Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 5 Jun 1968

Vol. 65 No. 2

Army Pensions Bill, 1968 (Certified Money Bill): Second Stage.

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

Minister for Defence (Mr. Hilliard)

The main purpose of the Bill is to provide concessions in regard to married pensions and allowances, and to enable Budgetary increases in benefits under the Army Pensions Acts to be prescribed by regulations. It also effects a number of amendments to the Acts which are regarded as necessary.

Except for persons with pre-Truce Service, in whose case a marriage contracted before the 5th August, 1953, qualifies for benefit, a pensioner who marries after the date of his wound or the date of discharge, is not entitled to a married pension under the Acts. Section 2 now provides that a pensioner who marries at any time will be entitled to a married pension.

The Army Pensions Acts at present require that the death of a pensioner must be due solely to his pensionable disablement before allowances can be granted to his widow and children. Although the words "due solely" are given as wide an interpretation as possible, there have been cases where widows and children were not eligible for allowances because the Army Pensions Board—which has the statutory duty to determine such matters—was unable to associate the certified cause of death with the pensionable disability. In my opinion a high degree of pensionable disability must affect the life span of the pensioner and play a not inconsiderable part in his death, even though it cannot be certified that death was due solely to that particular disability. Consequently, I feel that where a pensioner with a high degree of disablement, i.e. 50 per cent or more, dies, his widow and children should have an automatic entitlement to allowances. The necessary provision is made in section 3, which also covers the cases of pensioners who died before the enactment of the Bill.

Section 11 also relates to allowances for widows and children. It provides for the widow and children of a person who did not receive a pension and who died either while serving or within eight years after discharge from a disease aggravated by United Nations service.

The abolition of the qualifying date for marriage for purposes of a married pension necessitates a number of consequential amendments to the Acts in relation to children and adopted children. New married pension rates which provided in the Acts of 1946 and 1949 and the No. 2 Act of 1960 for former officers and soldiers of the Defence Forces are made up of an element in respect of the pensioner's wife and an element in respect of each child born not later than nine months after the pensioner's discharge. An adopted child is treated as a child of the marriage for purposes of benefit only where he was adopted before the date of the wound, the date of discharge or the date on which the special allowance commenced. Sections 8 and 15, in conjunction with the Schedule, provide that in future the child's element of the married pension will be payable in respect of all the children of the pensioner and that a child adopted at any time will reckon for benefit on the same basis as a child of the marriage.

The object of section 5 is to enable a member of the First Line Reserve to apply for a wound pension or gratuity. At present he cannot do so until he has been discharged from the Reserve. A wound pension will not be payable concurrently with service pay.

Part II of the Act of 1953 provides for the grant of an allowance to the permanently invalided brother of a deceased person who had pre-Truce military service and who died in circumstances attributable to service in the 1916-1923 period. Where an application is refused on grounds of failure to fulfil the requirement of dependency it can be reviewed from time to time at the request of the applicant. If, however, it is refused because of failure to satisfy the condition of permanent invalidism there is no power to reconsider it. In section 6 it is being provided that such an application may also be reviewed from time to time.

Increases in the benefits under the Acts are, in the main, what have come to be known as Budgetary increases, i.e. increases announced by the Minister for Finance in the Budget Statement as part of a general increase in public service pension. The present procedure for giving effect to such increases is by way of amendments to the Acts. It is now standard practice, in so far as public service pensions are concerned, that increases of this type, which conform to a well-established pattern, should be implemented by regulations rather than by amending legislation. The necessary provision is being made in section 7 to enable Budgetary increases in benefits under the Acts to be promulgated by regulations.

The remainder of the Bill is of a technical nature. Section 9 clears up an anomaly in the No. 2 Act of 1960. A former member of the Defence Forces has up to eight years after discharge in which to apply for a pension in respect of disease attributable to United Nations service. If, however, he dies, after discharge, from such a disease without having been granted a pension, his widow and children cannot qualify for allowances unless his death took place within four years after discharge. The period of four years after discharge in the case of allowances is being amended to eight.

Section 10 applies to the dependent relatives of a deceased soldier who dies from disease attributable to United Nations service the same conditions as at present apply to the relatives of a soldier who is killed or dies from wounds i.e., a relative will be treated as a dependant only if a voluntary allotment was payable to him or her by the deceased soldier.

