the Leinster province, but I am doubtful as to whether he might find enough Connaughtmen to send there. By adopting such a course in regard to Government Departments, you would be setting a headline which would give encouragement for decentralisation in industry.

If the Minister puts forward the argument that it would be a hardship on many of the present employees if the Department was to be decentralised, I would suggest that he examine my second proposition and I am sure he will be satisfied that he could carry it out without hardship.

The Minister had placed the number of employees to be taken over as something like 600 and I take it that 300 of that 600 are employed in the Dublin office. In order to accommodate this 300, we must purchase the Store Street premises. The Minister pats himself on the back for the provision he is making in the Bill for the taking over of the employees. Every person employed, he says, will be taken over with the exception of a very few. I do not know why there should even be a very few but there may be good reasons.

When we examine the question, however, we find a grave danger that injustices may arise from taking over a private concern and making its employees civil servants. When the present employees entered the National Health Insurance Society they entered the employment of a private company. They were persons who never wished to become civil servants. I am sure that there are many of the 300 who if they had sat for Civil Service examinations at the outset or wished to become civil servants in the ordinary way would have succeeded, but they had no desire to become civil servants and they have no desire at the present time.

Mr. Norton

In fact, they leave every week to become civil servants.

Mr. Hawkins

That is, those of them who wish to do so, but we are now making provision to take them all whether they wish it or not. On what basis? I would like clarification on that point from the Minister.

They will be taken over "on completion of the period of probation and if then deemed satisfactory by the Minister". These terms do not seem to be as generous as the Minister claimed when he was introducing the Bill. He stated that every person would be taken over, that their pension rights would be guaranteed and that their position in regard to pensions would be no worse than they are at present, but I would like him to explain what will happen to persons who on completion of the probation period are not deemed by the Minister to be satisfactory—I assume that it will be as a result of a report from a higher executive officer—and are not deemed fit persons to continue in employment under the new system. The Minister, of course, will answer that this is the usual procedure in the Civil Service organisation, that there is always a period of probation, but what I want to guard against is this: it is quite possible that an employee of the society who is taken over may be given some type of work to which he was not accustomed in the past and as a result may not prove completely satisfactory to the officer in charge. That officer, naturally enough, is anxious to have the best people in his particular section and he reports to the Minister that John So-and-So is not a satisfactory person and that at the end of his probationary period he should not be kept in employment as a civil servant. What happens in that case?

Mr. Norton

It will not happen at all.

Mr. Hawkins

Why make provision for something that is not going to happen? Provision is made here and there must be some reason for inserting sub-section (b) of Section 7 in the Bill. The section reads: "On completion of the period of probation and if then deemed satisfactory by the Minister." If the Minister gives a guarantee to the House that no former employee of the National Health Insurance Society will suffer as a result of the operation of this section it means that the section should be deleted from the Bill.

Mr. Norton

They might not be taken over at all unless it were there. The Senator has not seen that side of it.

Mr. Hawkins

We will not argue. If the Minister in his reply gives more detailed information on how the section will work I will be quite satisfied.

I want to draw the Minister's particular attention to another section of the employees of the National Health Insurance Society, the agents. The Minister knows full well from his own knowledge of the country that most of the persons employed as agents of the National Health Insurance Society are not whole-time employees. In many cases they are persons who are engaged in other activities and again they are persons who never wished to become civil servants. In many instances it would not suit them in their present position to be taken over.

We have just passed a Bill through this House and every member of the House congratulated the Minister in charge on having made generous provision for former employees of estates where lands are taken over. A short while ago this House reached a unanimous decision and a Bill was sent back to the Dáil for reconsideration. It was the opinion of every member of the House on that occasion that where by State interference a person was deprived of his property, rights or livelihood or part of his livelihood then the State was under an obligation to compensate him. I would sincerely urge the Minister to give effect in this Bill to that principle which has already been accepted in the House and by the Minister for Lands. Where an employee of the national health organisation is taken over and is found unsuitable or if he is not prepared voluntarily to become a civil servant, provision should be made to compensate him, having regard to his years of service and so forth. The Minister has made a good case and has provided for the employees of the society, but it is natural that provision should be made for those persons who cannot become civil servants or who do not wish to do so and who have given long years of faithful service and took part in building up this great organisation and bringing it to the position it is in to-day.

The Minister tells us that he wants to take over every employee including the agents. I might say that I am not within my rights in discussing a Bill which is not before the House, but we are promised a comprehensive social security scheme and I should like the Minister to give us an idea now of what the functions of the person who is at present a National Health Insurance Society agent in rural Ireland will be under that scheme and what part of it he will operate. On the one hand we are told that there will be one stamp and one insurance. We must take it from that that his position will disappear with the introduction of the comprehensive scheme.

The Minister is very careful in this respect and I do not want to misrepresent him in any way. He has stated that the position of agents will not be affected for the time being or worsened in any way in relation to wages, etc. What will be their position when the new scheme is introduced? If the Minister is quite satisfied that they will have functions to serve in the new scheme, and be members of the Civil Service in the comprehensive scheme, that is all very well. But there are numbers of people in this employment who do not wish to be transferred to the Civil Service.

Mr. Baxter

The age of revelation!

Mr. Hawkins

The age of revelation has not passed yet.

Mr. Norton

Apparently not.

Mr. Hawkins

Senators might be surprised at what could be revealed before they pass from this happy land. We know the amount of this fund at the present time. I should like to know the amount now in the Pensions Fund.

Mr. Norton

£120,000.

Mr. Hawkins

I direct the attention of the Minister to another sub-section. If a person who is taken over is found not to be satisfactory, will such a person be in a position to draw a pension, or will the Minister be prepared to make provision for adding a number of years, so that he will be entitled to get something in addition to what he had already subscribed? It is only fair that we should be very clear as to what is proposed in this respect. Section 21 is a very interesting one. It states: "Payments may be paid out of the fund either in respect of expenditure by the Minister or the acquisition of lands" up to a particular date. The sub-section reads:

"A payment shall not be made under sub-section (1) of this section on or after the 1st day of July, 1954, save with the consent of the Minister for Finance."

Why the 1st day of July?

Mr. Norton

In what year?

Mr. Hawkins

1954.

Mr. Norton

I will explain now if the Senator wishes.

Mr. Hawkins

It is extraordinary how easy it is to explain, to the satisfaction of the Minister, all that is contained in this Bill. I do not wish to detain the House but I ask the Minister to give consideration to points that were put forward. As the Minister stated, we can deal with this question more fully on the Committee Stage. I should like to know what progress, if any, has been made about coming to some agreement with the British Government regarding workmen's compensation, in the case of those who met with accidents across the water. I have been approached by large numbers of people who worked in the coal mines in England, and who contracted serious diseases. Under the terms of the British Act, it seems that they are entitled only to an amount which would not sustain them in England and, at the same time, enable them to keep their homes in Ireland. They come home simply because they are not permanent residents in England and lose all benefit after six months. That is a cause of great hardship to many Irish families.

I should like to conclude by paying a tribute to those who in the past were placed in the very responsible position of managing this society, which we are now going to dissolve. In particular, I wish to pay tribute to those members of the board—including some members of this House, past and present—for their assistance. I think they did their work very well, and we can show our appreciation of the manner in which they did it when we realise that they had to the credit of the society the large sum of £6,750,000 for the Minister.

