Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 4 Jun 1952

Vol. 40 No. 18

Social Welfare (No. 2) Bill, 1951—Second Stage.

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

Minister for Social Welfare (Dr. Ryan)

One of the two Bills which I have brought to the Seanad, the Social Welfare Bill, 1951, falls into two main divisions. The first of these divisions — which comprises Parts I to IV inclusive — is devoted to two main purposes: (1) to secure the long-awaited co-ordination of the various existing schemes of social insurance, thereby providing an effective framework for their more rational development from time to time in accordance with contemporary needs and the nation's resources; (2) to provide the increased and uniform contributory benefits during sickness, unemployment and widowhood which have been my aim since the establishment of the Department in 1947.

The second division of the Bill, Part V, is concerned with the implementation of the Government's decision, announced by the Minister for Finance in his Budget statement, to increase the rates of pensions for the aged, the blind, the non-contributory widows and orphans; to modify substantially the means test in favour of applicants for such pensions; and to improve the rates of unemployment assistance, at the same time introducing radical changes in the structure of the scheme, all of which are advantageous to recipients and designed to apply to unemployment assistance the general pattern of the other social welfare schemes.

The second Bill — which deals with children's allowances — implements the Government's undertaking, also announced by the Minister for Finance in his Budget speech, to raise the level of these allowances and to make provision for a payment in respect of the second child in every family. At present, as the House is aware, allowances are payable only in respect of the third child and all subsequent children.

The increased benefits, pensions and allowances provided for in these two Bills are to be paid as from dates varying from the 25th of the present month to the first few days of July, the respective days being chosen for administrative convenience, and all of them being the earliest by which it was possible — with the generous cooperation of both Houses — to get the legislation enacted.

Before mentioning the cost of these measures, I may be permitted a brief digression. It is not without some pride and satisfaction that I would remind Senators that when Fianna Fáil first took office in 1932 the Exchequer expenditure on all social welfare schemes amounted to £3,250,000 and that by the time we left office in 1948 the Exchequer contribution had advanced by £8,000,000 to £11,250,000. During that period, the unemployment assistance scheme was introduced, for the first time, in 1933; both contributory and non-contributory schemes for widows' and orphans' pensions were added to the social services in 1935; wet-time insurance— a service not to be found elsewhere, as far as I am aware — was brought into operation in 1942; the scheme of children's allowances was established in 1944; several miscellaneous welfare schemes commenced during those years, such as free or cheap fuel for necessitous households and free or cheap footwear for needy schoolchildren; and many improvements were brought about, from time to time, in the scope and the standards of the benefits under the various services, old and new.

When Fianna Fáil resumed office in 1951 they found that the annual Exchequer expenditure on the social welfare schemes had been advanced during their absence by £1,500,000 to £12,750,000. My Act of last year, to increase old age and blind pensions and to relax the means test, added a further £750,000 to Exchequer costs and the two Bills now before you will advance the State's direct liability by £5,750,000 to £19,250,000 in the present financial year. In the coming financial year, throughout which the new schemes will be in full operation, the Exchequer will carry a burden estimated at £21,250,000. Of that vast annual total £16,500,000 is attributable to measures sponsored by Fianna Fáil Governments — £8,000,000 prior to their departure in 1948 and £8,500,000 since their return a year ago. It is our telling answer to critics who themselves merely maintained, over a term of ten years, services inherited from the British régime at an annual cost of £3,250,000, and, during three and a half years of Coalition Government, added only £1,500,000 to the State's contribution towards the needs of the less privileged sections of the community.

So much for the cost to the State of the Bills now before you. Under the Social Welfare Bill, however, workers within the scope of the contributory schemes will also contribute something towards their cost, as will also the workers' employers. The present combined contributions of employers and workers to existing insurance schemes total about £4.1 million annually. There will be slight increases in the rates of contribution but not until October next, although the improved benefits will be made available, at the expense of the Exchequer, as from the beginning of next month.

The higher contributions from employers and workers should bring up the revenue from that source by about £700,000 to £4.8 million per annum. Of that £700,000, only about £250,000 or £300,000 will fall on the workers. Adding this revenue to the State subvention of £21,250,000, the total expenditure on the insurance and assistance schemes affected by the present Bills will amount to £26,000,000 in the coming financial year. If I were to add, also, the cost of miscellaneous social welfare schemes administered by or under the supervision of my Department, amounting to a further £1,000,000 per annum, it will be seen that £27,000,000 per annum will be the grand total in the first full year (next year) in which the new legislation will be in operation.

Before proceeding to the main proposals in the Bills before you, I should like to say a little about the numbers of persons who will financially benefit by them. The 160,000 old age and blind pensioners who gained by the Act of last year will again benefit by the further increases now proposed. The further relaxation of the means test, for which provision is made as from the commencement of next year, will bring in about 4,000 new old age pensioners. Health insurance beneficiaries average about 33,500 each week, and they will benefit not only by the increase of the basic benefit to 24/- weekly as from the beginning of next month, but those who have dependents will, for the first time, benefit by the receipt of an additional 12/- weekly in respect of a wife and 7/- weekly in respect of each of two children. The estimated number of claimants to unemployment benefit at the beginning of next month, when the new and better rates will commence to operate, is approximately 21,500.

When the Employment Period Orders are not in operation (i.e., as from October), the number of recipients who will benefit by more generous rates of assistance will be about 36,500, and the number to benefit right away (i.e., from the 25th of this month) will be about 23,500. There are almost 17,000 widows under the contributory scheme who will benefit as from the beginning of July. over 11,000 of whom have no children, the balance having one or more than one child. Under the non-contributory scheme, increased benefits will reach about 27,800 widows, of whom about 4,500 have one or more than one child. The number of orphans who will benefit exceeds 1,000. The introduction, as from next month, of a children's allowance of 11/- monthly for the second child will bring in almost 62,500 children, thus benefiting that number of families which at present do not receive any allowance. Over 147,000 families will then receive increases of the allowances which are already being drawn in respect of over 490,000 children.

Under the Children's Allowances Bill alone, therefore, over 500,000 children, distributed over 210,000 families, will benefit. These figures do not lend themselves to totting, as, of course, there are some persons who benefit simultaneously under more than one scheme. Without making any allowance for that consideration, however, it may be taken that approximately 800,000 individual benefits will be favourably affected by the measures now before you, and that is without including in the reckoning the number of wives and children who will attract additional allowances to the benefits payable to the sick and unemployed, or the children who will add to the pensions of widows.

There is no need to pause for long over the new rates of benefit provided by the Social Welfare Bill as these are clearly set out in its Third Schedule. They are, in the case of sickness and unemployment, 24/- a week for a man or a woman, except a certain class of married woman, 12/- a week extra being payable for a dependent wife, or a woman having the care of dependent children, and 7/- a week for each of two children. Thus, a man with a dependent wife and two children will henceforth receive 50/- weekly as compared with the present 35/- weekly during unemployment and as compared with the present 22/6 weekly during sickness, the present sickness benefit being reducible to 15/- after six months. Similarly, the contributory widow will receive 24/- weekly and 7/- weekly for each of two children. Orphans' allowance will be 10/- weekly, without the existing distinctions, for widows' as well as orphans' pensions, between employment in urban and rural areas and between agricultural and non-agricultural employment. Those discriminations are being removed by the Bill.

In regard to the new rate of 24/- a week for widows, I should say that under existing legislation there are three different rates—12/6, 14/- and 16/- a week. Since by far the greatest number of beneficiaries under the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Acts are widows without children, my proposal represents a very considerable improvement as compared with the present position. I find that at the end of last December, of 16,600 recipients of contributory pensions, over 11,300, or almost 68 per cent., were widows without children who were in receipt of either 12/6, 14/- or 16/- weekly. Of the balance — composed of widows with children — about 3,800, or 23 per cent., were in receipt of pensions of various amounts from 18/- to 28/- a week.

The increases in these cases will, in some instances, be as much as 16/- a week and, in all cases, not less than 8/6 a week. A further 1,200, or 7 per cent., will also receive increases. Thus, of the total widow beneficiaries, the proposal means an increase in pension for about 98 per cent.

There is a marriage benefit of £10 for female employed contributors. Maternity benefit comprises the existing lump sum maternity grant of £2, payable on the husband's insurance or on the wife's assurance or on both qualifications, and a maternity allowance of 24/- weekly for 12 weeks, payable on the woman's own insurance. Treatment benefits——hospital, dental, optical and the rest — will, for some years to come, continue as heretofore, subject to a maximum expenditure of £500,000 which the Exchequer intends to provide without charge on the insurance fund or on the contributions of workers and their employers.

I had hoped to produce a coordinated insurance scheme which would not involve any or much increase in the existing workers' and employers' contributions, and I think that I have come fairly close to achieving that aim. Take, first, the case of the ordinary male-employed contributor. He now pays 1/11 weekly, and his employer pays 2/-, i.e., 3/11 between them. I shall require 5d. extra from the man and 4d. extra from his employer. In other words, there is a one-sixth increase of contribution in exchange for participation in an insurance scheme so improved that expenditure on benefits under it will be more than double present benefit expenditure. In the case of the ordinary female-employed contributor, who at present pays 1/2 weekly, the Bill provides for a contribution of 1/4—i.e., an extra 2d. weekly. Her employer now pays 1/10, and there, too, an extra 2d. weekly is required.

I suggest to the House that these increases are as near to nothing, and as near to my promise not to add unavoidably to present levies on workers and employers, as any reasonable person could expect. They iron out certain long-standing disparities in the financial bases of our insurance schemes; they impose no heavy burden on industry or the worker; and, leaving out of consideration the £500,000 to be provided by the Exchequer for treatment benefits without any change on other contributors, they succeed in placing the insurance schemes, as a whole, on the basis of equal contributions of one-third from the State, the employers and the workers respectively.

I should say, however, that there is one other important departure from this principle of one-third division between State, employers and workers. I have naturally tried to keep down the number of special categories of workers because they create a corresponding range of contribution stamps of various denominations. There will be general agreement, however, that men working in agriculture should receive the same treatment during unemployment and sickness as their brethren in non-agricultural industry. The Social Welfare Bill assures that to them, but the decision to create equality of benefits presented me with considerable difficulty because, it would be impossible to expect the average farmer and the average farm worker each to pay 2/4 weekly when at present they pay only 10d. and 9d. respectively, as their weekly contributions for insurance purposes.

While making provision for full ordinary benefits for farm workers, I have provided for extremely low contributions from the farmer and agricultural worker, i.e., 1/3 weekly from each, which is only 5d. extra from the farmer and 6d. extra from the man. This has been done by imposing a heavier charge on the Exchequer in respect of this class, and it is, if you like, a further subsidisation of agriculture. Instead of contributing an equal one-third with employers and workers, the State has, in respect of this group, undertaken to contribute four-sixths as against the farmers' one-sixth and the male agricultural workers' one-sixth.

So much for the contributions, which are set out in the Second Schedule to the Bill. As to the scope of the insurance provisions of the Bill, I need only say that, in a country such as ours with so many smallholders constituting so large a part of our main industry, it is almost impossible to achieve comprehensiveness. No scheme-which does not include the self-employed within its scope can be regarded as comprehensive. After considerable deliberation, I came to the conclusion, embodied in the Bill, that there should be an insurability ceiling of remuneration at a rate not exceeding £600 yearly. This is an advance of £100 on the existing ceiling of £500, which I introduced in 1947 to replace the then existing limit of £250 per annum. There is power taken in the Bill to, in effect, exclude or partially exclude certain classes of workers, such as civil servants, officers of local authorities and so on, who already enjoy benefits comparable to those provided by the national insurance scheme.

Part V of the Bill deals with the non-contributory pensions schemes for widows, orphans, the aged and the blind. The provisions relating to widows and orphans follow the pattern of the contributory side of the scheme, and here, again, substantial improvement is being effected. The present rate of pension for a widow without children is 14/- a week in an urban area and 10/- a week in a rural area, as compared with 20/- a week, irrespective of area of residence, under-the Bill. In this instance, of the 27,000 beneficiaries about 22,000, or almost 82 per cent., are widows without children. These, together with a further 4,000, or 15 per cent. (that is, a total of 97 per cent.), will receive increases of 6/- or 10/- a week. Just under 99 per cent. of all beneficiaries will receive some increase in pension.

The means test for widows' non-contributory pensions is very considerably relaxed. Under present legislation a widow will obtain a maximum pension only if her means are less than 7/- a week, or £18 4s. a year. If her income is from personal exertions she receives an additional income exemption of 10/- a week. If she had children she is entitled to an additional exemption of 4/- a week for an only child or 8/- for two or more children. As from the 2nd January, 1953, under this Bill the £18 4s., together with the other exemptions applicable to the particular cases cited, will be replaced by a means scale under which the maximum pension will be payable if means do not exceed £52 10s. per annum, or just over 20/- a week.

The proposals relating to widows' non-contributory pensions contain another feature, namely, the very large measure of co-ordination which has been achieved between that scheme and old age and blind pensions. The relaxation of the means test has made it possible to apply practically identical rules for calculating means. These rules are contained in the Seventh Schedule.

I come next to that important portion of the Bill which relates to old age and blind pensions. Firstly, I ought perhaps to recapitulate briefly what was done last year for old age pensioners by the Social Welfare Act, 1951, which became law on the 17th July, 1951. That measure brought about an all-round increase in old age and blind pensions — increasing the maximum weekly rate from 17/6 to 20/- and providing for increases of 5/- and 2/6 down the scale. Five shilling and 7/6 pensions were increased to 10/-; 10/- and 12/6 pensions were increased to 15/-; and 15/- and 17/6 pensions were increased to 20/-. The raising of the upper means limit from £52 5s. to £65 5s. a year provided for a new class of pensioner at 5/-. Certain other concessions were given to the small farmer class, and to persons getting disability and similar pensions and charitable grants.

Provision is made in the Bill for a very generous further easing of the means test. The lower limit, which is at present £22 2s. 6d. a year (8/6 a week), for the receipt of full old age or blind pension of 21/6 a week, is being raised to £52 10s. (£1 a week). A person who has £1 a week income from other sources (when all deductions to which he may be entitled have been made) will now be able to qualify for the maximum 21/6 old age or blind pension, instead of 10/- as heretofore. The upper limit is being raised from £65 5s. (25/- a week) to £104 15s. (£2 a week), and persons with income of over 25/- and up to £2 a week, as duly calculated under the Acts, will qualify as from the 2nd January, 1953, for a 11/6 or a 6/6 pension. All existing old age and blind pensioners at the 15/- and 10/- rates will have their pensions increased to 21/6 and those at the 5/- rate will go up to 16/6, as from the appointed day. Some 14,000 existing pensioners will benefit by these increases.