When the Act of 1962 introduced married pensions and allowances in the case of pensioners whose pensions were in respect of disability aggravated by service, the relevant provision did not cover the case of a person who qualified for an aggravation pension after the passing of the Act. Section 12 remedies this omission.

Section 13, for the removal of doubt. applies certain general provisions of the Acts to the benefits under section 7 of the Act of 1962. It also applies them to allowances under section 11 of the Bill.

Finally, subsection (5) of section 3 and the first and fifth items in the Schedule repeal provisions of the Acts of 1932 and 1959 which impose restrictions on the grant of married pensions and widows' and children's allowances and which will now no longer apply.

Where my Department has a record of persons who would appear to be eligible for benefit under the Bill, it is the intention to communicate with them as soon as the Bill becomes law and to give them an opportunity of making application. To cover the possibility that there may be cases of which the Department is not aware, the provisions with regard to benefits will be advertised.

Mr. McHugh

There is not much one can say on this Bill except to welcome it. For many years military service in this country was treated as something which was below average. Military personnel were treated for many years as second-class people and second-class citizens who did not apparently deserve proper pay, proper allowances or, indeed, proper pensions. When one sees, even at this late stage, little anomalies like this being cleared up it is welcome. It is difficult to understand why it took us until this stage to bring this question of married pensions into line with pensions for people in civilian life. However, it is a welcome move even at this late stage. The provisions to provide disability pensions particularly for those who are suffering from wounds received in the 1916-1922 period are particularly welcome.

I congratulate the Minister on the Bill. There is nothing that one can say about it except to welcome it and to congratulate the Minister again on bringing it in.

Mr. Ted O'Sullivan

I should like to raise my voice to welcome this Bill. This, I suppose, is really an amending Bill but I feel it is the greatest, the best amending Bill that we have had to the Pensions Acts over all the years. Personally, I feel very happy about it and very grateful to the people in the Department for having gone into all the matters that have been raised here year after year on the different Army Pensions Bills. We can honestly say that this Bill has done almost all the things for which we have been agitating for the Old IRA and the Army over the years. It is certainly a wonderful Bill. It is a great pity, of course, as Senator McHugh has said, that it is so late. It is definitely late for the many. I regret that the Minister did not give us some idea of the number of persons who will be likely to benefit under this Bill. I have a feeling that the number is very small. I wonder if it is much more than 1,000 or so? It would have been better if the Minister had given us figures for military service pensions, disability pensions and special allowances so that we would have a better idea of the great benefits that this Bill will confer on a certain number. However, be that as it may, my only regret is that it is so many years late. I have always held that it was unfair to single out pensioners of under 50 per cent disablement and not give them an opportunity of qualifying for a married pension. Now that is all set aside and we are assured that the dependants of most disability pensioners will be provided for in a fair way. Surely a disability pensioner who was 50 per cent disabled 30 years ago must have had his life shortened and must have suffered from various infirmities in the intervening years because of that disablement.

Anyhow, each and every section of the Bill as far as I can see confers a benefit on all recipients of disability pensions. We are grateful for it, indeed, and trust that a few of the matters which were referred to here on several previous occasions may now be given attention by the Minister and the Department seeing that they have got all those big items out of the way. In volume 55, No. 19 of the Official Report, the Minister was asked to consider the question of hospital treatment for a small number of disability pensioners. At the moment and for many years persons who have not received final pensions have been allowed to have treatment for their wounds and diseases in St. Bricin's Hospital but the person who has got a final pension was ruled out in relation to any further assistance.

That was wrong and if we were bound in any way to give assistance or treatment in regard to pensions which are not final the same thing should have applied to those pensions which were final. The same concessions should have been given in those cases. The circumstances under which those things occurred were the same. I do not think it is too late that this should apply to the very few who are left. I am sure that after all that has been done in this great Bill by the Minister and his Department they will find some way to make provision for assistance or treatment for those few hundred people to help them over the few remaining years left to them.

At the passing of the 1962 Act the then Minister gave as his opinion that it would be impossible to cater for all those people in St. Bricin's Hospital. I was of opinion then, and I am more so of opinion now, that there was no necessity whatever to attempt to cater for them in St. Bricin's Hospital but that it would be quite easy, as has been done in many other cases, to make arrangements for urgent treatment, if any, in local hospitals, at the nearest county hospital, for instance, and the Department should take responsibility for the expenses of that treatment as if they had been called to give it in St. Brican's Hospital. I would urge consideration of this as one of the few remaining benefits which the Minister can confer on this dwindling number.