Mr. Colgan

At the outset, I want to congratulate the Minister on getting such a nice little nest-egg of £6,750,000. From his association with the Labour movement, the Minister realises that the National Insurance Fund should be disbursed in benefit to the members who subscribed to that fund. When that was suggested in the past, Labour representatives were always met with the reply that, according to the actuary, so much money should be held in the fund to cover any possible claims on it. As a trade unionist with some experience of disbursing funds, I came to the conclusion—rightly or wrongly— that the National Insurance Fund could not pay its way. As the Minister has this money now, I think the best part of it should be disbursed in benefit to the subscribers.

I was surprised to find that such a small number of people were employed by the National Health Insurance Society. I suggest that 600 was a very small number to administer the affairs of such a society and to see that the work was done there. Senator Hawkins paid a tribute to the comparatively small staff that did the work so efficiently. I wonder if the same will be said when these people become civil servants, seeing that it is notorious that in the Civil Service more people, generally, are required for such jobs. My main purpose in intervening was to suggest to the Minister that, apparently, an injustice is being done under the Bill. I know that the Minister will say, as he did in the Dáil, that those who are now employed in what was called "private employment" are going into the Civil Service, which so many people are trying to enter. At the same time, we should recognise that there are some people who cannot, and do not want to get into the Civil Service. The number is not large. These people are in the employment of the National Health Insurance Society and cannot be absorbed for some reason into the Civil Service. As there are not many involved, I suggest that the Minister should give them some option, particularly part-time officials who cannot go into the Civil Service, and that they should be compensated. The people to whom I refer will not be in a position to accept the Minister's offer to become civil servants. If these people are in that position, some consideration ought to be given to them.

With regard to the Bill itself, it was natural that this Society should be taken over. As Senator Hawkins pointed out, it had its roots in the old National Health Insurance Act of 1911. That Act was administered by approved societies in various parts of the country and it was found that some of these approved societies were getting the cream of the employable people, while others were getting what might be called the dregs—the ill-paid and ill-nourished people and consequently the people who claimed on the particular societly to a greater extent than was the case with regard to other societies catering for what might be called, within the working-class movement, a privileged class, a class in constant employment with good wages and consequently with good health.

This unified society was set up as a result of the failure of some of the societies to cope with the position in which they found themselves, and I should like to pay a tribute to the various committees doing the work of the society. The greatest tribute that can be paid to them is the fact that it has, in accumulated funds, £6,750,000 and that it has done its big job—and it is only those with intimate knowledge of the work of national health insurance who can realise the job that had to be done—with 600 persons, consisting of 300 administrative staff and 300 agents, some of them part-time. When they are being absorbed, that tribute ought to be paid to them. I ask the Minister to consider the point I have made. If he does, everybody will be happy.

Professor Stanford

I am sure the House in general is entirely in sympathy with this Bill and I should like to add my voice to that sympathy. I have been asked, however, and I feel it my duty to dwell on a certain unfortunate consequence of this Bill. I refer to what to the Minister must be a very tiring subject by this time, the decision with regard to the Store Street premises. I do not think I am flogging a dead horse here. The Minister has admitted the decision has not been entirely finished with, and, so long as there is the slightest life in that horse, I think it should be whipped in the right direction. The Minister must be pressed further on this subject and I propose to press him, in the light of certain authoritative information which I have received. This information, as far as I know, has not been generally discussed and I should like the Minister to give me his answer to it. The Minister has said that it is simply wishful thinking to say that the bus premises can be divided from the office premises. I have expert opinion to the effect that it is nothing of the kind. It is a most reasonable solution of the problem, a most reasonable compromise.

Let me quote some facts. The estimated cost of the completed Store Street bus station, that is, the basement, ground floor and mezzanine, is £230,000. This bus station is not simply a place for holding people and vehicles. It also has designs for a cinema, shops, restaurants, bars, offices, a cycle park, shower baths, barber's shops and show cases. If these were profitably let, and I am assured that they could be profitably let, they would bring in an annual income of £10,000. That is not a bad return on the sum outlaid. The offices above this bus station are almost completely separated from the bus station, and could be completely so. They are designed to hold 800 persons. They are sound-proofed and air-conditioned, so that the social servants need not be worried by the proximity of the travelling public who could still have the use of this fine bus station which they have to pay for. On the other hand, the estimated cost of the Smithfield station, I am informed, is something like £200,000. It will have no comparable revenue from concessions. In other words, we are giving away £10,000 a year. The cost of clearing the site and neighbouring streets was given in the corporation debates as £350,000, which sum includes the rehousing of 130 displaced families, but the corporation, I understand, have declared that they will bear no part of this sum. I want the Minister's confirmation or denial of these statements. I have not done the research myself, but, if they are true, they seem to me to make an overwhelming case against the decision to take over the whole premises.

Mr. Norton

I dispute every one of the figures.

Professor Stanford

Thank you. May I have details later?

Mr. Norton

The Senator is making the case.

Professor Stanford

May I have the Minister's figures in reply to mine later?

Mr. Norton

The Senator will have whatever figures I have on the matter. The main point is that we want to put a thousand people into the building at Store Street and we cannot do it if we adopt the suggestion of the Senator's advisers.

Professor Stanford

With all due deference, I suggest that 200 of these people should be temporarily placed elsewhere. It seems a most reasonable solution and I should like to press it. I should like to ask a further question. Some years ago, the Garda refused to sanction this site at a time when traffic conditions were much easier than they are to-day. Why did they change their decision? This is part of my brief and I should like to get answers to these questions. Why, on these figures, cannot the State-controlled Córas Iompair Eireann be allowed to use the Store Street bus station, which is almost finished, instead of being forced to spend a great deal more money on a less suitable building which will necessitate a five-minutes shuttle service of buses along the busy quays? On the basis of this information, I have come to a certain conclusion and to a certain degree I am asking for information. If what I have been told is wrong, I withdraw entirely. If there is truth in it, I hope the Minister will reconsider his decision. The results in general seem to me to be these: £10,000 a year will be lost right away to the taxpayers on these concessions in the bus station, which would easily be let, and large expenditure on alterations will be charged to the taxpayers in Store Street and that represents a further loss, against the loss of £10,000, though I am not sure of the figures.

Here I speak from my heart, not from a brief. The citizens of both the metropolis and the provinces will have to shiver in the wind and rain for several more years. Has the Minister, as Minister for Social Welfare, concidered all the implications of that? Again, we have just finished dealing with the Transport Bill. It is unquestionable that the efficiency of the Córas Iompair Eireann bus services will be crippled for years by this decision. Further, a work of very high artistic merit will be distorted and misused, if this goes through. It seems very unfortunate that the one great design we have had in the past ten or 15 years should be ruthlessly distorted by reason of a decision of this kind. I know that there is a great deal of feeling on the point in Dublin artistic and literary circles, and it is not a feeling to be ignored. The Emperor Augustus was wise in his day. He knew that if he wished to succeed in his policy, he should be kind to the literary men and the artists and always considered their opinions very carefully. I suggest that the Government would do well to emulate that most honourable ruler in that matter.

This is the point at which we come to the present Minister, who is specially concerned. This Minister will be housed in a perpetual monument to frustrated hopes—nothing more or less. Dublin citizens have been waiting for this bus station for some 20 years. Now when it is almost completed, they find themselves evicted. Is the Minister prepared to bear the odium of this eviction, and an eviction it is?