The Bill provides for the pension officer reviewing every existing pension in his area and adjusting it to the appropriate new weekly rate, to take effect as from the appointed day. It will not then be necessary to follow the usual procedure of submitting questions for adjustment of pensions to local old age pensions committees, and this reviewing procedure will effect the adjusting to the new rates more expeditiously than would be otherwise possible.

The Bill also amends the residence test by reducing the aggregate period of necessary residence in the State from 30 years to 15 years and by providing for five years' continuous residence up to the date of claim instead of the existing requisite of 16 years' residence after age 50 years in the case of a non-citizen. The period of residence after age 50 in the case of a citizen is reduced from six years to five years. The amendment is meant to bring the Acts more into line with modern thought in the matter of discrimination against aliens in countries subscribing to the views of the Council of Europe. The residence provision in the case of blind persons is being similarly amended.

The Seventh Schedule provides a codification of the existing provisions of the Old Age Pensions Acts (and the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Acts) as regards the calculation of means, with some adjustments and concessions brought in, to the advantage of the claimants. For example, the exclusion of home assistance in the reckoning of means is now given legal effect. Any sums received under any other of the social welfare codes will no longer be reckoned as means. Under the Old Age Pensions Acts, as at present in force, only grants from defined charitable organisations, up to a yearly maximum of £52. 5s., are excluded from a person's means. The new rules provide that a voluntary grant from any source up to the same maximum will be excluded in the calculation of means.

Chapter V of Part VI of the Bill deals with unemployment assistance. The Minister for Finance, in his Budget speech, announced the decision of the Government to increase unemployment assistance when the food subsidies are reduced in July. As a number of amendments in the Unemployment Assistance Acts were needed to give effect to this decision, I decided to use the opportunity not only to implement the Government's decision, but also to bring some sort of order into the present unwieldy unemployment assistance code.

At present there are four different unemployment assistance areas—(1) county boroughs and the borough of Dún Laoghaire, (2) urban areas with over 7,000 population, (3) urban areas with 7,000 population or less and (4) all other areas — with a different rate of unemployment assistance applicable in each area. These four rates of unemployment assistance are again divided up into numerous categories depending on the number of dependents, etc., of the claimant, so that, in all, there are at present in operation 128 different rates of unemployment assistance. My proposals in Chapter V will reduce the number of areas to two by combining (1) with (2) and (3) with (4) and will reduce the number of different rates from 128 to 12—a considerable simplification. The reduction in the number of rates from 128 to 12 has been achieved by restricting payments in respect of dependency to one adult dependent and to the first two children in the family as in the insurance part of this Bill.

The new rates of unemployment assistance set out in the schedule in Section 97 will mean substantial increases for most recipients. These increases vary and will run to 16/- a week in urban areas and to 13/- a week elsewhere. In a very small proportion of cases there may be no increases, but when the increases in children's allowances are taken into consideration, there will be a reduction in only one type of case, i.e., the single man or widower over 40 with six dependents will have a reduction of 6d. a week. There were only two such persons in January last.

The present unemployment assistance means limit is (1) £52 per annum in a county borough or the borough of Dún Laoghaire, and (2) £39 elsewhere. The limit is now being raised to £98 16s. in the case of (1) and to £72 16s. in the case of (2) (Section 94).

It is estimated that the amendments to the unemployment assistance code will cost close on £400,000 in a full year and close on £300,000 in the present financial year.

That is all I want to say about the Bill at the moment. Of course, I shall be very glad to answer any questions which may be raised in the course of the debate.

Professor Hayes

I think it was the Minister and his colleagues who made what seems to me the very undesirable precedent and practice that on the Second Stage of Bills there should be an uninspiring reading of a long statement in official English, and sometimes in official Irish, explaining in a very clear manner, if one could hear it, the provisions of the Bill. It would be better if we had a general explanation of its principles on Second Reading and if the details were left for the Committee Stage.

As far as the Minister is concerned, I think he opened his speech, at least his reading, with a whoop about the difference between the amount of money being spent on social benefits when his Party came into power in 1932 and the amount being spent now. Of course there are a number of principles which should be discussed. To simply say that we were one time spending £3,000,000 or £3,250,000 and that now we are spending £21,000,000 is a very insufficient, a very stupid statement as to a case of this kind. It does not give all the facts. It does not give any picture of what is actually happening.

We all know that we inherited from the British a certain amount of social benefits and that early in this century the principle was adopted in these islands, in the United Kingdom of which we were then a part that there should be assistance given to people who, through sickness or old age, were unable to help themselves. With that we are in the most complete agreement. With that there was a principle of insurance which I presume meant that those who were able to help themselves should be made to help themselves to the greatest possible degree.

There is a difference — I am afraid it is impossible to get away from it and we are all in agreement with it, between insurance and assistance. The Minister made no effort at all to indicate the limits of these two particular categories, each of which is complete in itself. He did not tell us what difference there is in the amount of money the State spent in 1932 and the amount the State spends now. He did not tell us the difference there is between the amount of money the State collected in 1932 and the amount the State collects in 1952, because these figures would of course be quite relevant.

I think in part of his statement the Minister said that certain benefits were being given, and that certain payments would have to be made by employees and employers, and that no burden was being imposed. That of course is absurd, and the Minister knows it. No matter how you look at it, and no matter how much you may be in agreement with it you cannot pay £21,000,000 to any body without placing a burden upon the people themselves. The limit of salary of a person obliged to be a member of these schemes is £600 per year. There are very few people in this State whose incomes are over £600. Therefore these social schemes will now include almost everybody. I want to suggest also that the great bulk of the State income comes from people whose yearly income is less than £600 per year, so that while you give the people something with one hand you are making them pay themselves because nobody else can pay.

There was a time when there were landed proprietors here, and when the slogan of taxing the rich to give to the poor had something in it. It should be made quite clear that the benefits that are given are given at the expense undoubtedly of the people who work, the working class themselves and all those people who have an income of under £600 per year. There is no such thing therefore as giving benefits of this kind without imposing a burden.

That may be all very fine if one is endeavouring to make political propaganda for a Party but, in fact, it is not an honest way of approaching the problem. It ought to be made quite clear that some of these benefits are inevitable because of an increase in the cost of living — an increase in the cost of living brought about to a great extent by the Minister's Party and by the policy of that Party over a long period of years. It ought also be made quite clear that the benefits that are given under this Bill and under another Bill are not sufficient to meet the burden which is being imposed on the people and upon the necessaries of life by the provision of the Budget which we will have to discuss next week.

In other words, when we are told that £21,000,000 is being given over a period of 20 years — if that is true, and I am unable to discuss that figure at the moment — it is also true that, in the removal of the food subsidies, £8,500,000 is being added to the cost of essential foodstuffs. In addition £11,500,000 is being imposed by increased taxes on beer, spirits and tobacco. Against these impositions these benefits will have to be put. That would be a clearer way of putting the whole case than by quoting smugly the fact that a certain number of millions were given in one year and that now, after the lapse of time and as a result of a particular Administration, the amount has risen by a figure such as £16,000,000.

We should all regard this matter seriously, and when the Minister talks about the increase in benefits we should also remember the increase in prices of the necessaries of life — flour, bread, tea, sugar and butter — and the increase in the prices of things which a great many people enjoy — I do not happen to be one of them — such as beer and cigarettes. These things, too, are increasing in price.

In order to get a picture of what benefit is being conferred by this Bill you have got to take the whole picture and not a partisan picture. We can discuss the matter in greater detail in Committee. There can be no doubt that these benefits are necessary but neither can there be any doubt of the fact that the people who come under the scope of this Bill — the people who have not more than £600 a year are the bulk of the taxpayers. They pay both direct and indirect taxes and contribute to the benefits which they are getting themselves. There is no doubt whatever that to say no burden is being imposed by the benefits that are being given is simply to misstate the simple facts as everybody knows them.

Instead of giving, as I say, a litany hurriedly and in Civil Service English we might have had an exposition of the principles underlying social security, social insurance, the payment of uncovenanted benefits and so on. There is no doubt whatever that what is being given with one hand is being taken away with the other and that is particularly the case in this particular year.

Mr. Hawkins

I wish to congratulate the Minister on the comprehensive way he has placed the Bill before us. I also wish to congratulate him on the speech with which he has brought this Bill to this House. Senator Hayes attempted—not very successfully I would say — to draw a red herring across the discussion. I do not propose to follow it beyond saying that next week we hope to have an opportunity of discussing the Finance Bill. Then, I think, we can deal at length with the question of subsidies and the other matters to which he has referred. It would be well if we left them there for the moment.

This Bill is not being introduced because of the Budget. The Department of Social Welfare was set up I think away beck in 1947. Therefore, it is wrong to suggest that the measures contained in this Bill, as a result of the preparation being made since the Department of Social Welfare was set up, would have been given effect to much earlier had not certain events taken place.

I think most Senators will agree with me when I say that we have travelled very far on the road since first there was a very serious objection to the application of the national health scheme to this country, when it was first introduced in England. We had then set up many societies, and one of the first steps that the Fianna Fáil Government had to take in order to maintain this principle of social security and insurance was to bring about a unification of the then existing societies, because many of them were in such a financial position that they could not continue to operate, and had steps not been taken at that time, then the workers would have lost, as a result. We had then set up what came to be known as The National Health Insurance Society.

It is only right, in discussing this Bill, taking in such a very large scope as this, that we should avail of this opportunity to pay tribute to those people who were in charge of national health insurance and, particularly, to remember the great work that was done by two late members of this House who were trustees of that society. I refer to the late Senator Mrs. Helena Concannon and Senator Tom Foran. Largely through the efforts of people of that kind is it possible to bring this Bill here to-day.

In 1947, when the present Minister, who was then also the Minister, took steps to set up the Department of Social Welfare, we remember the discussion that took place in this House. It was suggested then that this would be a Department only in name, that what we would find would be a host of new civil servants. We had suggestions of this kind coming, I think, from one who professed to speak on behalf of the Labour Party in this House at the time. We have now reached the point when the reverse is what has happened. We know from the statement made by the Minister in the other House that, as a result of the co-ordination which has taken place in recent years, there has been a considerable saving in the administrative expenditure of this particular Department; not alone that, but he holds out high hopes that, as a result of one of the provisions of this Bill, that is, the introduction of one stamp covering all types of insurance, unemployment insurance and national health insurance, there will be a further saving. Every saving in a scheme of this kind is bound to have certain benefits for the workers in general.

I can quite understand Senator Hayes getting a bit worried about the introduction of this Bill, because an attempt has been made in recent years to create the impression that it was only since the advent of what came to be termed the inter-Party Government that social security, social welfare, public health, or the interests of the workers, the sick or the poor were thought of at all. The Minister has reminded the House already of the various social benefits and welfare benefits that were introduced for the workers in the period from 1932 to 1948. We had legislation dealing with conditions of employment, wet time, widows' and orphans' pensions, and so on.

When Senator Hayes and others ask for principles, I think the House will agree that we established a very good principle. I hold that the introduction of the widows' and orphans' pensions scheme was one of the best that was introduced by the Government. We all know that when the breadwinner is taken away, particularly if it is a case where there is a small family, the best place that these young people can be brought up is in the home under the care and attention of the mother. It was in order to secure that position and to enable that family as far as possible to be kept together with the mother, where the mother was a capable person and willing to do it, that the widows' and orphans' pensions scheme was introduced. I feel that everybody will be pleased when that scheme is further extended.

I would like to congratulate the Minister on his decision to remove the differentiation that was in the widows' and orphans' pensions scheme as between those living in urban and rural districts, and also for the generous contribution to which it is proposed to give effect as regards the non-contributory pension. On a former occasion in this House I urged that this should be done, because I saw that where you had a differential scheme for the widow and orphan in the rural area and in the urban area it had the effect of encouraging the breaking up of the home in the rural area by that person in order to move to the urban area to obtain the greater benefits. It is a very good thing that that differentiation is being eliminated.

Senator Hayes makes the point that you are not giving anything away, that somebody must pay. That is true. In regard to any moneys that are being paid out by the Government, no matter what the scheme, it is the people who must pay. If Senator Hayes and his Party went through the country and were more active in putting before the people the slogan that you must pay your way and that you must pay for what you get, whether it is under this scheme or any other scheme, they would be doing a good day's work.

While this is a Bill that can be dealt with more effectively, I hope, on the Committee Stage, it is one that we all welcome. We welcome it because we know the people who find themselves obliged to be recipients under a Bill of this kind are those people who require the greatest attention and care that the State can give. When we come to the question as to how the big sum of £27,000,000 will be met, and when we realise all the contributions that will occur as a result of the increase in the stamps — or the stamp, which it will be now — for national health insurance and unemployment insurance — it will only amount to £700,000, which is the figure the Minister gave — it must bring clearly before our minds that the State is acting as generously as could be expected under present circumstances. As for those people who advocate that there should be more generous provision made, if they are prepared to do that they should also be prepared to support any steps that must be taken in order to meet those provisions.

I support this Bill on three grounds. It is a Bill to which effect will be given and it is not what we have been hearing over the last two years, a promise. We had a good deal of ballyhoo about the social security scheme brought in by the late Minister. We admit — I admitted it in this House — that he must have worked very hard in order to wring from the then Minister for Finance the small sum of £600,000 essential to give effect to the proposals therein. We were promised this comprehensive scheme.

In the other House the Bill was criticised, not for what it contained but for what it did not contain. I compliment the Minister on not having put into the Bill some of the suggestions made to him in the other House. Deputy Norton criticised it because it contained no provision for a retirement age of 65. We must face the facts. Whether we like it or not, particularly in rural areas and among workers, our people marry rather late in life. If you had such a provision an insured person would terminate his employment at 65 and would no longer be entitled to employment in an insurable position. Many of these people would have young families. You would be forcing them to retire at 65, although they themselves would much prefer to keep on working if they were capable of doing so, no matter how generous the retirement pension might be.

Another very good reason for excluding this provision is that what we want at the present moment is not more people retiring but more production from those who are employed. For those two reasons it would be a bad thing to include a retirement pension in this scheme. Another criticism was that there was no provision for contributions regarding death. From my very short experience, particularly in cities, a provision of this kind would not benefit the family of the deceased. It would very soon become known as the scheme for undertakers. It would not help the parties it would be intended to help.

