Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 8 Jul 1971

Vol. 70 No. 12

Social Welfare Bill, 1971: Second Stage.

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

Minister for Social Welfare (Mr. J. Brennan)

The Bill is intended to give legislative effect to the proposals in the Budget for improvements in social insurance and social assistance schemes and consequential matters. The explanatory memorandum circulated with the Bill is designed to clarify the provisions of the Bill which, because of its technical nature, tends to be difficult to understand in places.

The Budget increases in the field of social assistance will give an extra 40 pence a week to all existing non-contributory old age, blind and widow pensioners and to those in receipt of deserted wife's allowances. This will bring the maximum personal rate of old age, blind and window's pension and of deserted wife's allowance up to £4.65 a week. These increases will enable the scale of means and rates of pension to be extended in each case to give an additional rate at the bottom of the scale which will be payable to persons whose means are outside the present limits for pension.

Orphan's non-contributory pensions will be increased by 25 pence a week and the rates paid to widows and deserted wives in respect of qualified children will be increased to a level of 90 pence for each child, the increases being 15 pence in respect of the first and second child and 40 pence in respect of each other child.

The improved payments for orphans and for dependent children of widows and destered wives are intended to assist persons in those classes to meet the heavy costs involved in rearing children. The maximum rate payable to a widow or deserted wife with two qualified children will go up from £5.75 a week to £6.45 a week; where there are four children, from £6.75 a week to £8.25 a week and where there are six children, the rate will be increased from £7.75 a week to £10.05 a week. The maximum rate of orphan's non-contributory pension will rise to £2.50 a week in respect of each orphan

The means test for widows and deserted wives who have dependent children and who are employed is being modified. In such a case at present, earnings from personal exertions of up to £39 a year in respect of each qualified child are disregarded in the calculation of means for the purposes of widow's non-contributory pension or deserted wife's allowance. Under the Bill the amount to be so disregarded will be increased to £78 a year in respect of each child. A widow or deserted wife with four children will thus be able to earn £6 a week, instead of £3 a week, without it affecting her title to pension or allowance.

The rates of unemployment assistance in both urban and rural areas are being increased by 35 pence a week for the recipient and by a further 30 pence a week where there is an adult dependant. The maximum rate in an urban area will then be £3.95 for a single person and £7.05 for a married couple and, outside urban areas, £3.65 for a single person and £6.65 for a married couple. These increases will have the effect of automatically extending the means limit for qualification for unemployment assistance. All of the increases and improvements in relation to social assistance will operate from the beginning of August next.

The increases in rates of social insurance benefits and pensions will come into operation at the beginning of October next. These will provide an extra 50 pence a week for persons receiving old age, contributory, pension. and widow's, contributory, pension. Recipients of disability and unemployment benefit, invalidity and retirement pension and maternity allowance will get an extra 45 pence a week. Orphans will get an extra 30 pence a week in their contributory allowances.

There will also be additional payments for dependants—an extra 35 pence a week being paid for an adult dependant of an old age, contributory, pensioner and an extra 30 pence for an adult dependent of a retirement or invalidity pensioner or of a recipient of disability or unemployment benefit. In addition, the amounts paid in respect of qualified children to widows receiving contributory pensions will be increased to £1 for each child, the increases being 10 pence a week for each of the first two children and 35 pence a week for each subsequent child.

These increases will improve the payments under the various schemes substantially. For example: from October next under the old age, contributory, pension scheme a single pensioner will get £5.50 a week and a married couple £9.35. The personal rates of unemployment and disability benefit, retirement and invalidity pension will then be £4.95 a week and, where there is an adult dependent, the rate will be £8.40 a week. A widow without children will get £5 a week by way of widow's, contributory, pension. The increased payments for the qualified children of widows in receipt of contributory pension mean that a widow with two children will get £7.00 a week instead of £6.30; a widow with four children, £9.00 a week instead of £7.60 and a widow with six children, £11 a week instead of £8.90.

To meet the extra expenditure on the increased rates of benefits and contributory pensions, the social insurance contributions payable by employers and employees must be increased from the beginning of October next. The increase proposed in the rates of social insurance contributions which give cover for all benefits is 19 pence a week, except in the case of agricultural workers where smaller increases are being applied. Lesser increases are also being applied where some only of the benefits concerned are covered. The increase of 19 pence in the ordinary rate of men's contributions will be shared by the employer paying 10 pence and the employee 9 pence and the total contribution will then be £1.72 a week of which 87 pence will be borne by the employer and 85 pence by the employee.

The increase in the rate of voluntary contribution covering widows', contributory, pensions only will be 5 pence making it 37 pence and the increase in the contribution which covers old age and widows', contributory, pensions, retirement pension and death grant will be 10 pence making it 91 pence. A table showing the present and proposed rates of social insurance contributions appears in the explanatory memorandum.