Mr. Norton

Surely the Senator is incorrect in speaking of an eviction? We only came into the transaction when Córas Iompair Eireann said: "These premises are for sale by us. We cannot pay for them."

Professor Stanford

I submit that the premises belong to the taxpayers. They are prepared to pay rent for what they want, but they are being put out.

Mr. Norton

Put out by whom?

Professor Stanford

By the Minister for Social Welfare.

Mr. Norton

That is absolutely incorrect and the minutes of the Córas Iompair Eireann Board will prove it.

Professor Stanford

I am speaking from the point of view of the taxpayer, not from the point of view of Córas Iompair Eireann or the Minister for Social Welfare. As I see it, the taxpayers are prepared to pay the rent for a splendidly equipped bus station, but they are being turned out. I call it an eviction. I appeal to the Minister—I do not want to annoy him; I am really a peaceable person and I know he is, too—at this 11th hour to reconsider a compromise by granting the bus station to the people of Dublin and the provinces. If he genuinely has the social welfare of the country at heart, I do not think he should begin his reform there with what amounts to an eviction—it is the turning of tens of thousands of our citizens out to stand in the wind and the rain for another three or four years, when they are perfectly willing to pay the rent. Neither principles of finance nor of architecture, nor of town planning nor transport, nor, I insist, of public health, justify this decision. It is the one thoroughly objectionable aspect of the Bill, and not one simply objectionable on Party grounds. I assure the Minister that a very wide section of the people of Ireland are indignant about this decision and I appeal to him, in all peace and persuasiveness, if I can, to reconsider this decision.

Mr. Baxter

I had no intention of entering into a discussion on this Bill as, like the Minister himself, I regard it as a simple measure. I would like to make this comment in regard to what Senator Colgan said about the very efficient work done by the very few employees of the National Health Insurance Society. The people who really ought to be congratulated on the way the work of the society was carried out are the employers. They were an efficient people, because from our experience they collected the cards and had them stamped and passed them in. We were the people, in the main, who did the work. Our respected colleague, Senator Mrs. Concannon, has a good deal of experience of the work of the society and will agree that the employers throughout the country deserve to be congratulated for the efficiency with which the board of the society carried out its work. The Minister will deal with the employees in a way that I am sure any spokesman of labour would like him to deal with employees and I think he can be trusted to do so.

As regards Senator Stanford's remarks, I felt that a great deal of that was out of order. I did not think we were going back into a debate on Store Street and Córas Iompair Eireann. I have heard a good deal about Store Street here over the last few months. I felt all the time I was listening to many Senators talking about Store Street and the hardships of the bus travellers that not one of them travels on the buses, either here in the city or in the country. I was going up and down every week on these buses and sometimes standing in the rain and cold—and I am not out of it yet—that Senator Stanford speaks of with tears in his voice. The one architect in the House who spoke on this matter some time ago did not appear to agree with the point of view expressed by Senator Stanford to-day.

As an ordinary traveller, I think it was a crazy decision to put the bus office where it was proposed to put it, right up against the Great Northern Railway Station. Anyone who ever travelled on the Great Northern Railway on the occasion of a football or hurling final knows what it would be like if thousands were trying to get to the bus office and down to the Great Northern Railway at the same time. The people who conceived that were not thinking of the traveller going to the country at all. That is my judgment on it. They saw something else. They were not thinking of a clearing house that would take people from the country conveniently by bus or rail, or they would not have had the two structures side by side.

I do not want to go over this again, as it is so much a waste of time. People can have only what they are able to pay for. If we want a great many things at the same time, we must pick and choose and pay for what is most needed. We were for years standing when there was not even a shelter along the Liffey. The shelter we have now is only a recent innovation. If we are to have something permanent in another part of the city, we have waited so long that I think our health will last the remainder of the time, please God, until we can have a structure æsthetically pleasing to the artistic taste of the people of Dublin who will not be bothered about travelling on the buses but have conveyances of their own for the city and the country, while at the same time it will give the poor traveller who must go by bus the facilities he requires.

In the case of those who come from the country in buses—and some of those people come on days when there is a big event in the city—if you want to give them real convenience, put them somewhere else other than beside the busiest railway station you have in the city. That is a slant on that problem which I had not heard anyone express before, but it should have been taken into account. I am not going into consideration of the motives which urged people to put it there, nor will I attempt to dissect or analyse the ambitions that urge them to try to keep it where it is. I believe the great bulk of the people of Ireland remain unmoved about the discussion that is centring around Store Street. If there were not some vested interest concerned, there would be much less said about it.

Mr. S. O'Farrell

It was inevitable that this Bill should be brought in, if we agree at all to the principle of social security. Since we do, we must undertake to co-ordinate the existing social security services under one control and, if possible, in one building. When I have said that, there is not much more that can be said at the moment about this Bill. It is necessary. It does what will have to be done, and I suppose it does it in the only way it is likely to be done at the moment. Already attention has been called to the fact that the National Health Insurance Society has £6,750,000 to its credit. For that £6,750,000 it is getting, as a first instalment of social security, possession of a building in Store Street. I am not in a position to judge the artistic merits of the Store Street building until it is finished. There is nothing very glamorous or gorgeous about its appearance at the moment, that I can see. When finished, it may be a very fine structure. Anyhow, it is being purchased, as the Minister says, because Córas Iompair Eireann, whether they require it or not, are not able to pay for it.

I would like just to mention the fact, for fear it would be overlooked, that the people who are buying that building are the most lowly paid people in this country. They are the sick poor who for a number of years had to live during periods of illness on very small contributions from the National Health Fund. It was not the fault of the National Health Committee that they had to do it. They were controlled as to what they would pay but I do not think it was ever contemplated, when the reserve fund was being built up, that it would be spent on the purchase of a building of this kind. However, it is being spent now, but let it be remembered that it is the building that was bought for the people of this country by the sick poor who went hungry and sick and half-naked in order to build up a reserve fund of £6,750,000. They will get much greater benefits later on, but will they get anything at all, except a building, for their £6,750,000? The higher benefits that they will get in future will be got because of the higher contributions being paid. I shall not discuss the social services further now except to say that when Senator Stanford raised the point that part of the new building, at least, could be used for its original purpose, the Minister said that they required the whole building.

I do not know what it will cost to adapt the lower portion for offices. I do not know whether it will spoil the structural appearance of the building or not. People might think I was cynical or not serious if I suggested that, since we have nationalised the transport services and are nationalising the social services, we ought to put another 6d. a week on to the payments and give free bus rides and combine all the services in the one building. That is not at all fantastic. We will get to that eventually. The State is gradually taking over everything and the more it swallows the more ambitious it will become to swallow more.

What grieves me most about the disappearance of the National Health Society is the disappearance of its board because, as Senator Hawkins has mentioned, that was an ideal, typical vocational board. On it was representation of every section of the people that were interested. It represented the whole community. It worked with magnificent team spirit. It did a very good job and, within its limitations, I do not think it made any mistakes. I am sorry that the one decent, typical, vocational organisation we had now disappears and I am wondering if some time—not now but maybe when we have all vanished also—somebody will find that vocational representation is still a good thing for this country and that some new system will be devised by which the people, the employers, the wage earners, the other classes of the public, will have representation in the administration even of the social services.