I support the Bill because it will be put into effect. The necessary financial provisions to put it into operation have already been made. It removes the differences which have existed between the rural and urban areas. Another provision which I would recommend to the House is the section which enables the Minister to give grants to firms or employers who have their own insurance schemes. It would be a good thing if we could encourage our large employers in particular to provide for the insurance of their staffs themselves and this provision will go a long way in that direction. The Minister has outlined the benefits and when we realise that such a large number of people — the Minister mentioned 850,000, I think — will benefit under the Bill, we must welcome it, and the best thing we can do is to give it a speedy passage through the House.

Mr. Baxter

As I listened to the Minister reading his statement, I could not help thinking how confusing statistics can be when you want to use them in a particular way. I want to express the hope that the material collected for the previous measure will not be utilised for any such purpose in the future. The Minister gave us a great many figures and went into very great detail, but his statement was quite valueless to us, no matter on what side of the House we sit. If it were possible to arrange for a brief adjournment so that we might have half an hour or an hour to study this tabulated statement we might take some information from it which would help us in the examination of this huge measure which we must consider to-day. As it was presented to us, however, I did not feel competent to take from his wealth of figures any very clear picture.

Senator Hayes spoke quite truly when he said that the Minister did not give us the full facts or the whole truth. The figures he gave of expenditure in 1932, when his Government took office, and expenditure in 1947, were completely unrelated. As Senator Hayes said, he should have indicated by how much national expenditure had increased and by how much the purchasing value of the pound sterling had fallen in the same period. We did not get anything like that, so the story he told was not the whole story, nor was it a clear, true picture.

This Bill is supposed to deal with the problem of what we style social security. It is supposed to help the State to create conditions where the section of our people for whom we are legislating will be more secure than they were before its introduction. I do not think that it will achieve that. In fact, if you take it in conjunction with the general picture of Government policy our people will be more insecure when the measure is passed than before it was introduced. What do we mean when we speak of social security? Perhaps I am somewhat old-fashioned, but I think that the aim of any Government, any Minister, should be to ensure that the people will have better incomes and more security in their homes so that they can accordingly make better provision for themselves and their families.

I submit that this effort of the all-powerful State to ensure that the merest individual in the community will be better provided for is not a sound approach. In an effort like this, the State is doing something which it should attempt to do only as a last resort when no other organisation exists or when no other organisation is deemed competent to do the work.

When I think of social security, I think of the security of a great many small units within the community. Social security ought to mean the security of our society in each of its units. If each unit is strong and healthy, complete in its life, then we can all be satisfied that our society is really secure, but I do not think that it is going to be achieved merely by the effort of the State erecting a canopy overhead, without any regard for what the conditions are like at its foundation. I wonder whether it would not be much more fitting for this House and the Government to examine, first, the need for this sort of legislation before determining to introduce it. People are socially insecure when their family incomes are not sufficient to give them reasonable sustenance. Then, some provision has to be added to what they have to ensure that they are going to live.

They are entitled to and ought to enjoy a reasonable standard of comfort. Would the obligation not be on the State to examine first what the conditions of life, the conditions of our society, are like, to examine the whole set-up which makes it necessary to supplement what these people are earning for themselves by something which is collected over the whole community through the huge organisation of the State and passed back to them?

I submit that that is part of our social problem here and I submit, too, that it has never been faced up to since the State was established. We have merely taken over the kind of mechanism which they created in England, an industrial country, in conditions very unlike those which exist in this State to-day. We have copied that system, making slight adjustments here and there, but there has never yet been any attempt on the part of the State to examine the implications of this type of organisation on our whole life, or to ask ourselves whether or not it is going to give us the kind of society we desire and whether or not it was for the betterment of our society. I do not think it is.

If you are to create the type of society which is best for the community, for the nation, for the world, the first thing you must try to do is to create a spirit of independence in every member of your community. I agree that each one of them ought to have an opportunity, ought to have the chance to earn a decent living and build a decent home. I am satisfied that that is a problem, an economic problem, a financial problem, a problem which has to be studied by employers and employed with the aid and technical assistance which the State authority at times is able to give; but I submit that, before embarking at this stage of our career on as vast a plan as this, we should have examined whether we could not organise our people vocationally and put on each vocation the responsibility of organising its people within its own small community.

I have no doubt whatever that there are within our community a number of industrial organisations which are compelled by law to make their contribution to this sort of social service, but who could organise much more efficiently within that industrial organisation, as between the employers and the workers, a scheme or plan which would give greater social security at a lesser cost than what will be provided under this legislation. I do not know what would prevent employers and employees in these days, when we hear from labour organisations a demand for a share in the responsibility of management, the people whose future existence is dependent on the welfare of any industrial organisation, coming together to study their problem—the number of people they have employed, their total wage bill and wage of each individual—and then the problem of living for the people working there, the difficulties they are confronted with—sickness, maternity, unemployment, and so on—and, having made as accurate a study as possible of the cost of such a scheme as that, determining to make provision for the future of these people and the difficulties which confront them in their lives. To such an organisation as that the State could make its contribution, but its working up, its administration and all the rest, should be left to the people within that industrial undertaking.

I submit that it would do two things: It would bring the employers and workers much closer together, because they would have a common interest in the well-being of all the people employed there and the problems associated with making a success of the undertaking itself would be something common to all of them in a way of which we perhaps do not know much to-day. Secondly, the whole attitude of our people, one to the other, would be radically altered, and the whole tone of our society would be entirely different from what it is to-day and what it will be in the future under this huge State organisation which we propose to build up.

We have had the opportunity of taking the right turning. I am quite conscious of the fact that, for the great bulk of the people in the State, this is the line of least resistance. Social security is something which nobody can denounce and this seems to be a method by which one can implement it; but nobody seems to think that there is any other way. I do not agree. I believe that instead of building up this huge incubus of a State organisation, which is going to grow and grow and create in the minds of our people the impression that they can do nothing for themselves, that they must look to the State for everything—and we have had more than enough, too much, of that for our well-being—we should have examined whether there was another way.

I am quite satisfied that this attitude of mine on the part of many of our people to-day has kept us from progressing in the manner in which we ought to have progressed if there were less dependence on the State and if our eyes were less firmly fixed on the State in the belief that it could do everything for us and that there is little that we can do for ourselves. I believe that that is a legacy of the battles in the British House of Commons when the eyes of our people were turned on our leaders there, believing that nothing could be achieved until the land of the country was made over to the tenant farmers. That was achieved, no doubt, through political action in the British House of Commons, but it has passed on to us this mental legacy that we must look to the State every time for any betterment of our society. It makes us weak because there is less of the pioneering spirit, less of that spirit of independence in our people, individually and collectively, than there was, and I think it is the greatest handicap under which our people operate at the moment and will operate in the future.

I said earlier that social security was something we might interpret as a state or condition of things where the incomes of the homes were sufficient to provide for their needs, not only the immediate needs but also for sickness, unemployment and so on. A Bill like this will turn our thoughts and minds away from a close-up study of a much more vital problem in our community, namely, whether or not the incomes and earnings of our people are as high as they ought to be, whether we are making the best use of our opportunities, making the most of the resources available to us Every effort like this is merely a palliative. We are neglecting to do the things that ought to come first. When we try to supplement the earnings which health and opportunity would give us, we make the wrong approach. Almost all of us have reached the stage when we almost adore this all-powerful State and while we do not proclaim ourselves socialists we are doing almost all the things that the most advanced socialists in almost every country feel it is part of their creed to do. I know that to say this may seem like running against the stream, but that is my feeling about this legislation.

Our society would be much more secure if in each of its component parts, in the various branches of industry and agriculture, we could band ourselves together in our own spheres to see what we could do for ourselves, to organise in order to build up our own way of life, with State supplement where there is need for it. All of us combining in that way would make a much stronger society. Attempting, as we are, to give health down from the top to the uttermost fringes of our society, we are doing nothing but weakening it. I think we are on the wrong road and I cannot say I feel happy about it.

Professor Fearon

While I fully appreciate and respect the sturdy independence of Senator Baxter, and while, like him, I dread the prospects of a totalitarian State guiding and ruling my activities and eventually putting a tombstone or a label over me, I have a feeling that social welfare legislation inevitably has been part of the activities of most civilised and some far from civilised governments, that we are progressing in that way and have to accept that. I feel that, in return for what we are endeavouring, as a highly responsible body, to do, we are getting satisfactory results.

The prospect of State-guaranteed insurance and protection for the individual is peculiarly attractive at the present moment when we are under a darkening sky. That is unquestionable. As the previous speaker indicated, we are taking the first steps on the road. It is a very important road. First of all, it is a one-way thoroughfare, as there is no going back from social welfare legislation unless the entire community is to start from scratch again. We must make our progress very carefully indeed, and we must be sure that we are keeping to the road and not becoming lost in bypaths.

I have tried to follow the debates on this Bill in the other House and I have found it rather confusing, since, like Banquo's ghost, the ghost of a previous Bill kept rising from its chair and it was sometimes difficult to know which line of argument one was following. In my few remarks this evening, I am going to treat the present Bill entirely on its own merits and make no reference to previous legislation—except one thing which worries me a bit, that is, the actual scope of the Bill. Apart from the very considerable cost of any effective scheme of social welfare which consumes a large part of the national revenue for the benefit of one part, it is going to be extremely important to our national structure, since so many of its contacts will be related to future health legislation—which interests me very much—and to many important aspects of national nutrition. For many reasons, I regret that we had not some kind of public inquiry by the previous Government or the present Government before this measure was framed, so that we could have had a wider survey of the needs of the situation and not be so entirely dependent on the conclusions of a Department of Social Welfare. That raises the question of the scope of the proposed measure and, secondly, the powers that the Minister enjoys.

I would infer that the number of beneficiaries under this Bill will be of the order of 850,000. The number of people of insurable age outside the scheme will be probably over 1,000,000 —I stand subject to correction—and that is a rather alarming number. Amongst the excluded classes are farmers and their wives, their sons and daughters and relations working on the land, independent contractors, shopkeepers, self-employed artisans, housewives, and so on, who will probably contribute as much to national production as the classes admitted to the benefits of this insurance. I feel there is something in what previous speakers have touched on that we are taking over a little too easily British legislation in this matter, legislation really designed for a primarily industrial community, and applying it to our own unique community. Probably it would have been better if we could have made it a bit more national and more widespread. This may be regarded as an experimental measure, however, a pilot engine on the road, to be developed afterwards in accordance with requirements and joined up with subsequent enactments such as the Health Bill.

It means that this year the Minister will be called on to exercise discretionary and other powers in a great many different ways and at different stages of the operation of this Bill. It appears that the powers of the Minister are concerning us a little more than the scope of the Bill at the moment. I am taking the view that it is the business of the Oireachtas to establish, define, and lay down principles, and that it is the function of the Government to operate them. Without going into the details, which could be more effectively dealt with on the Committee Stage, I notice in Section 3 that "the Minister may make regulations" in relation to specified cases. That appears to me as if the Minister is getting power over individuals in specified cases. I now move on to Section 4. Without going into details and simply dealing with the principles, I find that regulations may be made providing for, including, excluding, and adding. That is to say, the Minister is seeking power to modify the Bill again by including or excluding certain employments from the scope of the insurance.

That leads me to the conclusion that the definition of an insured person should be "anyone whom the Minister so declares to be insured". It seems to me that we are giving a great deal of power to him in this Bill. There is the safety clause of submitting the drafts to both Houses of the Oireachtas.

In regard to the treatment benefit in Section 25, I would like a little more enlightenment. The treatments indicated are dental, hospital, medical and surgical, and so on, and the payments referred to shall not exceed in the aggregate such sums as are set out, subject to a limit of £500,000 a year. I am reading from page 19. I wonder, to do this properly, if £500,000 is sufficient and if there is not the danger that whoever comes for treatment early in the year will get it, whereas later in the year, when the £500,000 has been spent, they will not have such an easy time at all. Therefore, it would seem that if you are going to have an accident you should have it somewhere about January, or if you are seeking new dentures you should seek them somewhere about January. I wonder if the £500,000 referred to is an adequate sum when you think of what modern dental treatment means and of the expense of the different types of apparatus involved in modern clinical treatment. I have no doubt that this will ultimately be handed over to a health service Bill, but I think it would be just as well to have this a little bit more liberal than it is. I take it that the Minister will be able to "iron out" this difficulty.

Under Section 41, a new type of officer is being created—a deciding officer. It seems to me as if, here, we-have the danger of excluding questions of fact or merit from review by the courts where a person claims that some hardship has been inflicted on him by the Bill.

Let us move to Section 46. We find that the Chief Appeals Officer can deal with certain matters "save where the question is a question specified in paragraph (a), (b) or (c) of subsection (1) of Section 42 of this Act ..." If we turn to these paragraphs we find that they refer to claim for benefit, disqualification for benefit and the period of any disqualification for benefit. Every question arising in relation to these matters will be decided by a deciding officer. I should like to feel that the citizen had an appeal to the court. Here an entirely new officer—a deciding officer—is called into being to decide certain matters which are specified in Section 42. It will be quite some time before he is fully established and fully able to handle the particular types of problems with which he will have to deal. I think the court should certainly still be available.

There are quite a number of minor points which can be discussed on the Committee Stage. There is one matter which I was not able to follow fully from the debates in the Dáil. Suppose somebody has paid a contribution for, say, five or six years and then goes, say, to England. Is that cancelled or does the Minister think it would be possible to have some kind of an agreement with foreign Governments or would it be possible to refund the money as if it were a savings certificate?

To summarise, I am disappointed with the scope of the Bill. I think it should be made wider. I am not quite happy about the powers that will be given to the Minister—not this particular Minister but all Ministers— because I think a great many difficult problems will arise out of the operation of the Bill. Apart from that, it is an historic Bill and this is an historic occasion. We are really altering the outlook of the people of the country and perhaps bringing some brightness into the cloudy skies in the life of some people.

Mr. Colgan

I welcome this Bill and I congratulate the Minister on its introduction. Undoubtedly every one of us would like to see the el Dorado which Senator Baxter spoke of. However, we must face facts and tackle the problems which exist and endeavour to bring about whatever improvement is possible within our means.

Reading the debates which took place in the other House on this Bill, I was struck by the fact that the greatest criticism of this measure came from people who said that it is not a patch on the measure introduced by Deputy Norton, when he was Tánaiste and Minister for Social Welfare in the Coalition Government. Personally, I feel that with a lesser contribution we are getting greater benefit. Other members of the Dáil—knowing the mentality of the people who formed the Coalition Government, and particularly the Fine Gael element—said that there was never any intention of bringing Deputy Norton's measure into law. We are not supposed to be politicians in this House, but we know that both Senator Baxter and Senator Professor Hayes are strong Fine Gael personalities and, having heard the speeches of these two Senators to-day, we can appreciate that those people in the Dáil who said that the Coalition Government went out of office rather than implement Deputy Norton's Social Welfare Bill had a good deal of justification for saying so. Obviously, if the mentality of Senator Baxter and Senator Professor Hayes permeates the Fine Gael Party, there was never any intention on the part of the predominant partner in that Coalition Government to put Deputy Norton's Bill into operation.

