This Bill provides for increases in the service and disability pensions which are being paid under the Connaught Rangers (Pensions) Act of 1936 to the former members, now numbering about 30, of the first battalion of the Connaught Rangers who mutinied in India in 1920 and who, as a result, were sentenced by court-martial to penal servitude or imprisonment.
The Bill proposes that these pensions, all of which are below £100 per year, should be increased by 50 per cent. which, as Senators will recall, is the increase proposed for I.R.A. military service pensioners in the Military Service (Pensions) (Amendment) Bill, 1952, which the Seanad passed yesterday. The Connaught Rangers (Pensions) Act, 1936, provided for abatement in the light of other receipts from public or local authority funds. The system is the same as that which applies at present under the Military Service (Pensions) Act about which Senator Michael Hayes spoke yesterday.
By Section 3 of this Bill it is proposed to abolish abatement. I have no doubt the Seanad will be glad to hear that, in addition to these concessions, it is proposed in the forthcoming Army Pensions Bill to make these Connaught Ranger pensioners eligible for the special allowances which we spoke about in the Seanad yesterday in the same way as the Old I.R.A. men. It is a very simple Bill. It just brings the Connaught Rangers into line with the I.R.A. pensioners.