The social services now will be administered by civil servants. Every employee of the National Health Society will become a civil servant and the ironic part of it to me is that the civil servants themselves are one of the excluded classes, who will not come under the new social services. It will not concern them personally. They will regulate our lives. They will make the conditions under which we will live, whether we are sick or well; the money we will pay when we are working; the benefits we will get when idle. They will be a class apart. We will be ruled from above and, even if you carried out Senator Stanford's suggestion and had the bus station underneath, the bureaucracy would be above. With or without the bus station, you will have the bureaucracy on top all the time.

It is a pity for the whole social security scheme that there could not be some representative body, even in an advisory capacity, that would meet and discuss various problems as they would arise, similar to the National Health Committee, and that would be in a position to give advice and to make recommendations. I think that, sooner or later, we will come to the position that we ought to have that. I make the suggestion now that it may be considered.

Why do we need a social security scheme at all? Reference has been made to the way in which the employers collected the contributions, stamped the cards and handed them in. Of course they did. Without that unpaid labour, it would have been almost impossible to carry out the system. Without the way in which the shopkeepers collect the tax on tobacco, beer and other things, the revenue would not be got in. There is a considerable amount of unpaid labour in this country. But, why do we need social security? We need to provide for the people through the State because the people cannot provide for themselves. I do not know of any country in which they have to have compulsory insurance for millionaires. Anybody who can provide for himself, will; for those who cannot provide for themselves, the State must. Why cannot they provide for themselves? Either because they are mismanaging what they get or what they get is not sufficient even when well managed. They cannot save. Therefore, compulsory saving is enforced on them. The State probably feels that the employers are not paying as much towards the welfare of their workers as they might pay or that they are not looking after them in sickness or in old age as they might do. Therefore, the State insists on employers paying contributions week after week. They compel them to insure their workers; just as the State came in and compelled employers to insure their workers against accident.

It is the lack of Christian outlook and the lack of Christian dealings between employers and employees that has made the State step in and that has justified the State in stepping in. If we could do more for ourselves, if we could do more by agreement, we would be forced to do less by compulsion.

Nothing that I can say now will alter all that but it is a strange thing, when you come to think of it, that there never has been any compulsory measure adopted to induce joint stock companies to provide for the depreciation of their machinery or the depreciation of their capital or to put a sum to reserve for unforeseen contingencies. Whether they have machinery, horses, cattle, buildings or whatever they have, that is liable to depreciation or decay, they provide year after year for its replacement or maintenance. The one thing that they never provide for is the poor old human machine, which gets sufficient every week to keep it supplied with energy until the next week and which, when it rusts or decays, is thrown out and freely replaced from outside. It is because of that unChristian attitude, that is not peculiar to this country, that is not native to this country, which we have imported and adopted and kept as our own, that the State has had to come in and do the things which the State is doing, which nobody who seriously thinks about it likes the State to do but which nobody, whether he likes it or not, can do without. The State has to do it whether they like it or not and will have to do it with our social security scheme here.

The scheme may be criticised from many points of view when it comes up but the principle of the State having to step in and do the work that the people themselves ought to be doing is a bad principle and I wish we could get away from it.

I have no further comment to make on the Bill at this Stage except to say that the Bill was necessary. We will have to accept it and I only wish that the Minister, now or sometime in the future, could discover some method by which the same principles which were so successful with the National Health Insurance Committee could be continued or revived, and that we had some body of representative citizens, even in a consultative capacity, dealing with such matters as social security.

Mr. Ruane

As one who has become very familiar with the great benefits that many people enjoyed through the National Health Society, I rise to support this Bill because I feel that it will, in a way, and in time, help to increase these benefits. We all know that the financing of the National Health Insurance Society depended on an actuarial foundation, with not a great deal of regard for the needs of those people that the society was founded to help. Under a proper scheme of social security the satisfying of these needs should be a major concern. In so far as this Bill provides facilities to coordinate the various services coming within the province of the Minister and in so far as this Bill provides for facilitating that legislation to that effect I support it. As the Minister pointed out there are nine or ten offices in the city engaged in several branches of social service work. From time to time it can happen, and it has happened, that the Minister and his immediate assistants might have to be consulted on matters pertaining to claims from various sections, and I hold that having the staff housed in one building will to a great extent facilitate that work. At the same time it would result in benefits coming quicker to the people entitled to them. There has been a great deal of talk about the huge amount of money—£6,750,000— taken over by the Government.

I am inclined to feel that the people who will benefit as a result of this Bill under the National Health Insurance were not so much concerned about these millions as they would be in the possibility of getting adequate sick benefits, increased to meet the present high cost of living. Certainly 22/6 a week in sick benefit is not sufficient. I also believe that the terms under which the employees of the National Health Society are being taken over are generous and I certainly do not imagine that there is any general objection on their part to becoming civil servants. I am satisfied that the Bill is a good one. It is a preliminary to a wider social security scheme, and as such I support it.

Mr. Loughman

As Senator Ruane was speaking I could not help thinking of how arguments can be used in reverse. When we were arguing in favour of centralisation of Córas Iompair Eireann in Dublin we were told that the whole thing was foolish but now Senator Ruane tells us that it would be a wise thing to house the various Departments of Social Welfare in one building and it would result in nothing but good for the Department and for the people. It is strange how when a case is to be made it can be made both ways.

In the matter of the Store Street premises I would like to repeat what I said on the Transport Bill: that I consider the greatest act of folly that the Government could do was to take over the building constructed for one specific purpose and devote it to an entirely different purpose. I know as Professor Stanford said that people with ideas are entirely against the conversion of this buiding to anything else but a bus station. I know also that notwithstanding everything that has been said that there is a big volume of opinion throughout the country against the decision to take it over for offices. There is, particularly, resentment amongst the people who have to stand in inclement weather in queues waiting for their buses from the city and who now find that they will have to wait for another two, three, or more years for the erection of what is to be not more than a tin shack at Smithfield as a bus shelter. In the construction of the Store Street building many unique features were adopted and now we are going to change it from its original purpose. Another angle about which I am puzzled is whether when the new Industry and Commerce building was erected the Government took money from any fund for it or whether it was provided out of ordinary revenue. To take the accumulated funds subscribed for one purpose and use them for another is definitely wrong. I could understand it if the National Health Insurance Society took these moneys on their own for a building but when a Government takes power by act of the Oireachtas to use these moneys I think you are adopting a new and dangerous principle. You are going to use perhaps a million pounds of the funds contributed by the poorest people of the country and their employers for the purpose of buying a building in which to house a Government Department.

I think that is a new principle and it is one to which I object most strongly. I was not at all impressed by Senator Baxter's suggestion that the Store Street station would result in congestion especially on the days of big matches. They had to remember that these matches were played on Sundays and not on week days. I urge on the Minister to reconsider his decision to purchase this building and I would like from him more justification for his course in using national health insurance money for its purchase.

Dr. O'Connell

As one who was for a short while associated with the National Health Insurance Society as a member of the committee of management I would like to add my voice to the tributes paid to the society for the manner in which it carried out its duties. Those duties had been imposed upon it by Parliament and they were confined to very narrow limits. Reference had been made to the £6,750,000 accumulated and I would like to explain that the society was not responsible for that accumulation. They could only pay the benefits which they were allowed to pay and in so far as they could use their discretion they were always anxious to do what they could in the extension of benefits. Of course I think it is admitted that it was due to the pressure which they brought to bear on the Government that the additional hospital, dental and optical benefits were introduced a few years ago which proved to be of very great advantage.