Improvements in the benefits payable under the occupational injuries scheme are also proposed in the Bill. These include an increase of 50 pence in the rates of the main weekly-paid benefits and allowances with proportionate increases in other payments. All benefits under this scheme are paid for out of the occupational injuries fund and it is not necessary on this occassion to increase the contributions of employers which finance that fund.

The overall weekly employment contribution payable in respect of men in ordinary industrial or commercial employment will, from October, 1971, therefore, be £1.88 made up of £1.72 in respect of social insurance, 11 pence in respect of occupational injuries insurance and 5 pence in respect of redundancy payments. Of this the employer will pay £1.01 and the employee 87 pence. In the case of women in such employment, the overall weekly contribution will be £1.76 made up of £1.64 for social insurance, 8 pence for occupational injuries insurance and 4 pence for redundancy. Of this the employer will pay 96 pence and the employee 80 pence.

As Senators will already know, the Health Contributions Bill proposes weekly health contributions of 15 pence to be collected by way of the social insurance stamp for those classes of employees to be covered by the provisions of that Bill. This 15 pence will be additional to the rates of contribution I have mentioned.

Apart from dealing with the Budget proposals and matters consequential on these proposals, the present Bill proposes to deal with a problem which has been the cause of some concern in recent years and which has already been the subject of much discussion. This problem relates to the employee who, through no fault of his own, may lose benefit because of his employer's failure to pay employment contributions which he is liable to pay for him.

I have already made regulations under existing powers to enable employment contributions to be credited to an insured person where contributions properly payable for him have not been paid and the failure to pay is shown not to have been with his consent or attributable to any negligence on his part. These regulations go some of the way towards enabling an insured person to satisfy the contribution conditions for benefit where there has been failure on the part of the employer to pay contributions but they do not go the whole way. If, for instance, any of the basic conditions which can only be satisfied by paid contributions are not satisfied, credited contributions are of no avail.

It is proposed in the Bill, therefore, to take power to enable regulations to be made which will allow contributions which have not been paid to be treated as having been paid subject to safeguards to ensure that, in cases where there has been collusion between employee and employer in the nonpayment of contributions, the employee will not benefit. The concession is designed for the protection of employees and it is not proposed that the treatment of unpaid contributions as having been paid should remove any part of the liability of an employer to pay those contributions and to make good any benefit lost as a result of his default.

There is provision in the Bill, therefore, to ensure that any employer who fails to pay contributions or who pays contributions late will be liable to pay to the Social Insurance Fund the amount of benefit which would have been lost but for the treatment of unpaid contributions as having been paid or the treatment of late paid contributions as having been paid in time.

Such amounts will then come within the scope of the existing powers to recover amounts due to the fund by legal process. In addition, the Bill provides for the imposition, on summary conviction, of heavier fines than are at present possible and, at the discretion of the court, terms of imprisonment or both fines and imprisonment, on employers who fail to comply with the provision of the Social Welfare Acts and regulations regarding the payment of contributions.

As in previous years the position will arise in August next, when non-contributory pensions are increased, where for the period up to the end of September next, when contributory pensions are increased, cases may occur where the non-contributory pension to which a pensioner might be entitled would be temporarily more favourable than the corresponding contributory pension which he holds. It was never the intention that the option which was given to contributory pensioners by the 1966 Act to switch to non-contributory pensions where it would be to their advantage, should operate for very short periods where the advantage would only be temporary, and there is provision in this Bill as in previous year's Bills to prevent switching in such circumstances in the period August and September next. The right of pensioners to switch where the advantage would be of longer duration will remain.

In conclusion I will summarise the cost of the various proposals in the Bill. On the social assistance side there is £2,350,000 for old age and blind pensions, £548,000 for widows' and orphans' pensions, £89,000 for deserted wife's allowances and £796,000 for unemployment assistance, the total cost being £3,783,000 in a full year, all of which will fall on the Exchequer. The gross cost of improvements on the social insurance side will be £6,709,000 in a full year, of which the increases in contribution rates will provide some £5,446,000.

I have much pleasure in recommending this Bill to Seanad Éireann for speedy and favourable consideration.

I am very grateful to the House for taking this Bill at such short notice because it is a Bill which provides for the payment of moneys and must become law before the first week of August when the first payments under it will be made. Except for section 8, the provisions of the Bill mainly give effect to Budget changes. There is nothing controversial in the Bill and its speedy deliverence will very much facilitate our preparing for the extra payments which must be made by that date. I want to thank the House for giving me the opportunity of coming here at such short notice. The Bill passed through all its Stages in the Dáil yesterday, that House realising that it must be enacted before the recess.