There was one other matter I referred to on that occasion and I have to refer to it again. It applies only to very few in the whole country. I refer to persons who are in receipt let us say of 100 per cent disablement benefit and who are certainly unfit to make a living in any other way and have to depend on their pension. In the same way, you have persons who have got special allowances. I might remind the House that those special allowances are investigated closely and nobody gets a special allowance unless he is incapable of self-support and being incapable of self-support and having no other means, he must depend entirely on the special allowance to support him with the result that many people find themselves in the position, when they are nearing their last days, that they cannot make provision for their burial arrangements. This is a great shock to the country. Mind you, I think the Department of Defence should take some responsibility for those people. They are people who have given their all to the country, who have been pronounced incapable of self-support. How, in the name of God, can they be pronounced able to provide for their burial expenses.

As I say, there is only a very small number but even if there were only ten or even only one, I see no reason why the Department of Defence would not come to their rescue and ensure that those people are buried decently rather than their having to depend entirely on the poor allowance. I trust that those few matters will get the attention of the Minister and his Department from now on seeing that all the major matters, as I said, have been cleared up.

I am glad to notice in the Minister's statement today that it is the intention of the Department to communicate with persons whom they think would qualify under this Bill. That is a wonderful idea. We appreciate very much that, as well as advertising, those people will be communicated with and told of their rights. I am glad to note that we have no more serious criticism of this Bill. I wish to place on record my appreciation and the appreciation of the organisation which I represent to the Minister and his Department for what they are doing under this Bill.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I should just like very briefly to associate myself with the Senators who have congratulated the Minister on this Bill which is a thoughtful and a humane Bill, one which gives justice to those dependants, the widows and the orphans of army pensioners whether their service was in this country or under the aegis of the United Nations. I should just like to make the point that the Minister for Defence is here setting a very good example for the Minister for Finance. The Minister for Finance has told us that he intends to introduce a scheme of pensions for the widows of State servants other than members of the Army, army pensioners. This Bill and the Acts which it amends are setting a good example for the Government and the Minister for Finance who is immediately concerned with the problem as to the way in which we would hope the widows of all pensioners, State pensioners, would be treated. The Minister in introducing this measure has set a good example and one which I hope will be swiftly followed by his colleague.

Mr. O'Quigley

This indeed, as some other Senators have said, is a Bill which confers benefits and I am quite certain that the recipients would agree that it is not coming a day too early. In fact, a Bill of this kind, as Senator T. O'Sullivan has indicated, has long been overdue. If Senator Sheehy Skeffington were aware of the kind of allowances that were paid to dependents of army pensioners and to the pensioners themselves he would not refer to this Bill as doing justice to those people. The allowances, if my recollection is correct, are, indeed, meagre and, indeed, the increases granted in recent years were ludicrously small. In some cases they were only as much as 6d and 7d. However, the Bill in so far as it is an amelioration is to be welcomed and should be given a speedy passage through the House.

One criticism I have of the Bill is in relation to section 7 which proposes to make automatic increases in pensions where other increases in pensions have been given to public servants and to other State employees. That is a wrong approach. The increases should be related to increases in wages to other public employees, not to increases in pensions merely. In other words, what should happen in relation to pensions for army personnel, or former army personnel, is that as the level of remuneration of serving personnel is increased the pensions should be increased automatically by at least the same amount because most of these increases are related to the increased cost of living and the plight of the pensioner is always more harrowing than that of the serving person. Therefore, the pension should automatically go up every time the existing pay of serving personnel is increased.

In fact, whenever the Minister for Finance is assessing the amount of money he will have to pay to civil servants, teachers, army personnel, or whoever else is involved, he always has an eye on pensioners and says: "It will cost so much for personnel and we must pay £X, or whatever it is for pensions". They have a factor for finding out and approximating what the pensions will amount to. I think section 7 would be much more justifiable if increases were related to increases in the pay of serving personnel. There is an odd thing about the way we do our business in this country which means that we cannot trust any Minister of State to do anything without recourse to the Minister for Finance. That is the fiction. We all know it is not the Minister for Finance who brings his mind to bear on the particular sum of money or the particular rate of pay. It is a principal or other officer who does this and we are told that in enacting the law the Minister is doing this, that or the other.