I should like to pay a tribute to the staff. From my short association with them, I can say that every member of the staff, from the senior officers to the junior members, was most anxious to do his work and give full satisfaction. That was particularly evidenced this Spring when there was an epidemic of influenza in the city. A very big percentage of the staff had to be absent through illness and those who remained made a double effort so that there should be no delay in paying benefits to those who were entitled to them.

Although I readily admit that the dissolution of this society was inevitable in view of the proposal which is to come before us later, I must say that it is with a certain amount of regret I see a voluntary body of that kind being done away with. Of course, that tendency is growing, not only in this country but in other countries, and it is something which I personally am inclined to deplore. When a body of people are willing to give voluntary service of the kind which that society is giving it is something that should be availed of and encouraged, but the tendency is all towards centralisation and I am rather sorry to see it.

The Minister will remember that when discussions were taking place with the soicety, regarding the provisions of this Bill it was suggested— the suggestion was repeated to some extent by Senator O'Farrell—that some kind of advisory body should be set up in conjunction with the Department such as exist in conjunction with other Departments which could be called in—not frequently but from time to time—to act in an advisory capacity and with whom the Minister could consult as to large questions of policy— not details, of course. Indeed, I thought that he might possibly be able to embody some such provision in this Bill but apparently he has not seen the wisdom of that. I do believe, however, that a body of that kind would be helpful to the Minister and to the administration of the services especially, perhaps, in the interim between the dissolution of this body, its being taken over by the State, and the introduction of the comprehensive scheme. A consultative body made up, perhaps, of some of the members of the committee of management, the employers' and employees' representatives, would be very helpful.

I think that Senator O'Farrell rather over-painted the picture of the sick and hungry poor who are presenting the country with the Store Street building. If he was referring to the contributions, they were not made by the sick and hungry poor but by those who were in employment and those who employed them and the State also contributed.

I do not want to go into a discussion about Store Street as I think too much has been said about it already. The only thing I want to say is—I am talking from a personal point of view— that when I worked in the city I worked on the north side and had to cross the river every evening to get to the south side. Anyone who has experience of crossing. Butt Bridge during rush hours must wonder what would happen if all the buses from the country were coming in and out to Store Street across the quays. I think it is agreed that the site was an ill-chosen one in the first instance.

When the Minister is taking over this highly efficient staff, if there is any doubt in his mind, he ought to err on the generous side rather than on the side of pure justice. They are deserving of any consideration they can get. I believe, however, from the assurances he has given that they will be well treated.

Mr. Norton

I am indebted to the Senators for the reasonable and on the whole very realistic approach they have made to the examination of this Bill. I think that a little clarification on some points which were raised during the course of the discussion might help to remove misunderstandings and doubts which exist.

Senator Hawkins started by expressing regret that the society was being taken over by the Department. I do not know whether Senator Hawkins was speaking for his Party or expressing his personal view on the matter, but whether he was speaking for his Party or expressing a personal view I think he has only to reflect on what is involved in order to realise that you could not possibly found a comprehensive social security scheme while one vital service, national health insurance, is administered by a society and other intimately related services are administered by the Department. The existence of the National Health Insurance Society side by side with the exercise of certain social service functions by the Department of Social Welfare, would result in the continuance of all the ill-conceived and unco-ordinated schemes as they are operating to-day. It is essential, therefore, to integrate the insurance service with the other services to which they are intimately related, so that we can think of social welfare as a collective whole and arrange for a stabilised administration in the form of a unified type of headquarters control and a single record card for everybody which will cover all the services for which he is insured and a single stamp which will indicate his entitlement to benefit. That would not be possible if you had to think of the National Health Insurance Society existing as an entirely separate body, independent of the Department of Social Welfare, both functioning in different spheres of activity, one taking no cognisance of the other. Along that road lies a continuance of overlapping, a continuance of inefficiency in the matter of administration, because overlapping always produces a degree of inefficiency and a want of co-ordination which is vital if a satisfactory code of social service is to be provided for our people.

At all events Senator Hawkins will not say that I am quoting from a polluted source if I read a reference made in the Dáil on June 23rd, 1949, by Deputy Dr. Ryan, column 1341 of the Official Debates. Speaking on that occasion Deputy Dr. Ryan said:—

"It would be better to have it in before going on with the comprehensive scheme because it would be easier to start off from the new point then."

There was a frank decision by my predecessor as to how essential it was that the National Health Insurance Society should be integrated in the Department before starting to plan a comprehensive scheme. I think that by a different approach, perhaps, Deputy Dr. Ryan and myself arrived at one conclusion that will stand the test of intelligent and wise planning.

Senator Hawkins referred to the fact that we were abolishing the National Health Insurance Society with an evident loss of confidence in vocationalism. I do not want to discuss vocationalism on a Bill described as a social welfare Bill, but Senator Hawkins is acquainted with persons, here and elsewhere, who first expressed doubts as to the value of the vocational report which we received and doubts as to the wisdom of implementing it. Whatever may be said about vocationalism, I have not yet said that the commission's report was a slovenly document. I do not feel it necessary to follow Senator Hawkins into the merits of vocationalism as he sees it, or as to its demerits as seen by other people.

Senator Hawkins asked what would happen to the funds that the society accumulated. Here let me correct a statement made by Senator Séamus O'Farrell, who said that the new building would be paid for out of subscriptions of poor and hungry persons. I think on reflection he will agree that, while the phrase was rather picturesque, it hardly represents the position as we know it. It is not the sick or hungry persons who created the national health fund. It is the sick and the hungry people who draw from the national health fund. They take money out of the "kitty". They rarely put money into the "kitty". It is the vigorous and the healthy who build up the fund. In the scheme of national insurance it is the weak, the sick, the hungry and those who suffer frequent unemployment who get the bulk of the fund. The comprehensive scheme is going to end all that.

As far as the funds of the society are concerned they are now invested in Irish and British securities. If they are not used for purposes of investment in the purchase of buildings in the capital city of this country, they will continue to be used as at present. Existing legislation provides for a particular rate of benefit to be paid under certain circumstances. The very fact that these accumulated funds are there does not enable them to be utilised, as present legislation stands, to pay an increased rate of benefit. The comprehensive social scheme which will be introduced will radically alter the whole basis of sickness payments, and alter it to such an extent as almost to revolutionise it compared with the rates being paid under the National Health Insurance Act. The choice is not between giving the accumulated funds to persons who are ill to-day or utilising it for investment in buildings.

The money invested in buildings will probably not be more than £1,000,000. The remainder is there. £2.7 million are invested in British securities. We need not quarrel over the way they were invested in British securities. I am not imputing anything to anyone for investing there. The main fact is that the funds are so invested. If you look at this matter, not from the Party point of view, I think very few will contest my assertion that it is better for us to utilise our money by investing it in Irish securities in the capital city, than having it invested in Nigeria or in the land of Seretse Khama or some other dark territory in Africa. £2.7 million of our money are invested in British funds we know not where. Is it not good business to transfer some of that money for investment in Irish buildings? I think it is. If we do not utilise money for the purpose of investment in Irish buildings in the capital city, it will continue to be invested in British securities.