I have one or two criticisms to make of this Bill, and I hope the Minister will be able to do something to meet me. As the Minister is aware, the majority of the craft unions have a superannuation scheme. The one grievance of the trade union movement against all the Governments we have had since this State was established is that their members who have paid into a superannuation scheme and who are entitled to superannuation on retirement are deprived of the old age pension. A lot of subterfuges were adopted to surmount that difficulty, but in the end they proved unavailing. My particular union pays a superannuation benefit of £2 per week. We are revising the rates at present and in the future we shall pay £3 per week.

I see in the Bill that the Minister has power to contribute to a superannuation scheme. The trade unions are not interested in that. They do not want a contribution from the Minister or from a Government fund because they are well able to support themselves. Their objection is that the members of their union who subscribe for 40, 45 and sometimes even 50 years to a superannuation fund, so that on retirement they will get superannuation benefit, are deprived of the old age pension whilst thriftless people who make no provisions at all for their old age can get the old age pension for the asking. I feel that the contribution is not the way to meet that difficulty. Rather should there be some exemption for people who pay into a superannuation scheme from the provisions of the Act which deprives them of the old age pension. I am the secretary of the Bookbinding Union. The majority of the men, if they live, work after 70 years. I have a man at the moment who is working and he is 76 years old. It is not a heavy and laborious occupation and a man in good health can continue working until well over 70.

Another matter that worries me in connection with this Bill is unemployment insurance and strikes. I was a member of different courts of referees which dealt with people who were affected by strikes. I think I mentioned this matter in this House on a previous occasion. I remember some years ago when there was a bus strike that a woman whose job it was to clean out the offices of the transport company was deprived of unemployment benefit because she was affected by the strike. She lost her work as a result of the strike. I admit that is an extreme case, but it is one that I came across. I feel that some effort should be made not to penalise people who have nothing to do with strikes but who are unemployed as a result of strikes. These people have no say in the matter and they are penalised when somebody else goes out on strike. As I say, they have nothing to do with the strike and they should not be penalised.

I happen to be on the Old Age Pensions Committee of the Dublin Corporation. Here I would seek the Minister's assistance. There seems to be a sacrosanct half-a-crown. A person's pension is cut by half-a-crown in certain circumstances — the pension goes down by half-crowns. Take the case of British exservicemen who might get an extra 1/- from the British pensions people. As a result of getting that extra 1/-, there is a reduction of 2/6 in his old age pension. That is altogether wrong, and the same thing applies in other cases. I can appreciate that there may be a reason for deducting the 1/- these people get from the British, but I feel they should not be penalised to the extent of half-a-crown. That is a matter the Minister might look into and see if he can help.

I am rather worried about the benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Acts. That was in the Bill that was introduced by Deputy Norton. The present rate for a man is 22/6 and the new rate is 24/-. The present benefit for a wife is 7/6, or a total of 30/- for a man and wife. The benefit suggested under this Act is 36/-. I have nothing to say to that, but when it comes to the children I have a distinct grievance.

At the present time 2/6 is paid for every child regardless of the number of children. This limits the number of children. A man could have five, six, seven or eight children and he would still get paid for only two children. We pay unemployment insurance and the union has an arrangement with the Department. At the present time a man gets 42/6. Under this Act, he will get 52/-, that is 9/6 more. A man with two children will get the 52/-. I feel that is putting a premium on a limitation of the family. I do not like the thing. I think it is altogether wrong that a man should be paid unemployment benefit in respect of only two children when he might have five or six. I would rather see the 7/- made less and paid in respect of all the children rather than have the benefit limited to two children only. I think that is altogether wrong.

The Bill is a good Bill. It increases the benefits very extensively. Like Senator Baxter, I am not in favour of social welfare to any great extent. I would rather see people do for themselves what we ask the State to do for them. Unfortunately, in this country and in every other country there are many people who cannot do anything for themselves. The State has to help them. It is easy to talk about big employers doing this and that. There are many people in casual employment and there are many people unemployed. Somebody has to come to their aid. It is better that the State should do it rather than let those people go hungry.

The Minister is to be congratulated on raising the means test. He is to be congratulated on the fact that the Bill improves the benefits to a large extent at so little cost. I thought that Senator Hayes was rather unjust in relating the Budget to this Bill. I suggest it has not much relation at all. I am convinced that there is no use in talking about the dead social security Bill that was presented under the last Government. The two speakers we heard to-day from Fine Gael convinced me that there was never any intention of implementing that.

Mr. Baxter

You are quite wrong.

Mr. McGuire

We have heard that this Bill was brought in at great speed as a result of the advent of the present Government. I cannot help feeling that speed is not a thing to boast about in connection with this Bill. The speed was mainly because of the Government's desire to go one better than Deputy Norton, if not in the extent of the terms of the Bill at least in the speed at which it was delivered.

I was disappointed, nay, surprised, that the Minister did not deal more with fundamental principles on a Bill of this kind. Everybody knows that this Bill has given rise to more discussion than probably anything else that has arisen in this country for a great many years with the exception, perhaps, of the Bill dealing with the establishment of the Republic.

This idea of social security is being discussed widely from the Catholic viewpoint. All the Catholic papers are simply full of it. Speeches and lectures have been given by bishops and priests all over the country. We have had discussion by other churches as well, and we have had it from our friends the Socialists. This question of social welfare and social security is a very, very important one in our whole national life. To give the Fianna Fáil Government credit, they set up a Vocational Commission some years ago. It cost a lot of money. The most prominent people in the country were put on that commission. It sat for years. Surely a Government which had set up such a commission would have seen the vocational implications in social security and the Catholic social doctrine concerned? When I use the word "Catholic" I mean Christian. The Vocational Commission embraced people of all religions.

The vocational approach to this subject has not even been mentioned. Surely the Minister, in coming to speak on this Bill, should have dealt with principles as well as the details? The only remark that was made on the question of principles came from Senators Baxter and Fearon on this side of the House.

Senator Colgan referred to the attitude of Fine Gael to social welfare in the inter-Party Government. I think the Fine Gael attitude can be easily and quickly explained. It is an attitude that we are not one bit ashamed of. In fact, we are quite proud of it. The delay in the inter-Party scheme, I believe, was due to the fact that there were people who wished to have the situation fully explored, and those people were Fine Gael. They insisted on careful examination of the whole subject, and if that is the cause of the delay we think that it is a good cause.

There were so many important fundamental principles underlying the social security and social welfare schemes that Fine Gael insisted that everything should be examined. One of the faults of a strong Party Government is that you are not allowed to explore or delay any proposed legislation. The orders come from the Party hierarchy and everybody else has got to toe the line. Anybody who wants exploration will be expelled.

A very long speech could be made on these principles to which I referred. I think that the Second Reading is an occasion for proper speeches to be made on the principles involved in a Bill. I have not come here to-day to make a long speech on principles because I have not prepared myself properly to do so, but I would just like to refer to the principles that should be discussed here on the Second Reading of this Bill. We have got economic principles involved, social principles, moral principles and political principles. As regards economic principles we have got to make up our minds what kind of scheme we can afford, what the country can afford, not something taken directly from England or somewhere else with the idea that because somebody else has it we must have it. There is no must in it. Mind you, some of the socialist and labour movements always insist that we must have certain things, ignoring the fact that we can only have what we can afford. There are people saying that because of the rise in the cost of living the wages at present should be raised by 25/- a week. Only last week there was a 12/6 ceiling agreed to by certain national groups of employers and workers. Other labour groups said that 12/6 was ridiculous— that it should be 20/- or something else. The question is, what can we afford to pay? That is one of the economic principles we must consider in this Bill and, indeed, in all our actions.

In regard to the social principles, are we going to improve the conditions of our people with a Bill of this kind? We must examine the position to see if it is going to improve the social conditions of our people. We all agree on every side of the House that something must be done, but the only point is, how much are we to do for the good of our people, not only for the economic good but for the social good of our people. We can do too much for people as well as doing too little.

Then, on the moral side, we should ask ourselves how far can we go without infringing moral principles and without affecting the moral fibre of our people. That is one of the most important questions inherent in this whole thing. Again, on the political side, how far should the State extend its powers and its actions? There are Christian principles involved in this whole question on how far the State should go, as well as socialist materialistic ones that merely disregard completely all the moral and Christian principles. I am merely pointing to these general things. Under every one of these four headings there are important matters that we could debate and talk about for days.

I personally favour social welfare benefits. I do not want to give the impression that I am opposed to the Social Welfare Bill. Perhaps to-morrow if I am honoured with a place in the paper I will be reported as saying that I am against social welfare. I am not saying that at all. I favour the Social Welfare Bill, but I think there are several points that ought to be considered in producing one. I am in favour wholeheartedly of any Bill which does things which are obviously necessary and, indeed, morally obligatory on us. For instance, we have a duty to the poor, to the aged, to the sick, to the unemployed and to people with families who find it difficult to keep their families, because the family is the basis of our whole State. We have duties to widows and orphans. In a word, I favour helping those who are unable to help themselves or insufficiently able to help themselves. I think everybody in this country would agree with that principle. I also would favour the extension of schemes or the creation of additional ones which might even be looked upon as luxuries if and when we could afford them.

We are not always going to keep our community down to the lowest ebb or only give the bare necessities. If we are successful economically in this country a time will come when we ought to extend some of our schemes to people perhaps slightly higher up the scale than the people who are really deserving; for instance, we could help the people in the middle scales. That is a desirable thing if and when we can afford it. But I do not favour schemes that have a bad effect on individual self-reliance, and which prevent people from working for themselves, doing things which they should do for themselves. It is wrong that men's wives and children should be cared for by the State rather than be supported by their own efforts and their own good work.

Finally, I oppose any schemes which give undue or undesirable powers to the State. A thing that should be referred to in a debate like this also is the fact that there is a danger of the surrender of one's private liberty for security. That is the greatest danger in all these social welfare schemes. I do not think that in this particular scheme we have before us to-day there is any very great surrender of liberty for security except, of course, our old danger which comes into every Bill introduced, namely, the powers given to the Minister. That is not this Minister's fault. It seems that all Ministers have that fault. At the same time I am going to raise it every time I stand up because, as I said many times before, every time a Minister is given these powers there is a danger; a Minister may come along some day who will abuse these powers. That is a danger that is constantly being referred to outside and it cannot be said often enough in the House.

One of the most important factors in any scheme to preserve individual liberty and dignity is that the scheme should be as highly contributory as possible and that is a factor I would welcome in this particular scheme. Although there does not seem to be a very high degree of State contribution proposed, there is a certain amount and more than I would like. The fact that the State contributes towards one of its schemes hides the fact that the people are paying for the scheme. There is the idea that the people are getting something for nothing although the truth is that people are not getting something for nothing. Nothing is for nothing. Everything that is being given out is not only being paid for bat more than paid for because administrative costs run away with far more than is paid in. A great deal is paid in at the one end and much less comes out at the other end.

There is a certain group in the community who have nothing to give, and these are the people who are always calling out for State schemes of all kinds. They are the lazy people. They really want to get the benefit of the work of other people in the community, the people who produce wealth. There is a growing number of people nowadays who want to take the spoils and the earnings of the hardworking ones. That is another danger in these increasing welfare schemes. We have citizens demanding and expecting more and more from the State.

One of the things that unfortunately has been very visible in this Social Welfare Bill and in all the arguments that have surrounded it is a very high degree of bidding between Parties, a tendency to bid higher or to promise better benefits in return for votes. It has been thrown at Fine Gael that it did this, that and the other. Certainly there were plenty of words used to take votes from Fine Gael on the head of this particular Bill. They did not succeed. I am glad we did not rely on Bills of this kind to get votes. If we are going to go on indefinitely bidding to give improved State aid to all and sundry I do not know where we are going to end eventually. We must take some stock of where we are going in this question of bidding for votes and offering to give more and more to those who work less and less. The fact is that the economy must pay for everything. One of the troubles nowadays is that we use words of a general and high-sounding character that do not convey a clear meaning, but the "economy" we speak of means the people who produce agricultural or industrial goods, the people who work hard every day to earn money: these are the people who have to pay for everything.

Another danger of this social welfare mentality is the idea that is growing up that the State can spend the citizen's money better than he can do it himself. The old idea was that everybody worked to earn his living and, not only that, but tried to save some money for the future, for his old age and for his children. That idea is very old-fashioned now. Perhaps it may be called laissez faire. It is a very old-fashioned idea that anybody should save. I forget whether it was “Fluther” Good or “Joxer” in the Abbey who never had any money or anything to give or to lend to anybody. We do not want a nation of “Fluther” Goods. The idea that the State can do everything better than the citizen himself is a pernicious and very modern doctrine. It is even being called very progressive, but it will mean that the State will ultimately not permit the individual to do anything. The spirit of self-reliance is very important in the preservation of a true democracy because it is obvious that individual freedom cannot live where State control increases inordinately—note the word “inordinately”.

As I am on the question of State security schemes and State spending I would like to draw attention to the point that the doctrine of the State controlling everything and spending the citizen's money is not only morally wrong but psychologically wrong because it is a deterrent to the individual to do anything for himself and consequently a deterrent to the productive effort upon which we depend for our livelihood. We must keep the spirit of industry in our workers and the spirit of enterprise and thrift in our leaders of industry. If all the time the political eye is turned to placating the people who are no good in this State at the expense of the people who are good we can see where we are leading. In the last few years we have seen the idea grow up that everybody who has done well in business is a trickster, somebody whose money should be taken away and given to the fellows standing around the comers. I have seen young business men afraid to be seen going around in a decent car because they think "they will say I am a profiteer"; it is only the spivs who have the courage to go around in big ears. That is the mentality which is very prevalent everywhere to-day.

I welcome the co-ordination of social services that has been achieved in this Bill. There have been so many services isolated on individual branches that it is time something was done to co-ordinate them, old age pensions, sickness and unemployment benefit, unemployment assistance, family allowances and widows' and orphans' pensions. In so far as the Bill brings these things together and allows us to see them in one whole piece I welcome it and feel that it is an advancement on what we have had in the past.