This is a Certified Money Bill. This House of the Oireachtas cannot make any amendment in any pensions legislation because the Constitution says that we cannot do so. The Seanad has no power to amend Money Bills and the Minister for Finance says the Seanad have not power to amend. Indeed, individual members of the Dáil cannot increase pensions by a halfpenny as they have not this power under the Constitution. In this Bill we are proposing that the Minister for Defence will be able to do what no Member or all the Members of the Dáil cannot do and what this House cannot do. We propose under section 7 that the Minister for Defence, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, otherwise a principal officer of the Department of Finance, will be able to increase pensions. This is the kind of cod we get on with. I make this remark in passing so that people will know what we are enacting under section 7.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

The Senator should not suggest that the Minister for Finance is not responsible when, in fact, he is responsible.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

We must preserve the fiction.

Mr. O'Quigley

Under the Constitution and every power enabling the Minister to do so he is responsible, but I should like the House to look behind this fiction and see where this House and the other House of the Oireachtas stand and point to the growing power of the bureaucracy which is hedged about and screened off when the Minister makes a regulation with the approval of the Minister for Finance. I think it is always right to point out this gradual erosion of the power of Parliament and the growing establishment of the civil servants who make these regulations which are approved by the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Finance.

As far as I am aware, there is no provision under our code of army pensions and certainly not in this Bill for the kind of situation with which I am about to deal. As I understand it, if while serving, an army officer dies, from natural causes a gratuity or pension is payable to his widow but I understand that does not apply to privates or non-commissioned officers. Whether that be so or not, I am aware of a distressing case of a young private who about two winters ago took ill in a barracks in Galway. His complaint was first diagnosed as flu. He was sent to bed for a few days. Then it was diagnosed as appendicitis and he was transferred from Galway to Athlone. When he got to Athlone they decided it was a case calling for an operation and then he was transferred to a military hospital in Dublin. What was originally diagnosed as flu and then diagnosed as appendicitis resulted in the death of the young man.

I have already referred this case to the Minister and while one cannot penetrate into the secrecy of the army and the Civil Service as to what, in fact, went wrong, there should be some kind of provision in a Bill of this kind for an ad misericordiam lump sum in such cases. As it happened, the unfortunate mother of this young man who might benefit from his earnings should be entitled to some kind of pension. It may well be that all that could be done in this particular case was done. It may well be that something went wrong somewhere but in the ordinary course one would have expected that a young soldier might not have died from what was originally diagnosed as flu and then was diagnosed as a case of appendicitis. There should be some provision in a Bill whereby the Minister, without imputing blame or negligence to anybody, but where the circumstances are such that if it were within the power of the Minister, he could make ex gratia payments.

If something is not available in existing legislation to enable a lump sum to be paid or, as I say, if in years to come a pension should be payable to the widow or mother of the type of young man I have been referring to, like a lot of other hard cases which are now being dealt with in this Bill, the Minister should be enabled to do something about such cases. It will not arise often but when it does it is particularly tragic for the affected family. Therefore, I urge the Minister to give some consideration to it because no Member of the Dáil or of this House can effectively do anything to give that power to the Minister. It is a power which every Member of the Oireachtas agrees he should have.

Mr. Honan

I should like to join with other Members in commending the Minister for the Bill, such as it is. I do not suppose it is possible to find a Bill that would give complete satisfaction to everyone. I appeal to the Minister on behalf of a particular category who served in the Army and who apparently do not come under any provision of any Bill. They are the men who served the country during the Emergency and apparently they are not provided for by way of compensation for consequent disability other than by way of social welfare payments.

When the Emergency was declared, the Army was very low in strength and something in the region of 66 per cent of its increase came entirely from the people in all branches of society who offered themselves for service. At that time the Army were not prepared for an expansion of that kind and consequently the arrangements to house, feed and generally look after these men were inadequate. I know of companies and battalions which were moved out into the country to places where there was no suitable accommodation except old country houses which were falling down and which were taken over. In them there were no facilities for drying clothes, no heating.