What we are doing is simply deciding to invest Irish money in the capital city of this country. The very fact that that should occasion surprise in both Houses of Parliament shows a degree of conservatism that has unconsciously grown into each and every one of us when we think that revolution is involved in deciding that Irish money should be invested in Irish buildings, or cannot contemplate the position in which millions of money put into British investments are, probably, invested in British buildings somewhere in some part of the globe.

There is nothing new in what we are doing. Árus Brugha was purchased out of national health insurance funds. The money of the National Health Insurance Society was also utilised to purchase the headquarters of the present society. I think it was a wise decision to purchase the building out of the funds. It has appreciated considerably in value and was one of the best investments that could be made. Not only was it a help but for years the property has been appreciating and has proved a very valuable investment. Why, if it was thought wise to purchase Árus Brugha in 1933, is it not wise to invest in the other building, or are we to look for British securities in which to invest the money? In respect to Store Street, there is no change from what was done in the case of Árus Brugha. The principle is the same, the source is the same, and I think the wisdom of doing it, in the course of time, will be appreciated.

Mr. Hawkins

On a point of explanation, I think the Minister will agree that when Árus Brugha was purchased by the National Health Insurance Society it was purchased for use. No national health society funds should be used for the purchase of any building for use by the Department of Social Welfare.

Mr. Norton

If we take £1,000,000 which is at present invested in British securities, and utilised in some part of Africa, and devote that money to the Store Street building, and get from the State here the equivalent interest lost by the transfer of £1,000,000, is it not as clear as daylight that there is no loss whatever to the national health insurance funds? In other words, if the £1,000,000 brought in £5,000 per annum through being invested in Africa, it will bring in not less than £5,000 and there can be no loss to national health insurance funds in these circumstances. This Bill specifically provides that there will be no such loss. I think we ought to lose that feeling of nostalgia which may be involved in repatriating the £1,000,000. Let us put it into an Irish building and the State will guarantee that there will be no loss whatever to national health insurance funds by reason of the transaction. Could anything be simpler, could anything be plainer or wiser than that?

Senator Hawkins spoke of decentralisation. I want to keep this discussion as non-political as possible, and I will endeavour not to be drawn into the vortex of politics into which the Senator tempted me. If decentralisation has any virtues in 1950, it had them in 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935 and every year up to 1948. There is no special virtue about it in 1950. Whatever merits it has, it had them in each of the past 18 years through which each and every one of us has lived, but nobody advocated decentralisation during that period. Now some folk have got the notion into their heads that there is some special virtue in decentralisation in 1950. Maybe there is, but those who think there is owe it to dull humanity, of which I am just a specimen, to tell us what the virtue is. So far, it has been kept a closely guarded secret by the advocates of decentralisation. The same kite was flown in the Dáil, but I could not discover a single advocate of decentralisation in the Dáil to tell me any advantages it has in 1950 which it had not in every one of the other years, nor could I discover any advantage in it at all in relation to a Department already in existence.

Some Senators have made the mistake, as Deputies made the mistake in the Dáil, of talking about the Department as a new Department. The name is new only and you do not make old wine new merely by changing the name. Other things are involved before that process takes place.

Mr. Hawkins

It is now going into a fairly large-sized barrel.

Mr. Norton

Let us examine the newness of the Department. It has been administering old age pensions for 42 years, since 1908; it has been administering national health insurance since 1911, and unemployment insurance since 1912. It has supervised a number of other functions for various periods in and about the 1920's and it is already administering about 27 Insurance Acts of one kind or another, some of which go back to 1911, so that the work of the Department is not new. The staff engaged in that work are not newly recruited. They have been working for other Departments and have been transferred to the new Department known as the Department of Social Welfare, but the staff can be said to be as old, from the point of view of tradition, as the staffs of most of the Departments and older than quite a number. It is not a case of dealing with a new Department, but a Department which has a new name, a Department which has taken over staff which have been engaged in the administration of services for 40 years, and more, in some instances. Over a period, these people have rooted themselves where-ever their work was.

What is the suggestion, so far as the Department is concerned? The case for decentralisation—and one can imagine the tug-of-war that would ensue, if it were decided that the Department should be transferred out of Dublin, with regard to where it should be located—is pivoted on the contention that the Department should be transferred to the country. What is involved in that. First, you have to get a site. There is no difficulty in the world in getting a site in any county, once you have enough money to pay for it. You can then start erecting a building, with whatever delay will be involved in it and there will be some considerable delay, but if you are going to transfer from the City of Dublin 1,000 members of the staff and put them into some town or city where that building is located, clearly you have to find immediately the best part of 1,000 houses for the staff. You cannot expect them to go into "digs," even if "digs" were available for them, nor can you permit them to be subjected to the ransoms which would be demanded if 1,000 people arrived in any Irish town or city looking for "digs" where there is a shortage of "digs."

Is there any town in Ireland in which there are 1,000 houses vacant? I understand the position in Galway, Cork, Limerick and Waterford to be that local citizens cannot get houses to satisfy their requirements. The tempo of the housing construction programme is not yet such as to enable everybody's need in the matter of housing to be satisfied speedily. Can you imagine what the effect on the citizens of Cork would be, if they were notified that 1,000 people were arriving from Dublin and that the Cork Corporation was charged with the responsibility of giving them first preference in respect of 1,000 houses, because the Department of Social Welfare was going to Cork? Notwithstanding the cordiality of the West, I venture to say that there would be a rather chilly reception for them if they arrived in Eyre Square, Galway, looking for houses.

Mr. Hawkins

They would be provided.

Mr. Norton

The houses?

Mr. Hawkins

Yes.

Mr. Norton

In preference to the local people?

Mr. Hawkins

Not necessarily in preference to them.

Mr. Norton

I think the thing is quite impracticable. Decentralisation is something which could run through all Parties, all religions, and all races. I do not think it is a Party issue nor do I think it is an economic issue. I think it is very largely a pattern and way of life in respect of which one is permitted to hold completely different views from those held by one's colleagues in the same Party. If we believe that there is virtue in decentralisation and some advantage in putting Departments in the country, we ought to have a look at the Departments and ought to select those Departments that are more akin to a pattern of country life than the Department of Social Welfare.

For instance, you might make a good case for sending the Department of Agriculture down the country. There is probably a case against it—probably the case I am making—but there is at least a better case for associating one's cogitations on live stock with the country than one's cogitations on the worst aspects of economic insecurity with the country, because economic insecurity is very largely an urban problem. One might think that the Department of Lands might be a kind of starry ornament if located in a rural area, but what I want to know is: why all the enthusiasm to locate the Department of Social Welfare in a rural area in 1950, although it is as old as other Departments and has now in hands a very big job for which it urgently requires central accommodation in Dublin? The advocates of decentralisation will have to tell the staff of the Department where they are to get 1,000 houses, assuming that the offices are transferred to the country. Senator Hawkins spoke of some of them shuddering at the thought of becoming civil servants, and I should like to get photographs of these as soon as possible, but I should like to know what their feelings would be if, in addition to becoming civil servants, they found that they were to be located in Galway, Cork, Limerick or any place in between, with all the difficulty attaching to housing accommodation at present. I am not going to try that on them and nobody is their friend who advocates it.