I would like, however, to sound a note of warning: let us go steady, let us look around before we move further or more quickly in the direction of expenditure on social welfare. In anything we do in the future we should ask ourselves first of all: Is what we are going to do vitally necessary? Is it desirable? Can we afford it? Is it morally justifiable? I think we should ask ourselves these four questions in future before we make any more advances along this road. If we continue to add to schemes which we cannot afford, more social and economic damage will be done in the ultimate result than would be justifiable. We must ask ourselves the question: Will not parts of our economy break down if we overweigh it and what would be the result? The answer is depressed industry and unemployment. We already have part of that picture before us to-day. There are some people in the country who would like to close their eyes to the idea of unemployment and of the difficulty of paying for the things they demand. We can on the one hand give those people bigger and better Social Welfare Bills but we will give them unemployment and misery with the other hand; we will have more people living on the Social Welfare Bill than making the money to pay for it.

Mr. McCrea

Like most of my friends on my right I welcome the Bill and hope for its speedy implementation, so that whatever little crumbs are left will be passed on to the people concerned, but unlike my friends on my right, I do not see that I would be justified in getting down on my knees to pay tribute to the Bill, because I am satisfied that it is not even a shadow of the Bill introduced in the other House by the former Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy Norton. It is neither fish nor flesh, and though it is being hurried and scurried through this and the other House I do not think that it will even be a good red herring. I am surprised and disappointed at the Minister for Social Welfare, who comes from County Wexford, a county with which I am very closely associated. I have often argued that if there was one honest Department under the Fianna Fáil group it was that of the Minister for Social Welfare. I might say that I am sadly disillusioned when I think of all the statements, all the excitement, and all the nerve-wracking times we had when the other Bill was introduced, and when I see the document which has now been produced and called a Social Welfare Bill. I happened to be in the House when the former Minister introduced his Bill, and I have a vivid remembrance of the present Minister leaving the House when Deputy Norton had concluded. He rushed away and within a few hours prepared a social welfare scheme which was put side by side with Deputy Norton's plan in the daily Press the following morning. The Bill we have in front of us gives the lie in no uncertain manner to the Minister's statement at that time when he told the workers that he would give them as good a Bill as Deputy Norton's with no extra cost or extra contributions.

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 7 p.m.

Mr. McCrea

I was saying when the House adjourned that there are four important matters in respect of which the Norton Bill and this Bill differ. These are the provisions relating to death benefit, maternity attendance allowance, retirement gratuities at 60 and 65 and the reduction of the maternity grant to £2. The removal of any one of these important sections makes a mockery of this Bill. Senator Colgan seemed to think that death benefits should not be included in a Social Welfare Bill, but, to my mind, this provision was one of the most important of the provisions in the Norton scheme. The Irish people are notable for their love of family life and respect for their dead, and the position now is that the poorer sections of the people must go round with the hat or appeal to the health authorities. They will see their dead encased in workhouse coffins or taken to their last resting-places in workhouse hearses. In some counties, I believe this is the case, although, thank God, it is not so in my county. We have seen to it that these people are in a position to approach the local undertaker and make arrangements for decent coffins and hearses.

The maternity attendance allowance has been excluded from this Bill and the maternity grant reduced to £2. This amount of £2 must be in our social welfare scheme for ten years and the spending value of that sum to-day is approximately 10/- or 12/-. There is no need for me to remind the Minister, who is a doctor, of the anxieties and incidental expenses associated with maternity.

With regard to widows' and orphans' pensions, I see no reason why there should be any discrimination between the non-contributory and the contributory widow. They both have to undergo the same trials, difficulties and hardships and they should be placed on the same footing. We have, then, the case of the contributory worker who has been unemployed for 18 months, perhaps through no fault of his own. On his death his widow is entitled only to a contributory pension. Worse still is the case of the worker who emigrates and who dies after six months. His widow is not entitled to any pension. I do not see why that punishment should be inflicted on the widow and the orphan, and I challenge the Minister to name any country, Christian or unchristian, where such an unchristian social welfare arrangement is in operation. I understand that the Budget hammer will come down on the heads of the people on 4th July and that the Government are anxious to have this Bill through before that date. I do not propose to stand in their way. I support the Bill because of whatever few benefits it will bring to our people.

Mr. O'Donnell

This Bill is the biggest vote of censure passed upon this and previous Governments that I have noted coming before the legislature, by reason of the fact that all our Governments have failed to implement the social financial system in such a way as to avoid the necessity for social services of this nature. Whether the previous Governments were wise or unwise in refusing to take a new and impressive viewpoint I do not know, but the position has arisen after 30 years of self-government that we must now produce a social security Bill. It is quite obvious that there would be no anxiety for this Bill had the opportunity been given to the people to work and to earn their living. There would be no necessity for social security had there been a proper financial system which would have given them that opportunity. That is why I say that this Bill is a vote of censure, not only on the present Government but on all Governments since the inception of the State. It is deplorable that at this hour in our lives a Bill such as this must be introduced.

In so far as it is something designed to alleviate the needs of those in distress, it is welcome. It may have peculiar repercussions, however. Senator McGuire spoke a while ago on the moral aspect of the Bill, on the tendency of States generally to pay people for doing nothing — which is tantamount to some degree to what this Bill means to do — as, in itself, an evil thing. It started with the dole, inspired by Lloyd George, and it has gone through various phases. Outside the insurance sections of the Bill, it is only a sop, a form of State patronage, saying to the people: "Because we cannot create a system that will give you work, we are going to do this by transference from those who have to those who have not." That, in effect, is what the Bill does in toto; it transfers a certain amount of total national income from one section of the community to another.

In so far as that national income will he spent internally, I do not see that it can have any effect on our national economy as such. Senator McGuire has asked: "Can we afford it?" Surely, if the money is spent internally, we can afford it? I am not speaking against the Bill as a Bill, but against the Bill as a principle, the sort of principle accepted by this Government and previous Governments, the acceptance of this sort of method of giving people a way to live. We have this whole attitude of expressing ourselves through doles and patronage, whether State patronage in the form of doles or State patronage in the form of security guarantees against want. That is a wrong thing. It means taking away from the rights of the individual, from the sense of human dignity which the individual should have. All Governments — either this one or any of the previous ones — which seek to develop that attitude of mind amongst our people are doing a wrong and an evil thing to the people themselves. I deplore the Bill from that aspect. I deplore the Bill from no other point of view. Apparently, so long as we have this type of economy around us, we have to live within this predestined mould laid down by the bankers, the financiers and by financial methods of one form or another. We have to do something about individual people who have less of this world's goods, to see that they get more of them in so far as they need them. We are asking about principles and that is the attitude I take to the principle — that it is a vote of censure on all of us, on Governments past and present, for neglecting the opportunities to change the whole social system.

Mr. Quirke

Including Clann na Poblachta.

Mr. O'Donnell

Yes, including Clann na Poblachta—but Clann na Poblachta has not had an opportunity yet, and it will justify itself when it does get it.

Mr. Quirke

It will not be very long now.

Mr. O'Donnell

We will have two by-elections soon which will tell us about that. I would like to refer to the repercussions which this Bill may have upon the export trade. After all, this extra cost must be reflected in prices at some point or other. It is quite true —let us not be gullible about it or believe otherwise—that if industrialists have to pay more in the form of insurance, they are going to recover it. Industry has to do that the same as everyone else. I am quite sure that Senator Quirke as a part-time industrialist believes in that, though he does not believe in my policy generally. Now, I did not mean that in any personal sense to the Senator himself. I am referring principally to the question of exports. I do not know whether the Minister has the figures of costs before him or not in that respect. He told us that this scheme means an increase of 5d. in the case of a man and 4d. in the case of females. That is a fairly high percentage, about 20 per cent. What proportion the insurance will make towards the total industrial costs, I cannot say but I believe the total involved is £21,000,000 which is fairly considerable.

This Government and its predecessors have been advocating an export drive. If it is to continue, industry must face more competition than ever before, owing to the growing intensity of competition around us. In order to meet that competition, if the Minister and his advisers are of the opinion that the increased charges may mean any recession in the export trade, some method should be found whereby exporters as such who can prove their case might receive a refund of the difference between the insurance they pay now and the insurance which will become payable under the new rates.

In introducing the Bill, the Minister said that as the charges will be lighter on agricultural workers it will mean a heavier charge on the Exchequer. Of course, that was pure psychic. We all contribute to the Exchequer and those who contribute most to the Exchequer are, I suppose, the industrialists. We ought to be honest about this matter. I know that the farmers cannot afford it. If the farmers cannot afford to pay those charges then the industrialists and indirect taxation will have to pay for them. The Exchequer is all our payments through direct and indirect taxation, one way or the other. It is said that we are doing this in three ways—one-third by the Exchequer, one-third by the employers and one-third by the employees. You would think it was a virtue that one-third was paid in another capacity. With due respect to the Minister, that is the sort of argument which, I think, is dishonest in the sense that it does not directly give a true representation of the picture.

While none of us have expressed opposition to this Bill, when we are talking about economic matters of this sort we ought to say exactly what we mean. The extra cost is borne by indirect and direct taxation. Senator McGuire and Senator Professor Hayes referred to that matter from another point of view.

I do not want to criticise this Bill in detail. I do not think it is a Bill that we should discuss in detail. I am not a bit interested in Party politics in connection with this Bill. We should discuss this Bill not from the point of view of comparing it with Deputy Norton's Bill, when he was Minister for Social Welfare, but from the point of view of whether or not it is right for this State to introduce it. If we are of the opinion that the State has acted wisely then it is a good Bill in so far as it goes. However, if we think, as I do, that the Bill was never necessary and that we should not have it on our Statute Book then it is a condemnation of this Government and previous Governments and I think that one day we shall come to deplore it.

Professor O'Brien

A great many very wide issues have been raised in the course of the debate this afternoon. I do not propose to follow the previous speakers into those wide issues. I agree very largely with what Senator McGuire said. My point of view on these matters coincides very largely with his. Possibly he goes a little further than I go in certain directions but, by and large, I think his social philosophy would coincide with mine.

I do not propose to deal with very large issues which Senator McGuire raised. I do not propose to deal with the moral issues involved in this particular type of legislation. I might, perhaps, say in passing, and without wanting to score any point out of it— it is a very small point—that, in a way, the Title of the Bill is rather question-begging. This is not directed towards the Minister in particular because the use of the word "welfare"—welfare State, social welfare, and so forth — is very prevalent to-day. The definition is rather tendentious in itself. Some people might think that the welfare of a community was not increased by measures of this kind. I am not saying that I agree with that point of view. I say that by labelling the measure "Welfare Bill" you are giving a certain tilt in its favour in the eyes of readers and in the ears of listeners. It is what is very commonly known as "emotive terminology" in which words with a very emotional content are used to describe what people approve of on other grounds. By starting this Bill with the definition "welfare", the Minister to some extent might perhaps be accused of creating a certain bias in favour of the Bill. I do not, however, deny that this particular Bill will increase the welfare of the community.

Whatever I may feel in general about the large moral issues involved in the State's assisting the individual, I think that this particular Bill is not in itself in any way immoral or unjust or unethical. Whereas one might discuss in a general way the whole matter regarding the State and the individual this particular Bill can be acquitted of being anything in the nature of immoral or unjust or of undermining the rights of the individual. I do not propose to go into those large moral issues on this Bill which deals with rather narrow aspects of a wider question. Similarly, I do not intend to go into the big political issues raised by Senator McGuire—the whole issues of individualism versus socialism. Whatever our ideas may be, we must accept the trend of the times. On that, perhaps, I might be inclined to disagree with Senator O'Donnell, although I would agree with him in general. I think the time has come when this particular type of legislation has become so much a part of the policy of every Government in the world that we have to accept it although it may not be the ideal best.

The financial aspects of the Bill seem to me to be so vast and not quite related to the present discussion that I propose to leave them aside. Next week we shall have the debate on the Finance Bill and I suppose that all public expenditure can be discussed on that occasion. I do not think it is quite relevant to discuss the financial aspects of this Bill at this stage. Beyond calling attention to the fact that these are relevant aspects, I do not propose to go into them any more.

There is one general point which I should like to emphasise. It has been mentioned by several other speakers— by Senator Professor Hayes and, more strongly, by Senator O'Donnell. It is that this Bill does not really contain any element of gift by the Government to the community. The word "generosity" has been used by certain members this evening. They said that the Government has been generous and would like to be more generous. I think that gives a wrong idea of the nature of the Bill. The Bill is essentially a Bill for transferring income either from the same pocket at one time in a person's career when he is well and is in employment to another time in his career when he is ill or unemployed or for transferring it from the pockets of some people who contribute to the expenses of the scheme to other people who derive benefits from it. Therefore, to talk about this Bill in terms of the "generosity" of the people responsible for it — the Oireachtas, who are ultimately responsible for it—is to give a false impression. It is another example of emotive terminology — the idea that here is a Bill designed for the welfare of the community and reflecting the generosity of the Oireachtas. That, to my mind, is emotive terminology. It gives a false impression at the outset of the debate.

This Bill, of course, contains a very large element of insurance. To that extent, it does not impose any burden on the taxpayer as such. The greater the degree of insurance in a Bill and the less the degree of assistance the better the Bill. I think everybody will agree about that. If a scheme can be financed by the contributions of the people directly concerned, to that extent I think it can claim to be something in the nature of a vocational Bill. To the extent to which industry finances its own chances and its own risks, they are taken off the backs of the community as a whole.

There is the element of assistance in the Bill. There are certain benefits which are not paid for by the contributions. Senator Hayes has pointed out a matter which cannot be sufficiently emphasised in this country at the present time, namely, that these provisions will be very largely met by the same type of people who benefit from the contributions. We have not got a large class of rich people. The policy of redistribution of wealth is not a matter which can be pursued very much in this country. We have not got the large reserves of untaxed wealth which still remain in other countries in spite of the degree to which equalising policy may have gone.

There is one point that has been made by other speakers which, I feel, must be repeated, and that is, that the Bill, however good in itself, should really form part of a larger whole and that the question of social insurance is being dealt with in this country in a slightly piecemeal manner. Measures which are good in themselves are introduced at intervals without a sufficient degree of correlation between them.

What I have said in the Seanad on other occasions about the income-tax in this country is, I think, quite true of the social services. Neither the system of taxation nor the system of social services has ever been inquired into independently in this country with due regard to the peculiar circumstances of this country and without undue regard to the circumstances of other countries which are quite different in their whole background.

I think that the two questions of income-tax, in particular, and taxation, in general, and the Social Insurance Bill should really be very largely investigated at the same time, because they involve, on the one hand, what the community pays into the Exchequer and, on the other hand, what the community takes out of the Exchequer. In the recent Royal Commission on Income-tax in Great Britain certain witnesses actually went to the extent of proposing schemes where the income-tax and social services should be related so that, at the end of the year, there should be one payment. Thus, the whole of the contribution of the State to the individual and of the individual to the State would be simplified. There is an immense amount of cross-counting at the present moment and the two questions should be really considered together.