Dr. Belton

We appreciate the Minister's agitation in getting this Bill passed in this House in order that it may become law by the first week of August. We, too, wish that it would become law by that time. At the same time, there is a point I should like to make. In the case of any Bill which needs to be passed by this House in a hurry, it would be an advantage to the proper discussion of the Bill if—I will take section 10 of this Bill as an example—the context of section 53 of the 1952 Act were also given so as to save time in reference back by Senators. I accept the Minister's statement that this is a Bill which should be enacted as soon as possible, but I should like Ministers to bear in mind that they would receive greater support from Senators for an urgent measure such as this if time is saved by their not having to read up so many past statutes regarding the subject matter of the Bill. That applies, in particular, to a Bill which is needed in a rush, and it would save a lot of time if this were done.

We welcome this Bill and agree with its provisions. Very little can be said against those provisions. However, there are a few points I should like to make with regard to them. It seems to me that the increase in unemployment assistance in rural areas is a complete somersault from the position of two months ago when it was proposed that bachelors in rural areas would not be given unemployment assistance. There seems to have been a change of heart during the past few months in that regard.

The one provision in this Bill which has caused agitation over a number of years is contained in section 8. The Minister adverted to that in his statement and we entirely agree with him in this matter. We feel what is intended to be done under this section is long overdue, that is, if an employee through no fault of his own finds that his employer has not paid up the contributions necessary, the employee will be given credit for the employer's contributions, although those contributions, had not been paid. I agree also that that concession does not relieve the employer of his responsibility of paying those contributions in retrospect. That is a provision we all welcome in this Bill.

All the other provisions contained in the Bill seem to us, on this side of the House, to be necessary and we accept them in general principle. Section 10 refers back to section 53 of the 1952 Act. I am speaking from memory now, but as far as I remember this section imposes a penalty if an employee disposes of an interest, whether it be stamps, cards or bonds, illegally for a consideration. I think that is what is meant by that clause but I am not certain on this point. I feel it is correct that a penalty should be imposed under this Bill. Anybody receiving benefit under any social welfare legislation and who disposes of that benefit illegally should be penalised. That is fair and just. Whether a term of imprisonment for such a contravention should be contemplated I cannot say. Eventually, it may become necessary.

In order not to delay the Minister too long, let me just say that we, on this side of the House, agree fully with what is contained in the Bill. It can be commended, as the Minister has said, in general terms. Whether the amounts provided under it in many cases are sufficient—I have not had time to go into the Bill in detail—I am not prepared to say. I do not propose to delay the House and the Minister much longer because the benefits accruing from this Bill are to become effective from 1st August and any delay on our part in the passing of it might be construed as some type of delaying tactic or obstruction to the Bill which we have no intention of doing.

Mrs. Desmond

On behalf of the Labour Party, I wish to join with Senator Belton in welcoming this Bill. However, we only welcome it in so far as it relieves in some small way the burdens on the section of the community who depend on it for their subsistence. I am confident it will relieve in some small way the needs of sections of the community who are depending on it for a livelihood. However, I am equally confident that it in no way meets the demands of these people. While I welcome it as being some measure in the right direction, it will be clear to all that to offer something like £5 pension a week, with the present high cost of living, is quite inadequate.

This Bill, along with several Social Welfare Bills down through the years, only tends to cause confusion with regard to the social welfare code generally. We had hoped, from some comments by the present Minister and from some general indications, that there might be a new approach to social welfare. We had hoped for something more comprehensive than this piecemeal Bill. It is agreed that it brings some relief to needy sections and that it must be rushed through in order to make that relief available at the earliest possible moment. However, it does not meet the case in any way. Throughout the Bill there is 30p for one section, 45p for another section, 50p for another section—all very minute sums and all tending to pinpoint the way in which social welfare exists.

In section 2, I am sorry to say that we have adherence to the principle, introduced only a few years ago where, if one's means are nil, one gets a certain rate of pension but if one's means are £26.25p. one gets 5s. per week less. This is a new innovation and it should have been dropped this year. When one speaks on this Bill, one recalls the debate last week on the Higher Education Authority Bill and the contribution of, I think, Senator Kelly. He said there was a case to be made for providing the same amount of money for every man and woman in society, and it was speech that interested everyone. When we find this week infinitesimal sums being doled out to one section of our community, we must realise how very far away we are from that standard.

I realise that this Bill is making some attempt to improve the already inadequate benefits. I am more concerned about what is left out of the Bill. I had hoped that this year we would have had the introduction of pensions at 65 years: I think that was mentioned by somebody in the Dáil. The time has come when this should be done.