In the winters of 1940 and 1941 some of these units were put on night patrols on the Border. They had to leave their billets at seven at night and did not return until seven in the morning, in the meantime exposed to all types of inclement weather. The winter of 1940 was the worst we ever had in this country and it is most unlikely that these men could have gone unscathed through six years of service in such conditions. On their discharge, medical boards were set up and each man was examined. A number were found to be suffering from one disability or another. Some of them were looked after at that time but during the course of the years, as these people advanced in age, various disabilities began to show themselves. During the past few years cases were drawn to my attention in respect of which, as an ex-member of the Army, I felt ashamed of the fact that these men should have been left to their own devices with nobody showing any interest on their behalf. We owe something to the people who served the country during the Emergency and we owe a lot to those who are now incapacitated as a result of that service —to men who are incapable of earning their own living and looking after their wives and families. I appeal, therefore, to the Minister to consider, before we conclude this measure, taking some power to deal with cases of real hardship in the category about which I have been speaking.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

I also wish to thank the Minister for the fine Bill he has introduced. As Senator Ted O'Sullivan said, it goes a long way to clear up a number of irritants and to remove a number of road blocks which have stood in the way for years of giving a modicum of justice to those who served their country. Some years ago I made a plea in the Seanad for one type of benefit which, unfortunately, has not been included in this Bill and I hope we shall find the Minister coming before us at an early date asking for legislative approval to provide it. I refer, of course, to the crying need for what might be described as a soldiers' home. We have hospital treatment for disabled soldiers here, we have pensions to provide against illness, unemployment and old age. However, may I say that in our hospital treatment provision, I am not at all satisfied that there is not one special hospital such as Saint Bricin's reserved for Old IRA men or men who served during the Emergency or in the permanent Defence Forces who were discharged because of disability sustained as a result of service.

I cannot see why, with the resources at our disposal, it is impossible to provide one such military hospital to cater for these classes without any of the red tape associated with entry into St. Bricin's. In this respect, many of the Old IRA men still living find themselves, as a result of the passage of time, with very few, if any, relatives living. Their people have died and many of them are left on their own. They are old and there is nobody to care for them and perhaps nobody to take very much interest in them. There is nowhere they can go except to some costly private nursing home or hospital or to depend on the charity of their friends.

This country owes something to those men. There are, as Senator O'Sullivan said, only a few of them left. We have been derelict in our duty to them and before they pass away we should derive inspiration from what they did for this country and find the amount of money necessary to provide a proper soldiers' home.

In Great Britain, the US and the Continent worthy citizens, better endowed with the world's goods than most of us, are glad to present to the nation houses, suitable buildings for purposes such as I have outlined and I have no doubt that if an effort were made here we would find that some of our better-off citizens would be prepared to donate a suitable building for a purpose such as this. When one considers the advantages it would have not alone for members of the IRA but also for old soldiers of the permanent Defence Forces who have been discharged and find themselves in this boat, there is no doubt it would be well worth the effort and the expenditure incurred.

I live quite near a magnificent hospital provided by the British Government for Irishmen who served in the British forces and who are disabled and in receipt of pensions. There is a full medical and nursing staff provided there, X-ray services and a television room and everything else. Every care and attention is provided for these men and it makes me envious when I see it and think of the treatment given by all our Governments from 1926 or 1927 to the people we are now discussing. With regard to my suggestion about a soldiers' home, on the 11th November of every year, the British Remembrance Day, when I see the magnificent pageant staged in the Albert Hall in London and see the Chelsea pensioners honoured and given every admiration by the younger people who know they have served their country well, and when I see the provisions made for them in a soldiers' home where old soldiers can swop yearns and talk about old days, I am often envious.

I am often envious when I remember that the men who freed this country and who defended it in times of peril have no provision made for them when their people die and they have no one left. As the Minister has got over all the other bottlenecks as he has done in his magnificent Bill, I hope that he will come again before this House with a proposition for a soldiers' home for the soldiers of this country and for a hospital properly equipped and staffed to care for them.

Mr. Cole

Sections 9 and 10 of this Bill deal with pensions payable to soldiers and with allowances to the relatives of soldiers who have served with the United Nations. They also deal with the pensions of other soldiers who have served abroad and I should like to know if this country is recompensed in any way towards the payment of these pensions, even though the pensions themselves may not commence to be paid for seven or eight years. I have particularly in mind the case of the ordinary soldier who has served for different periods in different places abroad. Are any portions of these pensions paid from United Nation funds or do we pay them all ourselves from State funds?

Minister for Defence (Mr. Hilliard)

We get a refund from the United Nations in respect of pensions arising out of United Nations service.

I wish to thank the Seanad for the manner in which it has received the Bill and for its acceptance that, as Minister, I have done the right thing in bringing in its provisions. I want to say how grateful I am that has been acknowledged by all the Senators who have spoken. In reply to Senator Ted O'Sullivan I should like to say that there are 1,000 disablement pensioners and about 10,000 military service pensioners. There are 9,000 special allowance holders of whom 1,100 are also in receipt of military service pensions. All the special allowance holders are in necessitous circumstances. There are over 2,000 NCOs and privates in receipt of pensions under the Defence Forces (Pensions) Act. Some 47,000 service medals without bar have been issued and about 8,000 holders of these are in receipt of special allowances. Of the remaining 39,000 no information is available but it is reasonable to believe that about 20,000 are still alive.