I hope it is not asking too much to ask the Minister to consider the possibility of investigating the whole system of taxation and social services in this country in the light of the modern Irish problem. I say the modern problem, because circumstances have changed a great deal in recent years. I say the modern Irish problem, because the Irish problem is slightly different from that in other countries.

There are three things which should be borne in mind in this country. The first is the peculiar relation between town and country and the very important part played by the self-employed and the small agriculturists. This is not a proletarian country, and social services, modelled on those of industrial countries, may be inappropriate in our peculiar conditions.

The second matter which has been referred to this afternoon and which should be borne in mind is the capacity of the country to stand social services. The capacity of this country to stand social services is, of course, limited by its capacity to produce and, above all I think, to produce for export. Therefore this question of social services cannot be considered except in relation to the one vital and central problem of Irish economic life—the capacity to expand agricultural production. The time has come for an inquiry into all these matters which bear so clearly on each other.

Finally, I think I should say that the third peculiar circumstance—I am now returning for a moment to what was said by Senators McGuire and O'Donnell — is the ideology embodied in our Constitution. The Constitution contains a great many phrases with which we all probably agree, but many of them, I am afraid, up to the present have remained in the realm of generalities and aspirations. There are certain phrases there which might perhaps form the basis of a social policy which we have not yet attempted. I would suggest that, although this particular Bill must and will go through, it should be related to the larger background of the productive capacity of the country, to the peculiar distribution between rural and urban communities, to the prevalence of the small self-employed agricultural worker and to the ideology of the Irish Constitution which, as I have said, has largely remained without being implemented in practical legislation.

To come to the Bill itself, there is one criticism which I would like to make. In this I am sorry to say I differ from Senator Hawkins. It is on the question of retirement allowances. I am entirely against compulsory retirement at the age of 65. I belong to a profession in which I and my colleagues suffer from that compulsion. In our own case—that of the University College professors — I have always been against it on principle and I am against it in general. The benefits in the Bill which this Bill replaces were not benefits for compulsory retirements. There were provisions to allow people to retire at 65 if they had paid a certain number of contributions over a number of years. The ages were 65 in the case of men and 60 in the case of women. I must confess that at first I was under the impression that this was a scheme of compulsory retirement and on that account I was against it. I am against it in our own profession and I am against it in general. I think it puts people on the shelf much too early.

We cannot afford, as Senator Hawkins said this afternoon—and I quite agree with him—to waste the labour of people over 65, especially in a country like this where there are so many people over that age. I entirely agree that compulsorily to retire people at that age would be an immense wrong. The provisions of the earlier Social Welfare Bill were simply to allow people voluntarily to retire. I must confess that when I read Deputy Larkin's speech in the Dáil Debates on this matter I was completely won over to his point of view. There are people working, builders' labourers and such, at heavy outdoor work 35 or 40 years and have been paying contributions. I think when they get to an age when they may be suffering from minor diseases such as rheumatism, and where, if they are thrown out of work, they might find it difficult to get new work, society should allow them to retire if they wish. At the same time I agree that the retirement should not be made too attractive. The pension should be small. It should be possible for them to retire if they wish but they should not be attracted to retire. They might be positively attracted to remain on by providing for every year that they do not exercise that right after 65 their retirement pension might be raised. If they continue to work until they have reached the old age pension they should be rewarded by some small sum in the way of endowment or a higher rate of pension.

There are certain people who work in industrial occupations. They are getting old, tired and their health is failing. For them to retire at 65 with some degree of security is not a dangerous measure.

I think the number of people who would in fact avail themselves of the opportunity would not be very great and I would like the Minister to indicate what the probable cost of a measure of that kind would be and if he is not in a position to give it, to institute something in the nature of an actuarial inquiry as to what it would amount to.

The main criticism which I wish to make of this Bill in detail is one that has already been made by Senator Fearon, Senator McGuire and by other Senators, but it seems to me of such constitutional importance, far transcending the measure itself, that at the risk of wearying the Seanad I propose to repeat the point made by those Senators. I refer to the very wide degree of administrative discretion which this Bill leaves to the Minister. It is of course understood when I say the Minister I mean the officials operating the scheme.

As Senator Fearon said, reading together Section 4, Section 12 and the First Schedule, it is not too much to say that the Minister has almost complete power to decide who is to be included in this scheme and who is not. There are certain definitions of excepted employments and included employments, but the Bill itself gives to the Minister power to change all that to such an extent that, in my opinion, it gives him too much power or discretion in operating a measure of this kind. Section 4 gives to the Minister power at his own discretion, without any appeal, both to include new people in the Bill and to exclude people from the Bill. Sub-section (4) states:

"Regulations may provide for including among employed contributors persons employed in any of the employments specified in Part II of the First Schedule to this Act."

That Part II contains a large variety of employments, and I have just marked one to which I should like to draw attention. The first class of employment is employment at a remuneration exceeding in value £600 per year. Now that really gives to the Minister the power to bring in classes in the community inside this Bill with the ceiling of £600 per year which is laid down in the early part of the Bill. That does not really mean anything at all because, under that section in the Schedule, the Minister has the power to raise the ceiling at any time. I am not saying for a moment that there is anything sacred about £600. I am not concerned with that question at all. All I am saying is that if the Legislature decides that this Bill is to apply to people under £600, to give to the Minister the power to put a new ceiling in its place is giving him power to do something more than merely administer the Bill. It is giving him power to alter the nature of the whole statute. Sub-section (5) of Section 4 goes on to say:

"Regulations may provide for—

(a) excluding particular employments or any classes of employment from the employments specified in Part I of the First Schedule to this Act."

There is a curious distinction there between sub-section (4) and sub-section (5). Where proposals are made under sub-section (5), they must be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas and where proposals are made under sub-section (4) they need not be. I do not understand the basis of that distinction, why the exclusion powers must be approved by the Oireachtas and the inclusion powers need not.

To go on to Section 12 of the Bill, you will find that regulations may modify the provisions of this Act in their application in the case of a large number of people specified in the schedules, and also a large number of people — national school teachers, secondary school teachers, and other people of that kind. I understand that the Minister proposes to broaden that category by an amendment which he is moving to the Bill in this House. I cannot help feeling that these powers are too wide for the Minister to have at his own discretion. We, in the Seanad, have always attached great importance to limiting the powers of the administration. We have a Committee of Statutory Rules and Orders here sitting frequently and every Order emanating from Government Departments can be reviewed by that committee and, if it exceeds those powers, can be referred back. It seems to me that we are giving to the Minister in this Bill exceedingly wide powers. The fact that the powers are unusually wide is, I think, admitted by implication in the explanatory memorandum issued with the Bill. Paragraph 7 states:—

"It will be observed that the powers of inclusion and exclusion referred to in the two previous paragraphs, and also the power of modification referred in paragraph 4, are exercisable by means of regulations to be made by the Minister. The necessity for proceeding in this way arises from the fact that so many matters of detail are involved. When the Minister proposes to exercise his powers under Section 4 (5), the draft regulations must be submitted to the Oireachtas and can be made only when a resolution approving of the draft has been passed by each House."

I cannot help feeling that there is an apologetic note in that memorandum and that there is an effort to explain why so many powers are left to the Minister. But I disagree entirely with the description of these as matters of detail. I think that the inclusion of various classes of insured persons is a matter of principle, not a matter of detail, and I do suggest that the Bill requires to be amended in this connection. The Minister this afternoon, answering similar criticism on the Vital Statistics Bill, drew attention to the number of Orders on the Order Paper in the Seanad to-day. He asked the rhetorical question: "Would the Seanad sooner have 41 Acts or 41 Orders?" I would sooner have 41 Acts. I have no doubt at all about that. The very fact that each Act has to be debated in this House has a delaying effect. The Minister asked a rhetorical question and I am giving a matter-of-fact answer. I do feel, if the Vital Statistics Bill was defective in this respect of giving too much administrative discretion to Departments, this Bill before us errs very much more in the same direction.

To give two concrete suggestions for improving the situation I suggest that the Bill might provide that the Minister should have an advisory committee. That is one possibility. Another possibility is that any class of people affected by a decision of this kind should have a clear and definite right of appeal to an independent body. Finally, I suggest, in addition to the other suggestions, that there are certain classes of people in the community who, for various reasons which I intend to try to explain before I finish, should be entitled to be excluded from this Bill. There are certain types of people in certain organisations who have by their own foresight, thrift and providence so provided for the contingencies provided against in this Bill that they should be entitled as of right to be excluded from its provisions and their exclusion should not be left to the decision however considered of a Minister or departmental official.

In this matter, I may as well be perfectly frank with the Seanad. I am speaking on behalf of a certain class of people many of whom are constituents of mine in the National University. I am speaking on behalf of a certain class of salaried workers who are not directly represented in the Seanad except, I think, by the university representatives. The Seanad under the Constitution is supposed to be a vocational body; it is supposed to be elected and constituted on vocational lines. Therefore, if members of the Seanad defend the interests of any particular class of people in the community, especially of the class of people who have sent them there, they are not offending against the spirit of debate in the Seanad but, I respectfully suggest, are doing their duty. Other classes in the community are very ably and vocally represented in the Seanad; the farming community——

Mr. Baxter

No, no.

Professor O'Brien

——trade unionists, the business community. My use of the word "vocal" has been proved correct; I heard one of their voices.

Mr. Colgan

University professors.

Professor O'Brien

I am trying to represent them. That is exactly what I am saying. I am trying to represent my constituents. If I can represent my constituents with half the ability with which Senator Colgan represents his constituents I consider that I am doing very well.

There is a certain type of persons nowadays known as white collar workers. The white collar worker is a person who is finding life very heavy going at the present time. He performs a more and more useful function in modern society. We have all heard about the so-called "managerial revolution". White collar workers, technicians, scientists, administrators, persons running our great public utilities and public services are people at the present time who occupy a very important position in society. Many are university graduates; many more are not. I am definitely trying to put the point of view of these people to the Seanad. They have themselves, by their own foresight, thrift and providence built up provision against the contingencies of life and they wish to be excluded from the Bill. They have made it perfectly clear in public that they wish to be so excluded. I am putting their point of view by suggesting that they should have the right to contract out of the Bill, not merely to be excluded at the Minister's discretion under Section 4 or Section 12.

I do not propose to go into the whole question of the way in which the recent course of events has borne on the salaried classes. I hope to deal with that on another occasion. I will not say more than that the recent rise in prices, the rises in taxation and the whole course of events in recent years have been adverse to the salaried classes. They have not succeeded in adjusting their incomes in the same way as other classes in the community. Therefore they will feel any additional burden in the way of taxation more heavily than other people in the community whose incomes have been increased.

The cost-of-living index number in this country is constructed with regard to the standard of living in typical working class households but the cost-of-living index number in respect of the salaried classes and the white collar worker has shown that the cost-of-living for that class has gone up even more in recent years than the cost of living for the typical artisan or tradesman. I do think, therefore, that these people have a special claim to consideration with regard to taxation. To the extent that this Bill imposes taxation, they have a special claim to consideration in this discussion.

I do not propose to go into the large moral issues involved, individualism versus socialism, the extent to which Christian ethics approves of the State assisting the individual beyond a certain point. But I will say this which I think is relevant. I think that everybody will agree that if any class of people have built up their own self-contained scheme of insurance inside their own profession they have done something positively useful to society and that groups of people who have succeeded in building up provision against the contingencies of life by their own contributions should not be dragged unwillingly into schemes of this kind which are designed for the benefit of the less thrifty, the less provident or possibly the more indigent members of society. There are large numbers of professional workers including civil servants, national teachers and the other groups I have mentioned who feel that what I have said applies to them. They have built up schemes which amply insure them against whatever unemployment they are likely to meet — because they are not a class. that suffers much unemployment — and against contingencies of ill-health. Part of their case is — and I can give you absolute verification in a moment though I do not propose to delay you very long — that some of the people in these professions have actually accepted lower salaries in the past owing to the provision they themselves are making for these contingencies. Owing to their profession being looked upon as peculiarly secure, they are willing to accept a lower salary than people doing similar work without that security. I do not think that it is fair or right that people in that category should be dragged into a scheme with people who have been less provident. They wish particularly to have the case made that they should be excluded from the scheme by name and not merely by the discretion of the Minister as provided in Section 12. I will give one or two examples although I could give a great many more.

National teachers are guaranteed security of tenure by the terms of their employment and, therefore, there is no unemployment risk against which to insure. They are paid full salary during illness absence up to a maximum of 15 months in four years and in some cases during 18 months of continuous illness absence. They are required to supply a substitute after the first month of absence. They have an illness and mortality fund and a widows' and orphans' fund out of which limited grants are made to meet the medical expenses of members, the funeral expenses of members and to assist the widows and orphans of deceased members. There you have the case of a profession who have built up their own insurance against the minor risk of unemployment and the major risk of illness.

I have many more details of similar organisations. I refer simply to the salaried Electricity Supply Board workers as a typical example. They have a scheme of their own. They say that the Electricity Supply Board pension scheme is far better than the State scheme and there is not the slightest fear about its solvency. "No doubt," they say, "the red herring of private schemes will be trotted out, but there is a chance that the board's scheme can be improved in the years before us while if the State scheme is forced upon us, that chance vanishes. Some may say that is a pious hope, but so is the real value of the State benefit if the value of money further diminishes, as well it may." The Electricity Supply Board point out that under the 1942 Act, under which their salaries are largely framed, it is specifically laid down for the arbitration tribunal that in fixing their salaries and wages consideration is to be had "to the general circumstances and conditions of employment in the board, including the advantage of regular employment and benefits under the superannuation schemes under this Act". In other words, they have been receiving lower salaries than other classes of workers, owing to the peculiar security of their employment which has been built up largely by their own efforts.

The Civil Service is the last group I will quote. The Civil Service took a ballot on the present Social Welfare Bill in the present year. Of the total number of ballot papers circulated, 73 per cent. were returned. They were divided into two classes — members whose salaries were under £600 per year and therefore would be prima facie included in the Bill and those above £600 per year. Of the members under £600 per year who were compulsorily insurable under the Bill, 61 per cent. are opposed to participation in the social insurance scheme; 36 per cent. are prepared to participate in a scheme on the basis of a modified contribution for a modified benefit; and 3 per cent. are prepared to participate in the scheme as it stands. The voting of those over £600 per year showed that 63 per cent. were totally opposed to participation in the scheme, 27 per cent. were in favour of participation in a scheme as voluntary contributors, and 9 per cent. were in favour of participating in the scheme on the basis of modified contributions for modified benefits. It is perfectly clear from that that the civil servants who took part in that questionnaire preferred to be left out of this scheme.