Year after year, the clause persists with regard to the overlapping of benefits. The organisation dealing with widows has pinpointed that very clearly during the last year or two. It is unfair to have a system whereby a widow who has paid the same contribution as a single person, or a married person because she already drew a pension from the State to which her husband had heretofore contributed, has her benefit reduced. There have been instances of widows who became sick side by side with married women who became sick, both paying the same contributions and both receiving different rates of benefit when their illness occurred. The married woman received a higher rate than the widow because of the overlapping clause. I had hoped that this clause would have been removed from this Bill.

In recent years there have been some attempts made to meet a need by the introduction of free schemes, such as electricity, transport and television licences. We are all aware of many difficulties arising where an old age pensioner qualifies for such benefits but cannot avail of them. However, there are chronically sick people who receive no such facility. They might at least have applied to retirement pensions at 65, and certainly should have been applied in all cases where long duration certificates are furnished and where evidence of long-term illness is available to the Department of Social Welfare.

Another annual problem is the free footwear scheme. Local authorities are constantly aware of the Victorian concept of poverty that persists in this free footwear scheme. The footwear is branded and it seals off the type of footwear available to certain classes. There have been representations made to the Minister over and over again to trust the people who qualify for that type of footwear by paying them cash so as to allow them to buy footwear for their children. This is an indication of the realm in which social welfare generally exists.

There are so many other weaknesses in the social welfare scheme that it is impossible to list them all in the shois time at our disposal. We need a comr pletely new code. On 1st October, 1971, we shall have an outcry from those who pay contributions when they find that, not alone have their contributions in respect of the employee increased by 9p but that they will have to pay 15p under the Health Contributions Bill this year. This amounts to 5s. It would be all right if the employee thought he was getting a good deal, but there is constant criticism of the inadequacy of the Social Welfare Acts with regard to benefits such as appliances, dentures, spectacles and so on.

Hospitalisation is available to the middle income group, anyway, but there is very little for the lower paid unless they are ill or unemployed and therefore those who are rarely ill or unemployed tend to grumble at the cost of the contribution increasing every year. I am making this case to emphasise the lack of understanding of the people whom the social welfare code is intended to benefit. Every day we are in touch with the Department of Social Welfare in Dublin endeavouring to get benefits for people. I wish to pay tribute to the staff of the Department of Social Welfare. We all have many criticisms of delays in the Department in sending out benefits and so on. This is a fault in the system and not a fault of the people who operate it, and we in this House can say that individually we have received nothing but courtesy from the staffs involved.

I do not wish to delay the House further because this is a measure that we need to get through with the utmost speed. I hope that next year we will have a comprehensive Bill which will take into account the dignity of every person who will be hoping to benefit from it, and that it will meet the longstanding demand which, year after year, we bring to the notice of the Minister and the Government.

Mrs. Farrell

I welcome this Bill and congratulate the Minister on the attempt he has made to do something for people who need it. I am sorry that Senator Kelly is not here: probably he would have said that it is implementation of Fine Gael policy and that Fianna Fáil could not think of anything themselves. We should all like to see more social benefits for everybody. We would have the best Minister for Social Welfare there ever was if he had about £50 million to distribute every year. We could give everybody what they want and what they need and we would be all very happy. When it comes to the point that the total bill will be £3½ million extra that sum will have to be found somewhere. I wonder on whom the burden will fall to pay all this.

I should like to speak about something that is not in any Act. There is one section of the Community that is not at all considered, that is the small employer. If a man has two or three men employed he has to stamp their cards. If his business goes, these men, if he has stamped their cards, can draw unemployment benefit. What happens the man who owns the business. He has no insurance at all. I wonder why the Department of Labour or the Department of Social Welfare could not think up some form of insurance for a man like that. There are many such small employers throughout the country.

There is talk of imprisonment in the Bill. It is all right for the big employers as they may not feel the pinch but the small employers are suffering all the time. When the social welfare contributions are increased in October these people will have to bear a share of the increased amounts, but they have no indemnity. They cannot get free medical cards, they cannot get free medical treatment, they cannot get unemployment benefit, so what happens to them? We are greatly concerned at all times with the working people, which is right and just, but, we must be concerned with the people who employ them. We must see that something is done for them because there is many a case of hardship throughout the country where a small business collapses leaving the owner and his family with no means of support. The Minister should think about this and perhaps bring out some scheme whereby this type of employer could have some means of drawing insurance if his business collapses.

I should like to query the matter of the deserted wives' allowance. We had a Bill before us yesterday in which there was provision for deserted wives. If they got the maximum amount of £7.50 under the Courts Act, 1971, what will be their portion under this Bill when enacted? I do not propose to hold up the House any longer but I hope I shall have an answer from the Minister about that.

Mr. Boland

This Bill, as is usual at this time of the year, comes to us to implement various provisions which were set out in the Budget some months ago. I know the Senators on the other side of the House may feel that the criticisms which come from this side are a sort of an annual criticism, trotted out just because the Budget has given some increases.

