This Bill is designed primarily to give legislative effect to the increases in the rates of non-contributory old age and blind pensions, widows' pensions and unemployment assistance from 1st August, 1964, announced by the Minister for Finance in his Budget Statement on 14th April last. The opportunity is also being taken to bring about some further extensions and improvements of both the Social Insurance and the Social Assistance schemes which it is desirable and possible to make. The wording of some of the Sections in the Bill is necessarily technical and, accordingly, an explanatory memorandum has been circulated with the Bill.
The Budget increase proposed in the rates of non-contributory old age and blind pensions is 2/6d a week, which will make the new weekly rates of these pensions range from 37/6d at the maximum by steps of 5/- down to 7/6d at the minimum according to the means of the pensioner as set out in the table in Section 2.
In regard to unemployment assistance, which is dealt with in section 3, the increase proposed in the Budget is also 2/6d. a week, but this applies to both the personal rate of assistance and to the allowance payable in respect of an adult dependant. Thus the maximum rate of unemployment assistance for a married man with a dependent wife will be increased by 5/- a week to 52/6d. a week in an urban area, and to 44/6d. a week in a rural area. The increase in the maximum rates of unemployment assistance by automatically raising the means limit for assistance purposes, will bring within the scope of the scheme persons who at present fail to qualify for assistance because their means are a little in excess of the limit.
An increase of 2/6d. a week is also proposed in the rates of widows' non-contributory pensions. As a result, the rates of pension for a widow with no dependent children would range from 36/- a week at the maximum by steps of 5/- down to 11/- a week according to the means of the widow. However, a widow whose means were just over the limit for 11/- pension would get no pension even though the margin by which her means exceeded the limit might be considerably less than 11/- a week, and to obviate this the scale of means and rates of widows' non-contributory pensions is being extended so as to add a new rate of pension of 6/- at the minimum. This new rate is included in the table in section 4.
In addition to providing for the Budget increase, the Bill will bring about some desirable improvements and extensions of the Social Welfare Schemes. The first of these is the payment with old age pensions, both contributory and non-contributory, of increases of pension in respect of qualified children, which are dealt with in sections 5, 8, 9 and 10. It is anomalous that a person approaching the age of 70 could be in receipt of disability benefit or unemployment benefit, which included an increase for children, but that immediately on reaching that age and becoming entitled only to an old age contributory pension, no increase could be paid in respect of the children.
A similar anomaly arises in the case of persons in receipt of unemployment assistance or widow's non-contributory pension who qualify for non-contributory old age pension at the age of 70. To rectify this position, the Bill proposes to provide for the payment of increases of pension to old age (contributory) pensioners for qualified children at the same rates as are paid with disability benefit, unemployment benefit or widow's (contributory) pension, i.e. 13/- for each of the first two qualified children and 8/- for each additional qualified child, and for the payment in respect of qualified children of non-contributory old age pensioners of increases at the same rate as those which are paid with widow's (non-contributory) pension and unemployment assistance, i.e., 10/- for each of the first two qualified children and 5/- for each additional qualified child.
In addition to extending the scale of means and rates of non-contributory pension, section 5 will enable £39 of any earnings from insurable employment to be disregarded in assessing means for pension purposes in respect of each qualified child.
The same qualification conditions will obtain in respect of the increases of pension for children, as applies for the general Children's Allowances scheme and as obtains in respect of children under the other forms of Social Welfare benefits.
Provision is made in sections 5 and 8 for the making of an order bringing these increases into force. For administrative reasons it would not be possible to bring them into payment concurrently with the Budget increases, but it is anticipated that payment will commence at the beginning of November next.
This Bill also provides for two amendments of the Social Insurance scheme. The first of these relates to the insurability of pensionable teachers in the training colleges for national teachers who are at present compulsorily insurable for all benefits under the Social Insurance scheme, where their remuneration is within the insurability limit. Provision is made in section 6 of the Bill to enable the Minister to make regulations treating these teachers for insurance purposes in exactly the same way as pensionable teachers in national, secondary and vocational schools who are insurable for widows' and orphans' pensions purposes only.
The other amendment in relation to the Social Insurance scheme dealt with in section 7 refers to the overriding limit of half a million pounds on the amount which may be paid by way of treatment benefit in any financial year. Treatment benefit is now limited to dental benefit, optical benefit and medical and surgical appliances benefit the appliances in question being contact lenses and hearing aids. Expenditure on treatment benefit is increasing and it could happen that unless the overriding limit is removed the scheme might have to be terminated or suspended during the course of a financial year for lack of money. Section 7 proposes, therefore, to remove that overriding limit and leave the amount to be spent in any year to be agreed upon between the Minister for Finance and myself, the amount involved being, of course, included in the year's Estimates.
Sections 11 and 12 of the Bill effect improvements in the Unemployment Assistance scheme. Under the provision in section 11, persons applying for unemployment assistance can be paid retrospectively where favourable decisions revising earlier decisions have been given. This will ensure that the time taken to deal with cases will not detrimentally affect the amount payable to the applicant where his application or appeal is successful. The amendment will also clarify the law in so far as it relates to overpayments of unemployment assistance arising in the converse situation where a revised decision results in a reduction of the unemployment assistance payable, and fraud is involved.
The provision in section 12 is intended to give some relief to the persons who are employed seasonally as fishermen either working on their own account or on a share basis. This matter has been a source of considerable grievance over the years. Earnings from employment under a contract of service are not regarded as means for the purpose of unemployment assistance but a fisherman working on his own account or on a share basis is not normally employed under a contract of service. Accordingly, any income which he derives from his fishing is treated as means and may deprive him of a qualification certificate, without which he cannot get unemployment assistance, or make his means such as to reduce the rate of unemployment assistance payable to him, and it has been claimed that this bears unfairly on these seasonal fishermen. It is now proposed to reduce the impact of such earnings on title to unemployment assistance by allowing a proportion, up to an overriding limit of £80 a year, of the income derived from seasonal fishing to be disregarded in assessing a person's means for unemployment assistance purposes.
Section 13 of the Bill proposes an improvement relating to the minimum age limits for widow's non-contributory pension. A widow cannot qualify for a non-contributory pension if she is less than 48 years of age, unless she has a qualified child or children and, if a widow with a qualified child or children has not attained the age of 40 years within six months after her last or only qualified child ceases to be qualified, she loses her pension. Both of these minimum age limits can have rather harsh effects.
The only real argument for them is that a widow without children should be in a position to provide for herself by working. Circumstances may, however, prevent such a widow from working, for example, incapacity for work, lack of suitable employment locally, domestic responsibilities, which the minimum age limit cannot allow for. It is proposed therefore to remove the minimum age limits, thus leaving the question of title to a widow's non-contributory pension to be determined on the basis of the widow's need as measured by the means test.
In conclusion, Senators may find a summary of the cost to the Exchequer of the various proposals which I have outlined above of assistance. On the Social Assistance side, the total costs are estimated to amount to £1,290,000 in a full year, all of which will fall on the Exchequer. The annual cost of the proposal for payment of increases in respect of children of old age (contributory) pensioners which will for the present all fall on the Exchequer, is estimated at £73,000, thus bringing the overall cost to the Exchequer to £1,363,000 in a full year.
I have much pleasure in recommending this measure for favourable consideration by Seanad Éireann.