There are many other groups from whom I have similar information, but I think I have given enough. I have given three representative samples— the Irish national teachers, the Electricity Supply Board staff and the civil servants. These groups wish to be left out of the scheme. I have deliberately refrained from making any reference to the earlier scheme, but there is just one thing I should like to say about it at this stage, because it is relevant to this point. These salaried workers have a stronger case for exclusion from this scheme than they had for exclusion from the earlier scheme, because the earlier scheme provided them with certain benefits which were mainly not in their own insurance schemes and which are not in this scheme, amongst these being retirement allowances at 65, death benefits and increased maternity benefits. These are not provided in this Bill. Therefore, if these organisations had a case for exclusion from the earlier Bill, their case for exclusion from this Bill is consideraby stronger.

To come to concrete suggestions of how this matter could best be met, one suggestion is that a section should be included in the Bill enabling regulations to be made which would allow any vocational service which had an absence of risk and which was prepared to organise a full security scheme on vocational lines to claim exemption and guaranteeing a State subvention to such vocational scheme, the amount of such subvention not to exceed 3/6 per employee contributing to the scheme. That is the first suggestion, that schemes of this kind should have a claim to be excluded.

Another suggestion is that the contributions of these classes of workers should be lower than the contributions of others. The benefits they can possibly derive from being included in this scheme are lower than the benefits other workers get, and, therefore, they seem to me to have an unanswerable case for not being asked to make the same contribution as other workers. Another suggestion is an extension to these workers of Section 60 of the Bill. Section 60 enables the Minister to make grants in certain cases to superannuation funds. That section could be widened in such a way as to include grants to private insurance schemes in individual industries or whole groups. With minor amendments. Section 60 could include provision of the kind for which I am arguing.

The question of the inclusion of small farmers, and other self-employed persons, which figured so largely in the debates in the Dáil, has not figured very largely in the debate in this House. The only relevance it has to what I am saying is that the argument against including farmers in the scheme is that they do not suffer from the risk of unemployment and that, in the case of ill-health, they are mainly able to meet the cost of a certain amount of ill-health out of their own resources. If that argument is a good argument for excluding them, it is an equally good argument for excluding the various groups of workers to whom I have referred. If any class of worker who already provide for their own contingencies are forced into this scheme against their will, they are simply being subjected to an additional tax. The net result is simply to tax them all. As I said earlier — I propose to enlarge on it on another occasion— this section of the population is already — I will not say overtaxed because that is perhaps begging the question — taxed to a degree which they feel very severely. To include them in a scheme of this kind, with large contributions, is subjecting them to another compulsory imposition. If that compulsory imposition can be distinguished by anybody in this House from a tax, I should very much like to hear the distinction made.

At the beginning of my observations, I said that I did not intend to enter into the larger matters which were touched on by Senator McGuire — I think it would take me too far afield — but I should like to say, to back up the argument I have been trying to make up to the present, that this compulsory inclusion of groups of people in schemes of this kind seems to offend against the principle of vocationalism which has been so much advocated in this country and elsewhere.

I would like to quote a short extract from the great Encyclical on the social order issued in 1931 by Pope Pius XI, in which the following passage occurs, which seems to me to be directly relevant to the present debate:—

"Just as it is wrong to withdraw from the individual and commit to the community at large what private enterprise and industry can accomplish, so too it is an injustice, a grave evil and a disturbance of right order for a larger and higher organisation to arrogate to itself functions which can be performed efficiently by smaller and lower bodies. This is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, unshaken and unchanged, and it retains its full truth to-day."

That, I think, is relevant to the subject of this discussion.

I have used the words thrift, prudence and providence in the course of what I have said. One may assume from that that I am old-fashioned. According to a certain school of economics, thrift and saving are vices. But, even at the risk of being considered old-fashioned, I still maintain that providence and prudence are virtues and ought to be encouraged. Savings schemes, to the extent to which they make people more thrifty, provident and far-seeing than before, are entirely good and should be approved of.

Schemes which would have the effect of making people less thrifty and less provident, and inclined to shift the burden of their own foresight on to other shoulders, have not the same justification and therefore we should think twice before we impose them on the unwilling "beneficiaries."

Finally, I suggest to the Minister that the time has come to look into this whole question in the light of all these various considerations, to institute an inquiry into the social services in this country in the light of the productive capacity of the country to support them, of the social structure of the country to need them and of the ideology expressed in the Constitution to justify them.

Minister for Social Welfare (Dr. Ryan)

Senator Hayes attacked me mildly for reading an official English speech. My view was that a clear and exact statement of the provisions of the Bill would be useful, setting out the cost, the benefits and the contributions. However, it appears that I took the wrong line. I did give in the Dáil what the Senator has asked for, a history of social security in this country and the principles behind it, and I was bitterly attacked—so it appears that it is not easy to please the two Houses.

Senator Hayes said that figures in regard to cost had no meaning unless related to the amount of taxation collected. In the Dáil I produced figures on that, which had been worked out at the time. In 1931-32, 15 per cent. of the revenue was spent on social welfare; in 1947-48, 18½ per cent. was so spent; in 1950-51, 16½ per cent. was so spent and in 1953-54 it is estimated that the amount will be something over 20 per cent. I am not inclined to boast, as some Senators have suggested, that we are spending so much on social services. I have given the figures and given them principally because I was attacked by certain sections for not doing enough in the way of social welfare. When I say that certain money has to be found by the taxpayer, I hardly find it necessary to say that the community has to pay it. It is hardly necessary that Senators should remind me that when I talk about money from the taxpayer it does not come from nowhere but from someone. I know it very well.

Senator Hawkins said, in answer to some remark, that this Bill was not introduced as a result of the Budget. That is fairly evident. The Bill was introduced before Christmas and, whatever fears we may have had as to what the Budget would be like, we had not come down to the details of the Budget and did not know exactly what it might be.

I should have emphasised a little more, perhaps, that the Bill was divided into insurance and assistance. I think it was Senator Hayes who said I might have given some reasons for putting some on the insurance side and some on the assistance side. There are very practical reasons. I do not think you can collect contributions except through an employer. I do not know of any way it could be done otherwise. That means that, as far as the insured classes are concerned, they must be those who are working for an employer. Suggestions have been made from time to time that we might have voluntary contributors, but those suggestions never came to very much. If Senators give it a little thought, they will understand. If we were, for instance, to say that the self-employed might come in for sickness benefit on a voluntary basis, I think you would find that those who expected to be sick fairly often would come in, while those who did not expect to be sick at all would not come in, so you would have a very poor risk added on on the voluntary side. Therefore, it is better not to approach it from the voluntary side at all. That means that, in fact, an insurance scheme can only apply, in this country the same as in any other, to those who are working under a contract of employment.

I think it was Senator O'Brien who made the point, which was quite true, that the small farmer, for instance, does not need unemployment insurance. The self-employed man generally does not need unemployment insurance, as the ideas are contradictory —if he is a self-employed person that means that he has employment. As far as sickness benefit is concerned, he is usually in a position to stand at least a certain amount of sickness without very severe hardship. We have, therefore, the distinction that the person who is working under a contract of employment is usually a person who cannot meet unemployment himself, especially over any sort of a long period, and he cannot meet sickness either; he has to be helped by the State or by some insurance scheme or in some other way. The self-employed person need not be helped for these two particular items, unemployment and sickness. The thing settles down fairly naturally, as it has settled down here over the years.

We have come now to the co-ordination in this Bill and we co-ordinate on the basis that those who are working for an employer will come under the insurance scheme for unemployment benefit and sickness benefit and also for widows' and orphans' pensions. Personally, if there were no contract for widows' and orphans' pensions there already, I would have put them on the assistance side, but as they were there and had paid contributions up to the moment and had, therefore, entered into a contract for those pensions, we had to leave it on the insurance side— that is, in respect of a contributory widows' and orphans' pension. On the other hand, there are certain schemes that should apply to the self-employed as well as the person working for an employer. It will be admitted that the self-employed person needs the old age pension just as much as the employed person. Similarly as regards the widow's pension. Both apply equally and the same applies to children's allowances. On the assistance side, therefore, we quite naturally get schemes like the old age pension, non-contributory widows' and orphans' pensions and children's allowances. They come on the assistance side where it is paid entirely by the State.

There is one other matter which I should mention and that is unemployment assistance. There are certain self-employed people who have, let us say, seasonal occupation—people such as smallholders, fishermen, and so forth. The only solution appears to be unemployment assistance. That brings us to the question of the contributions. Where all classes are subject to a means test, if they are entitled to the old age pension I cannot see why there is any great difference in collecting that money through taxation or by contributions from the person himself and partly from the State. The same would apply to the non-contributory widow's pension and to children's allowances. If the population generally can qualify for these particular benefits, I cannot see any great objection to the population generally paying for it through taxation.

I must say that I have not great faith in or predilection towards contributions by employer and employee. As a matter of fact, I think it is rather an unfair system of collection for these services. First of all, let us consider the employer's side. We all know that certain employers are in a position to pass on all their costs to the consumer. We know, let us say, that large manufacturers and big business men are in a position to add up all their costs and then make up what they can charge for the article—and that price is charged and it does not matter much to them whether or not they are paying contributions for their employees. There are certain other employers, particularly farmers, who are not in a position to pass on these costs and who are compelled to take what they get for their wares. If they have to pay an increased contribution it must come out of whatever profits they make. Therefore, taking the employers' case first, the system of contribution is an unfair system. The same applies to a very great extent to the employees. Certain groups of employees are better organised than others and are in a better position to demand an increased wage. Generally speaking, it is the employees who are earning good wages who are in a better position to demand more and the employees who are earning a fairly low wage are not in a position to demand a better wage. Therefore, contributions on employees are not a fair system. As I said in the Dáil, no Minister will ever be able to change the system because no Minister will ever be able to get a Minister for Finance to agree that he should drop an income of between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000 in deference to a principle such as I have stated. Therefore, I am afraid the contributions must continue but I would certainly resist increasing these contributions to any extent because I do not believe that they are altogether fair.

The matter of the retiring allowance was raised. Senator O'Brien told us that he read the speech made by Deputy Larkin in the Dáil, that he was impressed by that speech and that he was in favour of the retiring allowance. It is a great pity that Senator O'Brien did not read my speech to the Dáil because he would not then have lost half an hour this afternoon talking about the Civil Service, and so forth. I dealt fully with the matter in the Dáil. However, perhaps Senator O'Brien has a greater liking for reading the speeches of other Deputies in the Dáil than mine.

I have provided in this Bill that when a person comes to 65 he is entitled to draw sickness benefit, if he is ill, for the five years and unemployment benefit, if he is qualified, for the whole five years provided he is looking for employment but cannot get it. When I said that I did not believe in these retiring allowances, some people argued that when a worker reaches 65 he might not be able to work any longer. If he is not, he will get sickness benefit. If he cannot get work because his employer may not want to keep him in employment after 65 then he will get unemployment benefit. If he gets both of these benefits he gets exactly the same amount as Deputy Norton provided in his Bill. Therefore, there is no use in Senator O'Brien's or any Senator's arguing here or anywhere else that Deputy Norton did better in his Bill by making provision for retiring allowances than I have done in this Bill, because the person will not get the retiring allowance unless he is qualified under the insurance. If a person is not able to work or cannot get work, he gets the same benefit under this Bill as he would have got under Deputy Norton's Bill. The only difference—and this is a difference advocated by Senator O'Brien because he said that we should encourage the man to work—is that I am encouraging the man to work while Deputy Norton was discouraging him. Under Deputy Norton's scheme a man could continue working after 65 but if he got sick he would not get sickness allowance and if he became unemployed he would not get unemployment assistance so that his only option was to draw the retiring allowance. Therefore, the man was under a certain amount of compulsion in that regard. Any fair-minded person who examines the proposals for a person between the ages of 65 and 70 will admit that in the Bill proposed by Deputy Norton the person was going to be treated no better in any way than he is being treated under this Bill—except that we encourage him to work while under Deputy Norton's Bill he was not encouraged to work.

Senator Baxter mentioned how confusing statistics can be. He said that my figures did not give the full picture. He criticised me rather severely for not going into more detail with regard to figures. Senator Professor Hayes criticised me for going too much into figures and for not dealing with principles. I think I may say that Senator Baxter uttered a lot of generalities. I think nobody could object to his statement that every man should have a house and a weekly wage sufficient to keep his family. We all agree with that. The only excuse I have for bringing in this Bill is that it does not appear to happen in this country, or indeed in any other country in the world, that every man has a house and a wage sufficient to keep his family. For that reason this Bill was brought in. I am afraid there is not much use in pursuing the course adopted by Senator Baxter because the fact of the matter is that we have not got the ideal State yet.

Senator Fearon started off by making one very wise remark in my opinion and that was that in the social welfare business there is no going back. That is quite true. Whenever a benefit is given we cannot go back. That has created considerable difficulty in drawing up a co-ordinated scheme. Even if there are only a few people who have some benefit that is out of line with our new scheme we have to keep them there. In every part of this Bill you will see a clause put in to say that nobody will get less as a result of this Bill. There may be a few people who are doing somewhat better and the only thing we can do for the few other people is to keep them as they are until they go out of insurance whether as widows or whatever it may be.

Senator Fearon said that the self-employed are paying by way of taxation for those who are drawing on the insurance side. That is true because on the insurance side the employee and employer are paying their part and the State is contributing one half, in fact a bit more. The self-employed, therefore, are contributing in that way. Proportionately speaking, it is not a very big item. It is fairly substantial but it is not terribly big. As I said when I was bringing in the Bill to-day, in the next financial year the State would be contributing £21,250,000. Of that amount, about £3,000,000 would be going for the insurance schemes and £18,250,000, therefore, for the assistance schemes. The taxpayers generally, therefore, are paying £3,000,000 out of the £21,250,000 for the benefit of those who are insured. The remainder, £18,250,000, we may take it, is being paid for schemes they may themselves enjoy some time. After all, none of us knows that we may be in a position to draw the old age pension some time and I suppose any man put in the position would like to feel that he was leaving some benefits for a widow behind him. There are also provisions for children's allowances and unemployment assistance. These are the schemes on the assistance side. They are costing, roughly, about £18,250,000.