The House should stop for a moment to consider the sort of Bill we have before us today and the sort of Bill we had before us last year and the year before. It is all very stereotyped. It is all based on the existing social welfare code which, as we all know, is based on the original Victorian poor law system. The sort of Bill which we should be getting, relating to social welfare, is one which should be suggesting sweeping changes in the whole code and in the operation of the social services, social assistance and social welfare insurance. Unfortunately, we have not got this to date. So we are again faced, in July 1971, with being asked to approve, in legislative form, the various increases which were announced in the Budget of some months ago.

I hope that whichever Government introduce the Budget next year, that when the Social Welfare Bill arrives instead of merely giving approval to the increases granted, they will be taking a long and hard look at the whole of the code and at what is needed to modernise it and to bring it into line with the 1970's.

I am inclined to think that the Minister is someone who has perhaps tried to introduce a little charity and humanity into a system which is based on a code that did not have too much real charity or real humanity in it to start with. It is because of this basic lack that I have not got too much faith in any improvements or increases granted on a system which, to my mind, was faulty to begin with. This perhaps is our biggest difficulty in the field of social welfare. We are still using as our base a system devised by the Victorians. They were so very much concerned with trade and finance and their own betterment and self-satisfaction and they gave, if they gave at all, as a sop to their own consciences and in a way to convince themselves that they were looking after their under-privileged brethren. They looked after them by looking down upon them and they devised their code accordingly. Unfortunately, this is the sort of code that we are now trying to operate in the year 1971.

Because of the way in which the economy has been handled in the past few years, we see again increases being given in the various social assistance fields which do not at all, on a percentage basis, match up with the percentage increase in wages and in the consumer price index for the year 1970. The official figure for wage increases for 1970 was an average of 18 per cent. Our consumer price index rise was one of the highest in the OECD countries. Senators will remember that only last month the OECD made a special plea to the Government to make an effort to contain the rise in the consumer price index. On the Government's own figures there was a 3 per cent rise between the months of February and May of this year. Many Members on all sides of the House would probably feel that that rise in real terms has been far greater than 3 per cent.

What then do we see in the Social Welfare Bill? I did not have too much time to work out the percentage increases in many cases because as the Minister has said, the Bill has come to this House at short notice. Nonetheless, in the few cases which I committed to figures one finds increases of 10 per cent to 11 per cent representing an extra 50p on £4.50 which comes to the magnificent figure of £5 per week for a widow to feed and clothe herself on. From this, it can clearly be seen, if one accepts that first of all we are working on the faulty base of the Victorian poor laws, that even with that faulty base and the difficulties involved in trying to operate that system, we now have a Bill giving a 10 per cent to an 11 per cent increase in the social assistance payments at a time when the better off members of the community have had an 18 per cent average rise in wages and at a time when the consumer price index is causing not only concern nationally but at an international level.

It is quite apparent to anybody inside or outside this House that when the consumer price index rises dramatically those most likely to be hurt by it are those least likely to be able to afford it. It would be less than fair to suggest that the only real effort in percentage terms I have seen the Government make to curb inflation in recent months is this Bill because its percentage increases are far less than the percentage increases given to the better off sections of the community. This is the aspect of the use of the Victorian poor law code which I object to most of all. As long as it is used as the base, we will have a a situation where, in a bad financial year, or when a Government fail economically, they will feel obliged to restrict the increases granted to the recipients of social welfare. This, in effect, is what has happened this year and this is what will happen every year so long as we use this inhuman code as the basis from which we operate.

It is my honest belief that we are still in the situation where the poor are getting poorer at the expense of those who could better afford to pay. I deliberately did not pick the lowest payment in this case, but if one considers the situation of a widow with two children who is receiving a contributory pension, she would be paid, under the increases proposed in this Bill, £7 per week pension. We must remember that her deceased husband for a number of years paid as a voluntary contributor quite an amount into the Exchequer. A widow with two children will get £7 per week, that is £1 per day—100p for three people to live on for 24 hours. That works out at about 4p per hours. for a widow and her two children under 16 years of age. And 4p equals about 9d or 10d in old money. It is not a great comment for us to have to make on our society in 1971, irrespective of which Government might be in power. It is not a proof of our religious beliefs and of our great pride as Irishmen, or that we are full of the milk of human kindness or that the Irish people have always looked after the old and the widow. They have looked after them so well that in an inflation-ridden country talking about entering the EEC, we expect the widow with two children to provide for herself and her children at the rate of 4p per hour.

I have used this example merely to highlight what I genuinely believe, and again state that until such time as there is completely new thinking, a new approach and the devising of a completely new social welfare code, we will be in my opinion, a most uncharitable and inhuman race, who will inflict upon the poorer sections of the community the penalties for mismanagement of the country's affairs or for the worsening of national finances which would have a consequent effect upon the budgetary provisions of this country.