Senator Hawkins raised the question of probationers and what is to happen to persons who are probationers in the National Health Insurance Society and who will be transferred to the Department as probationers. Firstly, we intend to take them over, even though they are merely probationers. So far as certifying them is concerned, it will be largely done, while they are probationers, by the same class of officer who does the certifying at the moment. Clearly, it will be necessary for somebody to certify them. It is done under the National Health Insurance Society at the moment, and the task will be no more arduous, and the imposition no more onerous in satisfying that requirement under the Department of Social Welfare, than it is under the National Health Insurance Society. I assure the Senator that these people will be taken care of, and by a solicitude that will even embarrass them, from the point of view of looking after their welfare.

Mr. Hawkins

I take it that it is only persons who are in the probation period now we will really be concerned with.

Mr. Norton

Yes, and there is only a handful.

Mr. Hawkins

All right.

Mr. Norton

Senator Hawkins dealt with the question of compensation and suggested that there were certain people in the National Health Insurance Society who did not like the idea of becoming civil servants. I met all the trade unions catering for the staff of the National Health Insurance Society, and not one of them produced any such human specimen to me. That was not a worry at all. One person did murmur that there were certain difficulties about it. I said: "I will meet you by not making you a civil servant: what do you think of that"? There was a long silence, until somebody came to his aid, and relieved the tension which it obviously involved. I do not think it is true to say that a lot of these people object to becoming civil servants. I imagine that Senator Hawkins, and other Senators here, as well as Deputies and Ministers, are frequently besieged by people, all of whom want to get into the Civil Service by easy roads. I think that if you could show them where that easy road was, so as to facilitate their entry, they would regard you as something in the nature of a public benefactor; but, really, the scene of a person struggling against being made a civil servant is a bit too touching and, I suggest, Senator Hawkins knows that, as well. The best test is to advertise to-morrow for 1,000, and see the job you will have opening 10,000 envelopes. On this question of pensions, I took this line—it is a new line, I will concede—but, I think, it is a human line. We might have pushed some of the staff of the National Health Insurance Society out of office, and out of employment, saying "We do not need you under the new scheme; you can go. You will get pensions; we will fix the terms of the pension; and you can go and find another job for yourself then".

I think you can carry that notional kind of reasonableness altogether too far. It has never been an easy job for people of 40, 45, 50 and up to 60 years of age to get alternative employment when they lose their employment. These are the people who find it impossible, having lost the job in which they were employed for a goodly number of years to rehabilitate themselves in other employment. I think it is just the dead end of misery to put into the pockets of these people, either a lump sum which they will spend imprudently, in a number of instances, in a very short time, or a rate of pension which is not capable of giving them the standard of living to which they were accustomed, when in regular employment. I think we can overdo this question of pensions. I think it is far better economically, morally and psychologically, that instead of putting people out of employment, and wastefully giving them pensions for doing nothing, that we ought, instead, try to keep them in employment with guarantees that will induce them to stay. What am I doing in this Bill? Senator Hawkins referred, I am sure, inadvertently, to the provision made in the Land Bill and the Transport Bill for people who lose their employment. Nobody is going to lose his employment under this Bill and, to that extent, it is a unique Bill. No Bill like it had appeared before the Oireachtas in the last 28 years. Nobody is going to lose his employment. I am going to take over the entire staff of the National Health Insurance Society, except one or two technical people. An entire staff is being taken over, and nowhere in the Bill is there a single provision giving me the power to terminate the services of any one of those people on grounds of redundancy. I am not asking for that power. I am saying to the staff "Come over, we will take you." We are taking them over on a guarantee from me, and a guarantee from the Government, that their salary will be not less than it is to-day; their tenure will be not less; in fact, it will be better because they are now being employed without the slightest risk, and where they have a title to pension it will now be better than the pension they would have got. On top of that, they are coming into a service in which conciliation and arbitration machinery is operating and where they can, if they have a grievance, at any time, go to the arbitration board to get it determined. I am doing that, on the one hand, and I am divesting myself of any power to terminate their services through redundancy, on the other hand. Does any Senator know of any Bill that came before the Seanad in the last 25 years with these characteristics? I do not. We are not a wealthy empire and we have not unlimited resources. We have got a limited amount of wealth, and a limited standard of living, which can be better when we develop it more.

We cannot well afford the luxury of having a kind of embroidered pension class, created merely out of the caprice of people who want to retire merely because their employer changes. They have now got a better employer. Is it better that young lads of 25, 26 and 28 should be permitted to retire from the National Health Insurance Society, get a lump sum or get a small pension, and immediately proceed to believe that they are veterans and pensioners at that age. We have carried that game too far altogether, and I think it has a pretty bad effect on the whole moral tone. I, certainly, am not going to perpetuate it in this Bill. I am saying to these people: "Here is decent well-paid employment for you; here is a guarantee that your salary or wages will not be reduced; here is a guarantee that your tenure will be as good as the tenure you now have; you are being asked to work for the Parliament of the Irish people, and you ought not get pensions if you refuse." Remember I have divested myself of the power to render them redundant, on the other hand. I think it will be admitted that the people concerned are getting a very fair deal. I do not know of any other class which is getting a better deal or has ever got a better deal than the staff affected by this Bill. Senator Colgan raised the question of compensation for those who cannot come into the service. I think I have dealt with that in what I have just said now. I think there is this risk, that somebody who is urgently in need of money, that malady that can affect a large section of the Irish people, and the human race, might discover that you could easily get your hands on £300 or £400 by disliking the Civil Service. It is startling the speed at which they could dislike it, until they get the pensions. and they would bewilder themselves afterwards by the speed at which they spent it. Remember, the only reason they want to get out of the Civil Service is that they want the pension. It is not dislike of the Civil Service. It is affection for the pension. We want to be mature enough to draw a line between a natural human affection. money that is badly needed, and a dislike of the Civil Service about which they know very little, and which their own brothers and sisters would be very glad to get into, and get into it without pensions.

Mr. M. Hayes

I take it the Minister may conclude, as this is the end of our business?

Agreed.

Mr. Norton

Senator Stanford raised very contentious issues, which I do not think were really germane to the Bill and I do not want to put myself in the position of being ruled out of order by you, Sir, by following him deeply into the paths which he has chosen to tread this evening. I do not know who Senator Stanford's mentor is in regard to the brief which he has in respect to the Store Street bus depot but I suggest to Senator Stanford that he is not a very reliable one and, as he remained anonymous, I do not hurt him personally by saying that. What Senator Stanford must understand is that if Córas Iompair Eireann wanted the Store Street premises, they could have the Store Street premises. The Store Street premises are being bought by the Department of Social Welfare because Córas Iompair Eireann say they do not want it. If they did want it they could keep it. Córas Iompair Eireann have said that they do not want it. What does Senator Stanford suggest? That I should say to Córas Iompair Eireann: "Please, you must keep this. It is a grave mistake on your part"? Am I to plead, on behalf of the shivering passengers, with the directors, and some well-paid directors, to discharge their own functions, namely, to provide accommodation for passengers? I only came into this matter when Córas Iompair Eireann said they did not want the building. I think the decision was prompted because they could not pay for the building.

Professor Stanford

As a matter of fact, I was speaking for the taxpayer and the social welfare of the nation.