When Senators press me to make financial provision for benefits such as hospitals and soldiers' homes, I should like to make known to them that the task they suggest is a formidable one. It is not simple or easy; the cost would be very heavy. I am not opposed in principle to providing hospitals or homes or, indeed, to providing for our ex-soldiers and veterans as far as the State can afford it. I wish I was in a position to meet the cases that have been put forward to me and to provide the amenities which are available for the ex-servicemen of richer countries than this. But I think that Senator O'Sullivan and the other Senators who have spoken here and who have experience of military service either in pre-Truce days or during the Emergency must realise that it is not easy to deal with a large number of people who seek monetary recognition of service.

With regard to pensions payable to widows of deceased pensioners, a man must have at least 50 per cent disability attributable to disease before he can have a disability pension. We have 580 such pensioners at present, of whom 180 are already in receipt of married pensions. Where the degree of disability is less than 50 per cent— these are sound cases—we have 364 cases, of which 127 are in receipt of married pensions. Thus we have about 1,000 disability pensions of one kind or another. We know who they are and they will be notified of the benefits that will accrue from the passage of this Bill. There are also widows who were ineligible up to now but we can only guess at the number. It is perhaps about 100.

Senator O'Quigley raised a question which he has raised before. He referred to the Budgetary increases and wanted them fixed in a different manner than at present. All I can say to that is that Budgetary increases are the province of the Minister for Finance. They are announced by him and are then implemented by the various Ministers. They are applicable to the whole public service.

As regards section 7, this section was introduced at the request of both the Dáil and the Seanad so as to obviate legislation. They asked that fixed increases be dealt with by regulation and it is provided in this Bill that the pensions and allowances for which the Army Pensions Acts provide shall be dealt with in this manner. Other pensions for which my Department is responsible are being dealt with in the same way as a result of the passage of the Bill which I had in the Seanad a short time ago.

Senator Honan raised the question of men who served during the Emergency. Men who served in the Army during the Emergency were eligible to apply for disability pensions. Many of them are in receipt of such pensions. It is true, of course, that they had to apply within four years from the date of their discharge. That is the usual rule. I feel that four years is reasonable enough. A disease contracted or aggravated during service should manifest itself within four years.

In relation to gratuities payable to officers, it is true that a married officer gets a gratuity in addition to his retired pay but a single officer does not. A soldier gets his pension plus a married pension if he is married. Soldiers are insured under the Social Welfare Acts for social welfare benefits, widows' and orphans' pensions and disability benefits. They are insured in the same way as workers in any other employment and they are entitled to claim the benefits that are provided under the Social Welfare and the Health Acts.

I do not think there are any other matters that call for comment from me.

Mr. Ted O'Sullivan

I have one point. I mentioned that at the moment persons who are not in receipt of final pensions may obtain hospital treatment at St. Bricin's Hospital and I suggested that some arrangements should be made for hospital treatment where necessary for other pensioners. After all, there are only 1,000 all told and I think it should be possible for the small number that would require hospitalisation to make some arrangement for them, if not in St. Brican's, then somewhere else.

Mr. Hilliard

St. Bricin's Hospital and the other military hospitals are not geared to treat every category of patients. Pensioners in receipt of a final pension are not entitled to treatment in a military hospital. Persons in receipt of temporary pensions are in the same position. They are not entitled to treatment but may be required by the Army Pensions Board on occasion to undergo treatment with a view to the reduction of their pensionable degree of disability. The idea is to contain or reduce their disability so that a final pension may be fixed.

Along with the 1,000 disablement pensioners we have 9,000 special allowance holders. To obtain a special allowance before reaching the age of 70 an applicant must submit himself to medical examination and be found to be unable to earn his living by reason of permanent infirmity of body or mind. Therefore, you would have to extend admittance to the military hospitals to a great number of these people also. The State is expending a considerable amount of money on improved health services. There has been a considerable degree of improvement in the hospital and health services generally and all those people are entitled to such services. That is the present position. I cannot say if there will be any change of approach to that matter but I have felt it well to set out as clearly as I can the situation as it is at the moment.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining Stages today.