Until we get away from the Victorian code, we will have this open sore in our community. Any Member of this House who has had the experience of serving on a health authority, and of meeting many of the necessitous cases who have to approach the local health authority for public assistance to supplement the social welfare code, knows only too well that the description of that code as being an open sore in our community is a very fair description.

On the brighter side, I am pleased to see that the Minister has managed to devise a system whereby an employee will not suffer when his employer fails to stamp his insurance card. This was being sought for many years and it was another obvious example of where somebody, whether deliberately or otherwise, could affect the livelihood not just of his employee but of that man's wife and family, and the employee had virtually no redress other than a civil action against his employer. We all know that an employee who had lost his job or had fallen ill and was looking for payment from the social welfare code was not likely to have enough money to institute long and complicated legal proceedings to recover from his employer that which was rightfully his.

I would suggest to the Minister that the penalities to be levied on an employer in a situation such as this should be as harsh as possible so that the size and scope of the penalties would be a deterrent to frighten any employer from acting in this way in the future. Not only should they act as a deterrent, but if any employer were so inhuman as to stop from his employees' wages an amount to cover social welfare contributions and then pocketed that money for his own ends, he should be punished with the full rigour of the law. A sizeable fine is not sufficient to penalise a man in such a case. Where it can be clearly shown that an employer has deliberately and with malice aforethought not stamped his employees' social welfare cards, that employer should be committed to prison for a lengthy period.

I am glad the Minister has found a way of covering this by legislation. We had vague promises from the Minister's predecessor when this matter was raised by various people, including the leader of my party. We had vague promises from the Minister's predecessor and assurances that he appreciated the position but no action. At least this Minister has managed now, we would hope, to have covered this obvious loophole and anomaly in the code.

I am also glad to see that the allowance which a widow or a deserted wife can claim in respect of her children from the point of view of the social welfare code is now being increased from £39 to £78 per child. This is a very good thing which is covered by section 13 of the Bill. I should like to suggest to the Minister that we are again dealing with a very under-privileged class, a widow with a young family subject to all the worries and stresses which are normally shared by the husband and wife and which worries in many cases are borne more by the husband than by the wife.

Here instead we have a woman endeavouring to act as father and mother to her children. Was it not really an inhuman thing that the allowance should have been left for so long at £39 per year per child? It is, of course, a very good thing to see in one 12 month period that allowance actually doubled from £39 to £78. What is it after all? It is 30s a week per child. That is the allowance, even with the increase. I suggest to the Minister that in cases like this, which would not substantially or materially affect the amount of money involved, those allowances for children of a widow ought to be in the order of several hundred pounds.

It is not just good enough to give some small assistance to a woman in a case like this. As I have said, she is endeavouring to act as both father and mother to the family. It is my firm belief that the State, rather than assisting in a haphazard or halfhearted way, should go out of its way to render to her every assistance, advice and help that it possibly can. I suggest to the Minister that he should seriously look at this provision with the idea of radically improving that allowance.

We have had from Senator Desmond, and I think from others, an appeal for the abolition of the means test. I know the Minister's answer to that will be that if someone wants to give him a present of another £8 or £9 million a year he will be only too pleased to do it. I appreciate this and can do no more than join with other Senators in making the plea to the Minister that this is what he should be working towards whilst again saying, of course, that as long as he is operating on the present basis of the code he will find it increasingly difficult to abolish the means test. The way to abolish it is to abolish the code and devise something which is fitting to the age in which we live.

There is also a very fair case to be made now for the payment of pensions to self-employed people when they reach 65 years of age. I do not see why they alone, virtually, should be left until they reach 70 years of age for the payment of pensions.

Perhaps the Minister might explain to those of us who were present in the Dáil, and those of us who read the newspapers at the time, what happened to the legislation and the great provisions he promised which he would introduce at the time he abolished the dole payment to so many people. In company with many other Senators I expected that this Social Welfare Bill would produce those startling revolutionary provisions which the Minister spoke about with such obvious pride and confidence, I thought, just a few months ago. They are not contained in this Bill. Perhaps if they have managed to get any further than the Minister's mind he might outline to us just at what stage they are, when we might expect to see them on paper and when after that again we might actually expect to see them in practice.

As is usual again in this annual Bill and discussion we are also looking, when we see the increases in the social welfare payments, at consequent increases in the amount of contributions and the amount of money which an employee and employer will have to pay by way of stamp payments each week and, operating under the code as it is, it is fair enough. If there are to be additional payments made for the various classes, obviously the amount to be paid by employer and employee will have to rise also. The only upsetting aspect is that whilst these increases in the payment for stamps are outlined here today we know that yesterday the Dáil finished with another Bill, the Health Contributions Bill, which will put an additional imposition upon the class of person who is liable to stamp cards.