Mr. Norton

I am glad Senator Stanford was speaking for the taxpayer but I can find him a little audience on which he could work off his pleas on behalf of the taxpayer. I do not want again to go into the muddled affairs of Córas Iompair Eireann. Heaven knows, they have been hawked up and down the country ad nauseam in the last few months. It is true the Córas Iompair Eireann decided to build a £1,000,000 bus depot. When they had gone a certain distance, they discovered, just as in the case of the £1,000,000 hotel in Glengarriff, that they could not pay for it.

They could not pay for the £1,000,000 hotel in Glengariff and they could not pay for the bus depot. Like everybody who is confronted with a situation like that, they said "We cannot buy it. We have to abandon it." It is because they decided to abandon it that I came in to buy it, and then only because of the fact that the Department of Social Welfare wants a central headquarters in Dublin. We are being allowed to buy it because Córas Iompair Eireann want to sell it, because Córas Iompair Eireann have the property on the market. If Córas Iompair Eireann wanted to keep the bus depot, they could have kept it, but they would know that they had to pay £1,000,000 when the job was finished and they had not got 1,000,000 shillings. What, therefore, was the use of buying a £1,000,000 bus depôt, when they had not 1,000,000 shillings?

Professor Stanford

The Minister knows very well that the taxpayer is going to pay for both these buildings now.

Mr. Norton

No. There is no use in trying to make the thing more confused than it is. What is going to happen is that we will invest £1,000,000 of moneys, which are already invested, in the purchase of Store Street premises.

Professor Stanford

You are going to lose £10,000 a year revenue and involve the taxpayer in another £1,000,000. If the Minister were speaking in terms of the taxpayer, I would find him very much more convincing than when he is speaking in terms of two Government organisations.

Mr. Norton

Let us suppose that we do not buy the Store Street premises. What is the position? Córas Iompair Eireann has spent probably £200,000 or £300,000 in carrying the premises to its present position. They have no money to finish it. I do not know of anybody else who wants it. Córas Iompair Eireann's £200,000 or £300,000 will have been poured into the sea.

Professor Stanford

I am sorry to interrupt the Minister. The citizens of Dublin want it and the taxpayers of Ireland want it.

Mr. Baxter

They do not believe in it.

Professor Stanford

I think they do.

Mr. Baxter

That is entirely wrong.

Mr. Norton

I do not want to go into the question as to whether Smithfield or Store Street is the more suitable for bus premises.

Professor Stanford

A bird in the hand against two in the bush.

Mr. Tunney

You could not get into Store Street with the buses, in any case.

Professor Stanford

I shall not interrupt again.

Mr. Norton

I am not objecting. The truth of the matter is that if we do not proceed with the intention of purchasing this building it will remain a gaunt rookery along the quayside. Is not that so? Nobody can deny that. I know that someone wrote a letter to the paper the other day in which he said that the place was built as a functional and aesthetic whole, whatever that is. I do not know. I am sure I will be in the goodly company of Senators if I confess that I do not understand what that means in terms of bricks and mortar. But people who want to go in for——

Mr. M. Hayes

Functional aestheticism.

Mr. Norton

——"functional and aesthetic wholes" on the quayside in Dublin ought to make sure that they have a chequebook and sufficient money in the bank to pay for them. Unfortunately, the authors of this functional and aesthetic whole, who are located at Kingsbridge, had a passion for the arts, apparently, but, as often happens with arty people, they had no money to pay for it. I have to leave those responsible for that muddle to the mercies of the taxpayer, because I think the taxpayers in this business have got a very raw deal. The taxpayers ought to know who gave them the raw deal.

Senator O'Farrell and Senator O'Connell raised the question of an advisory committee in connection with the National Health Insurance Society. The present position is that the National Health Insurance Society has a kind of advisory committee, representative of three elements: employers, employees and trustees appointed by the Minister. That committee has functioned satisfactorily. I would like to add my words of appreciation to the tributes which have been paid to the committee for excellent work and for the care and solicitude they have brought to bear on the task of administering the National Health Insurance Society. That applies not merely to the present committee. The National Health Insurance Society has in fact been blessed with a succession of intelligent and sagacious committees which have meant much to the society in evolving the smooth machinery which exists to-day.

One has to remember, however, that there is no such advisory committee in the case of unemployment insurance, widows' and orphans' pensions, or old age pensions. It is only in respect to that particular social service that the committee exists. Now the intention is to weave these separate parts into a common and integrated whole and, in that connection, the question may arise as to whether it would be desirable that some kind of committee should be set up through which the point of view of the insured contributor might be conveyed to the Minister for the time being, or a committee to which matters might be referred from time to time for their views, before administrative action would be taken.

I have sympathy with the idea of a committee but I would have more sympathy with the idea if we had a comprehensive scheme actually in operation and running smoothly from day to day. One difficulty that might arise with such a committee is that, when you start off, if you have 200 or 300 regulations, which would be necessary before the scheme could come into operation, and if you had to get the committee's sanction to that number of regulations, quite clearly, the implementation of any scheme which was related to approval of the regulations would be held up. If the scheme were going and you were dealing with some similar number of regulations which you found from week to week, then a committee of that sort would be easy in such circumstances. I am favourably disposed to the idea of such a committee but my difficulty is as to what its functions might be. As Senator O'Connell knows, I have already undertaken to consider the matter at a later stage. I do not think it would be practicable to consider it in connection with this Bill as I cannot see how you could have one service controlled by a Department with a committee such as the National Health Insurance Committee in an advisory capacity and not having it dealing with the other social services in the Department. I think if you must have a committee, you must have one responsible for advising on all integrated services.

Mr. S. O'Farrell

I am glad the Minister is considering the possibility.

Mr. Norton

The National Health Insurance Society asked me to see them on that matter and I told them I was sympathetically disposed to such a committee and would have the matter examined. I am less concerned about the principle of the committee than about its functions. It is a matter of trying to devise some functions which will be useful in enabling the committee to make a contribution to every phase of the social service scheme. It is only a matter of devising its precise functions.

Mrs. Concannon

In the matter of the agents, I would like the Minister to say what they will be known as in the future and what role they will play. It seems to me in the comprehensive scheme many of these agents would be no longer required and surely theirs is a case for the payment of compensation.

Mr. Norton

As Senators are aware, I propose to take over the full-time and part-time agency staff of the society. I propose to provide work for each and every member of that society and each week he will continue to get his pay. So far as his livelihood is concerned, there will be no change. I would say that in the matter of work, for the first year of the comprehensive scheme there will be employment in the work of investigating claims for benefit and securing the evidence on which the claims are based. As the scheme develops, it may and will be possible to evolve a system of organisation which might result in benefit to these agents. The organisation will so develop that in particular areas you could find full-time work for particular part-time agents.

Mrs. Concannon

What would the agents be described as under the new system?

Mr. Norton

They would be primarily national health insurance agents employed in the Department of Social Welfare. I do not think they are so much concerned about their nomenclature as they are about their wages envelope and I can assure you that these will be no less than they are to-day.

Question put and agreed to.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

When is it proposed to take the next stage?

Mr. M. Hayes

Perhaps the House will agree to take the next stage next Wednesday. We thought it could be taken next Wednesday week but the Minister will not be available then, and I have spoken to the other side on the possibility of taking it next Wednesday.

Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, 7th June, 1950.

The Seanad adjourned at 6.20 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 7th June, 1950.