So far as the self-employed person is concerned, therefore, in his taxation about 6d. out of every 7d. will be for schemes that he may possibly enjoy himself and 1d. out of 7d. will be for the insurance schemes he cannot possibly enjoy. Senator Fearon also asked whether the £500,000 is sufficient for treatment benefit. That is a question that is impossible to answer by "yes" or "no". I suppose it is really a matter of opinion. The reason it is fixed at £500,000 is because that was the amount payable in the last year. I thought it was fair enough to continue that amount until the health scheme comes in.

When the health scheme comes in, then these treatment benefits that are there will be taken over by the Health Department and there will no longer be any necessity for a vote of this kind from the Oireachtas from the social security side. This scheme is only about ten years in operation. Some of the old societies gave these benefits but some of them did not. For the last ten years benefits have been given for spectacles and teeth and also for hospital treatment. The benefits have remained much the same. The beneficiary had to pay a certain amount himself for dentures and also a certain amount for his spectacles, but up to this he was getting his hospital costs free.

Since the cost of hospitals has gone up to £5 5s. the beneficiary has to pay £1 1s. a week himself and the Social Welfare Department will pay £4 4s. It must be remembered, of course, that the person who is not able to pay that £1 1s. will have it paid for him by the local authority, just as if he was not insured at all.

Senator Colgan put some questions with which I would like to deal. They were questions of detail. He spoke of the craft workers who have a superannuation scheme of their own. He evidently anticipated me in case I made the suggestion that they could resort to Section 60. He said they did not want help but that they should not be victimised for their thrift by having that pension taken into account as a means test when they apply for the old age pension. That was a thing I had in mind and, when I was dealing with the means test applying to applicants for old age pensions in the future, I raised it very substantially. I had approached the matter, if you like, by giving better benefits to some than others and maybe my first approach may have been to do something on the lines suggested by Senator Colgan. We ended up by giving what we thought was a generous amount. The person would have to have more than £2 a week to exclude him from some old age pension and he would have to have over £1 a week to exclude him from the full old age pension. I do not know whether it will be possible to reconsider that. I should say it will not be possible for some time. Perhaps, in consideration of schemes that may be suggested to us under Sections 60 and 69, it may be possible to do something that would meet with the approval of Senator Colgan.

The next matter he mentioned was in relation to those who were involved indirectly in strikes. He mentioned a particular instance of a transport strike, where the lady who was cleaning the office was involved and, therefore, was not permitted to draw unemployment insurance. That is a very difficult problem. They are trying to deal with it in England and the Labour Government admit they have not dealt with it very successfully. My predecessor, Deputy Norton, asked the two congresses, the Congress of Irish Unions and the Trades Union Congress, to make suggestions in regard to this matter. So far, the suggestions have not reached us. It is an extremely difficult problem and I do not know how we can ever get a satisfactory solution to it.

Senator Colgan referred to a person who, perhaps, gets 1/- increase and it means that his means are gone up and he loses 2/6 of the old age pension. I think Senator Colgan's suggestion was that the old age pension should go up and down by 1/- but in all probability if that had been the case, before that 1/- had come at all the pension would have been brought down by 1/-. What has happened there is that the last 1/- made all the difference to get the 2/6. He might have got another 1/- before that that did not count. It is very difficult to deal with a thing like that generally without knowing all the circumstances.

Another point raised by Senator Colgan was that in our benefits we are stopping after the first two children. That is applicable now all round—sickness benefit, unemployment benefit, widows' and orphans' pensions and unemployment assistance. In every case if the man has a wife it goes to the wife; if the wife has a child it goes to the child and it goes to the second child but then stops. The idea underlying that was that beyond the second child we should give any benefits we could spare in the way of children's allowances. We could make a fairly good case for spending all we can on children's allowances.

Senator Fearon referred to nutrition. There was a very exhaustive nutritional survey carried out here about 1946 or 1947. One thing that emerged from that in the general report was that there were two classes that were not as well nourished as they might be. One of them was the large family. The person with a large family was not able to look after that family as well as he should from the nutritional point of view. Bearing that in mind we should, I think, do everything we possibly can for the man who is working, the man who is idle and the man who is sick and who has a large family. Our intention, therefore, was that whatever money we could spare we should direct it to children's allowances.

One other point, incidentally, that came out of that nutritional survey was that the old age pensioner was well nourished. Deputies and Senators are inclined to think sometimes that the old age pensioner is not well treated. As far as the nutritional survey went, they said that he treats himself well. That is all I can say.

Senator McGuire said that as far as the Fine Gael Party was concerned they took pains to examine all these questions very meticulously and that that was responsible for the long delay in the Coalition Government bringing in the Social Welfare Bill. It is a very strange thing but I do not think that any Fianna Fail Government or any other Government or Party, except Fine Gael would ever bring in the amendment which was brought in to that Social Welfare Bill when it was in the Dáil. They brought in an amendment which was going to cost £1,200,000 for increased old age pensions. We all know why it was brought in. It was brought in because the Party was slipping and was going to be beaten in the Dáil and they brought it in straight from the Cabinet. The Social Welfare Department did not know about it. I have examined the files and cross-examined officials and they told me they knew nothing about it. They came straight from the Cabinet meeting and handed it into the Dáil office. That is the examination they gave that particular amendment. I have not any great faith, therefore, in Senator McGuire's defence of the Fine Gael Party for delaying their Social Welfare Bill so long in the time of the Coalition Government.

Senator McGuire said, too, there was a suggestion of bidding for votes in connection with the Social Welfare Scheme. That accusation can be made by anybody and I would not be surprised if my friend, Senator Quirke, would accuse the Fine Gael Party of bidding for votes when they go down the country and promise to take off some of the taxes we put on.

Mr. Quirke

I have done it already.

Dr. Ryan

However, that does not matter very much. Senator McCrea said this Bill was not a shadow of the Bill introduced by Deputy Norton. He said it was neither fish nor flesh—he did say it was a red herring, but that does not matter. Over 12 months ago when in opposition in the Dáil I introduced an amendment to Deputy Norton's Bill, when it came along, asking the Dáil to postpone a Second Reading until he put in certain provisions. On the whole, I think that this Bill has now implemented that amendment. Of course, I was attacked in the Dáil, and I suppose I could be attacked here, on certain details, but the details are not of any great importance. Take the big items. I said I would not put in the retiring allowances and I would not put in the death benefit. On the other hand, I said we would bring in non-contributory widows' and children's allowances and provide better treatment than Deputy Norton had suggested. We did that. I said that I did not think it would be necessary to raise contributions. Well, I found that we had to raise contributions on examination.

If you like, all I can be accused of there is that I am not as good a statistician as the officials in the statistics department. If I had been as good a statistician I would not have made that mistake. I may be condemned, perhaps, for assuming that I was as good a statistician as they were, but it happened that I was not as good and therefore these contributions had to be increased. Take the larger items. We did not bring in the retiring allowance, we did not bring in the death benefit. We did make a considerable improvement in the non-contributory widows' pensions.

I explained here that we raised it from 10/- in the country and 4/- in the urban areas up to 20/- and we also raised the allowance for one or two children as the case might be. I also said, when speaking on this Bill in the Dáil, that we intended to deal with children's allowances and the intention was, if we could afford it—I was not sure if we could at that time—to bring in the second child. That is as far as we got until the Budget came along, and the Budget superimposed a certain number of benefits on what we had already. It gave 1/6 extra to all the children drawing children's allowances, as well as bringing in the second child at 2/6; it gave 1/6 to the old age pensioners and a very substantial increase to the unemployment assistance recipients.

That was designed to cover everybody who was in receipt of social welfare benefits and that number is something over 900,000. Some of those 900,000 are drawing from two sources, but I believe the number is something over 800,000. Every one of those people who, after all, I suppose, are the worst off people in the community, will be compensated for any increase in prices as a result of taking off the food subsidies. Again, it was calculated that the increase in the price of food as a result of taking off those subsidies will be 1/6 a week and that 1/6 has been given to the old age pensioner, to the children and so on.

Senator McCrea said something which was said in the Dáil. He said, and it is quite true, that we have great respect for family life in this country, that we have great respect for the dead and we like to bury them decently. What I cannot understand is this, why the Labour Deputies in the Dáil and the Labour Senators in this House should assume that from this day forward every person who dies in this country will be buried in a pauper's coffin. Why should it happen from this day forward? Why should it happen that Deputy Norton should be so very far-sighted as to step in at the psychological moment to prevent the pauper's coffin from being produced by giving the death benefit, but that I did not see that, did not give the death benefit and that therefore the pauper's coffin is coming?

I think that the family tradition will carry on in this country, that we will have the same respect for the dead and that the people will be able to bury their dead all right. In any case, as I said in the Dáil, if the people concerned, those who are covered by social insurance, make it very plain to me by a majority that they want a scheme of retirement allowances or death benefit for which they will themselves pay, I will certainly produce a scheme.

Senator McCrea said that the maternity benefit was being reduced by £2. That is not true. He said, too, a thing that I have heard elsewhere, that he does not see why a contributory widow should get more than a non-contributory widow. I think that in all justice, if a person pays for a certain benefit, he should get at least a little more than a person who does not pay for it. I do not see what merit there would be at all in getting people to contribute for widows' pensions if in the end the person who does not contribute gets just the same pension. I think it is ridiculous that that should be suggested.

Another point made by Senator McCrea was wrong. He said that if a man had been out of work for 18 months before dying his widow would not get a contributory widows' pension. Under this Bill she would. This Bill will change the present position. Under the old scheme, in order to qualify a person had to be working and to have his card stamped or, if he did not work, he had to put on the stamps himself. Under the new scheme he is all right if he has stamps or if he is credited. To be credited means to be sick or unemployed, so the widow of a person who is genuinely unemployed, even for two years, and then dies, is in benefit and is not disqualified as a result.

Senator McCrea asked me if I could name any other country in Europe where such unchristian conditions applied as apply here under the social welfare scheme. That is another rhetorical question such as I have heard in the other House put by members of the Labour Party. I find it hard to understand what a Labour Deputy or Senator hopes to gain by trying to persuade the people of the country that we are less Christian, less generous in our social welfare than other countries. I have to some extent studied the systems in other countries and I do not think that they are any better than ours. That is my opinion. In fact, I think that we are definitely better than many countries. I do not know if any of them are in any way superior to us.

Senator O'Brien thought that we were indulging in emotive terminology. When the Government were setting up what is now called the Social Welfare Department there was some talk about the title. Some thought that it might be "Social Security"; others that it might be "Social Welfare". We have to use some name. If Senator O'Brien were in the Government he would give the Department a name implying that we were doing something for the people. We must call it "security", "welfare" or "improvement", something of that kind. I would like if Senator O'Brien could suggest some name that would be more appropriate. I dare say that if we were to ask Senator Baxter or Senator McCrea they would call it the "pauperism Department", but that would not meet the general idea either.

Senator O'Brien suggested also that we should have an advisory committee. Deputy Norton had that in his Bill. I cannot see the slightest merit in what an advisory committee could do. Once the Bill is passed I do not think that the Minister for Social Welfare will have very much to do with its administration. In fact, I do not think that the Minister should have anything to do with it. I believe that when a Bill like that is passed and we have set up our machinery for administration and arranged the various people who will decide, first of all, whether a person should be insured or not and, secondly, whether he should receive benefit or not, then these officials should decide these questions and the Minister should not come into it at all. Therefore, as far as this Bill is concerned, I do not see what a committee could advise, unless to advise the Minister not to have anything to do with it. I do not know what reason any Senator could have for suggesting the setting up of an advisory committee, except that it was provided in Deputy Norton's Bill.

Senator O'Brien went on to talk of the white collar worker. If the Senator had read my speeches in the Dáil, as he did those of the Opposition, he would have seen that I made the intention very plain regarding civil servants, national teachers and the Electricity Supply Board, which were the three he mentioned. As far as civil servants are concerned, I explained that established civil servants over £600 a year are of course out and are not affected. Civil servants under £600 a year will only be covered for widows' pensions because the Minister for Finance does not give them that benefit at the moment. If he does, we will drop them, but for the moment we will insure them for widows' pensions and charge the appropriate contribution.

The same would apply to national teachers. We are not going to collect contributions from national teachers for unemployment because they are guaranteed against it. We are not going to collect contributions for sickness although I am not sure that we are altogether right in letting them off because they have not unlimited sickness benefit as they would have in the scheme under the Bill. Senators are aware, I am sure, that when a person qualifies under the Bill and gets sick if he is disabled for life he draws a pension for life. The national teacher has not as good provisions as that under the present scheme for sickness benefit. However, let that go. Electricity Supply Board workers are all right for sickness and unemployment, so we are going to take them on only for widows' pensions.

Generally speaking, we take any class and ask whether they have unemployment benefit as good as we are giving and if so we do not take them on. When I say "any class" I mean under the State, a local authority, a State company or public authority. This is our test. If they are covered for unemployment we do not take them on for unemployment benefit and if they are covered for sickness we do not take them on for that. If they are covered for widows' pensions they are completely free. In a great many cases, however, they are not covered for widows' pensions and, therefore, we take them on for that particular scheme but we charge them only the appropriate contribution when we are taking them on for one part of the scheme.

I should say also that, outside the Civil Service, local authorities and public authorities, we have two sections which might be invoked for dealing with other cases, whether those employed by a certain employer or those of a certain trade union. These are clauses 60 and 69. It could not possibly be laid down in the Bill under what conditions they would be taken on. I think it is possible—I think only under Section 60—to negotiate a scheme with a particular employer or trade union, but I think Senators may take it for granted that, before the scheme is actually sanctioned, there will have to be further legislation. I was very anxious to put in a section like this which would at least enable the Minister to negotiate a scheme of that kind and, if you like, it is my contribution to vocationalism, because I think it may be possible to do something towards vocationalism under that clause, although I should imagine that it is not going to be done in the very near future.

Lastly, with regard to the point made by Senator O'Brien that we should encourage thrift, I must say that I entirely agree with him. When the question is put to me by Deputies or Senators: "How can you expect a man to live on 24/- a week?" my answer is that I do not expect him to live on 24/- a week. It is a bare subsistence for the unthrifty man, but what I expect is that the thrifty person will see to it that he has more than 24/- a week, if he falls sick or becomes unemployed, and will also see to it that, if he leaves a widow, she will have a little more than 24/- a week, too. I think it may be taken that this Bill should not discourage thrift, but should, as a matter of fact, encourage thrift, because it does give a person the encouragement that, if he saves a little more, what he saves along with what is provided here will make him fairly comfortable. I agree with Senator O'Brien that we should do everything to encourage the thrifty person to make some provision for adding to what is provided in the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee Stage ordered for Thursday, 5th June.