Again, we come back to the situation where each year the employer and employee pay increased contributions, not just for the social welfare code but by way of penal levy towards the inadequate health services code. When one thinks about it one sees the difficulties and the unfairness involved and one realises that this will continue as long as we operate under the code which we are operating under.

I am reluctant, ever, to criticise public servants because generally they are a body of people who work very hard and who are often unfairly criticised by those in the private sector and whose contribution to the economy of the country, such as it is, has not been acknowledged down through the years. Far be it from me to criticise on a personal basis the officials of the Department of Social Welfare, but in fairness it would be very wrong to allow this discussion to finish without stating what is being said, I honestly believe, by virtually every person in public life, that the method and system under which the public servants employed in the Departments of Social Welfare are expected to operate is absolutely outlandish.

I do not believe that the officials in the Department of Social Welfare are any worse or any better than the officials in any other public Department. If one accepts this then obviously the system under which they are working is the drawback. Any night of any week, if one opens the Dublin Evening Press and reads the column in which people can write asking someone representing that newspaper to investigate a grievance on their behalf, at least one of those grievances and sometimes three, four or five relate to benefit claims from the Department of Social Welfare. If I were Minister for Social Welfare and read the report given of the investigation made into those claims and the comments passed on the Department of Social Welfare, I would be almost too embarrassed to go into my office the next morning.

It is clear from those newspaper reports and from our own personal dealings with the Department that the senior officials in that Department are tremendously helpful and are obviously anxious to operate the code as best they can. It is also apparent that the more junior staff in the Department are not adequately trained to carry out the day-to-day functions which they are supposed to do, are not adequately trained apparently to put on to one file all the relevant data and information relating to any one applicant, and are not trained to answer in an informative and helpful way queries made by an applicant should he visit the Department or, indeed, very often queries made by a public representative acting on his behalf. I do not blame them for this. I believe it is because of the system under which the Department operate which requires masses and masses of paper, of reports and counter reports, of reference numbers and cross references. Apparently it is all done by longhand, it is all done by some filling system which I imagine was probably devised by someone in the British colonial services who was sent to Ireland some time around the turn of the century as a sort of semi-retirement post before he went away to the garden parties and such. I imagine that at some stage during a long hot summer he devised a system based on the filling requirements of some border outpost in India. That same system is the one which the Department of Social Welfare are endeavouring to operate in Dublin in the year 1971.

Those who do not deal with the Department too often may think I exaggerate; those who do will probably think I understate the case. All I can say is—I honestly mean this—that next to the dreadful experience of trying to make a local telephone call in the Dublin area there is nothing that puts the fear of God into my heart more than having somebody ask me to contact the Department of Social Welfare on their behalf. At some time in the future I hope to outline my views about the telephone system and then perhaps the House will know just how much I fear having to ring the Department of Social Welfare.

I make a genuiene plea to the Minister —I think it is something which he realises—to examine the whole administrative set up of his Department in an effort to improve the speed with which an application is processed and a decision reached and, more important, to improve the administrative machinery in an effort to ensure that, where an applicant has a query to make, or where an applicant feels that Justice has not been done in his particular case, he will be readily able to meet somebody who can provide for him all the available information on his case and explain how and why the decision was reached. If this were done, faith in the operation of the Department might improve.

In as genuine a way as I can I say to the Minister that I do not believe that the public generally have a great amount of faith in the Department of Social Welfare. I should imagine that, if the general public were asked to nominate any single Department which they felt was not operating as efficiently as it should, the Department of Social Welfare would probably come first on the list, when I am sure the Minister would prefer it came last.

It is particularly important that an information service in relation to each applicant's claim should readily be available. The social welfare code as it exists is a fairly complicated one. It is one which requires study even by people with some degree of intelligence and some amount of education. Very often the type of person who is making a claim on the Department is the type of person who is least likely to be able to understand the complicated code, to be able to speak on his own behalf, to be able to fill up claim forms properly and adequately and provide information on his own behalf. That is why I feel that in this Department especially the information service and helpful guidance is tremendously important and why I tremble so much when I come across cases of people who have fallen foul of the social welfare system in Áras Mhic Dhiarmada.

The House generally would have to accept that our social welfare code still falls far short of the equivalent code in most countries of western Europe. I mention especially countries of Western Europe because we hear so much bright, hopeful and courageous talk about marching triumphantly into Europe. I hope before we march triumphantly into Europe, if we march into it at all or if we crawl in with a lame leg, that our social welfare code would at least be the equivalent of the codes pertaining in those countries at present. I hope in the future, whenever there is any further talk about North-South relations in this country, that one of the points which can no longer be thrown at us is that our social welfare code is so much lower than the code pertaining in the North that even those with nationalist sympathies there would not countenance joining in with the people in this part of the country because of the amount of benefits they would lose.

This is not a crushing argument but it is a very true one. It is unfortunately an argument for which nobody in this part of the country at this time has any answer. For so long as he is there— I do not know how much longer he will be there—the Minister is the man who can endeavour to eliminate that argument being used by certain people in the North of Ireland. He is the one man who can endeavour to ensure that our social welfare code will be of a standard equal to those operating in the EEC countries. He is the one man who can take into his hands the very arduous and difficult task of picking up the whole social welfare code and shaking it very hard to see what few good things fall out. He should then pick up those few good things and mould together with them new ideas and new methods of providing for the under-privileged people in our community. He should then throw away the remainder of the outmoded and outdated operations of the social welfare Victorian poor law code which remain.

If he managed to achieve even one of those three improvements the Minister could look back on his term as Minister for Social Welfare with real pride. Even if he managed to achieve even one of those improvements the Minister would be rendering not only a great service to his country and to the people but he would be rendering a great political service to his own party. From time to time lately I get the impression that the Minister's party need someone to render them a great political service.

Professor Quinlan

We can all doubly welcome this Bill. However, we can be quite critical, as some speakers have been, of the amounts provided under the Bill. We are invariably handed out the stock reply that we have got to provide the extra money necessary and, as there are quite large numbers of people benefiting under our social welfare system, quite a large amount of money will be required even for the modest improvements proposed in the Bill. That approach is wrong. I agree with the last speaker that the time has come to produce a new social welfare code and such a code, undoubtedly, will cost more.

On the other hand, I believe the level of taxation on luxuries is quite low. I do not believe anyone called upon to pay more taxation on luxury items would object, or could object, if that money was earmarked for the uplifting of the standard of living of the less privileged sections of our community. When I refer to the less privileged sections of our community I am thinking, particularly, of the old age pensioners and blind pensioners. The present level of old age pensions is no credit to us, but, as I have already pointed out, it costs over £2 million to provide a mere 10s a week increase in such pensions, yet one penny added to the price of beer would bring in something in the region of £1¾ million in extra taxation and threepence extra on income tax would bring in approximately £4 million to £5 million. Any of those increases would enable us to make a spectacular improvements in the level of pensions, especially old age, blind, widows' and orphans' and deserted wives' pensions.

The increase given in this Bill is barely sufficient to compensate those people for the increase in the cost of living. It works out at a very small percentaged in the existing pensions. I appeal to the Minister to make a complete break with the past in this regard. Let us not continue to treat it as just an item in the Budget to be adjusted each year. There are many sections in our community who are not paying their just contribution in taxation to the Exchequer. I refer especially here to the younger, unmarried section of our community who undoubtedly have more money available for luxuries than other sections of the community. There is ample room for an increase in taxation on those sections. Such a tax would also help to improve our balance of payments position. By such increases being allotted to social welfare recipients the money would be spent on the necessaries of life, such as food and other items produced within this country, whereas money spent on luxuries is largely spent on imported goods. We could achieve quite an amount by increasing such taxation.

I am astonished at the publicity given to the large increase in deserted wives' allowances. I do not see any big increase here. Perhaps the big increase publicised is in regard to the inclusion of the third and fourth children on equal terms with the first and second children. There was never any reason why it should cost less to feed the third, fourth or fifth children in a family than it costs to feed the first two children. The amount given at present is 18s per week. Can anybody figure out how a widow or a deserted wife could feed children on 18s a week? If so I would like to know of his solution to that problem.

Mr. J. Brennan

May I interrupt the Senator on that point? A deserted wife had no allowance at all up to last year.

Professor Quinlan

I know and the introduction of that allowance is to be commended. On the other hand, the fact that an injustice has been allowed to continue for years is no credit to us. When we start removing such an injustice we should do so boldly and wholeheartedly. There are greater problems in the case of deserted wives than just merely giving them sufficient to keep them alive. By and large, we carry the main responsibility for such desertions because we have not been able to provide full employment at home. In many cases the heads of those families lost their jobs here and had to take to the emigrant ship. When they took such a step it invariably resulted in splitting the family. We were setting the stage for the likely desertion of the wife.

Consequently, we should try to make up to those families in double measure for the fact that they were deprived in their early years of the head of the family through lack of job opportunities here at home. The adjustment given here costs only £89,000. The relatively small number involved means that we could really have made a proper start and the cost would not have been so great.

I agree with the previous speaker on the means test. While I know that we must have some type of a means test— paper work should be kept to the minimum—I appeal to the Minister to have it administered locally as much as possible leaving the decisions to be made there on a basis of investigation and charity. We should not hound the people here for the last penny. A great deal of discretion should be given to the local old age pensions committee or any other committee constituted on a similar basis.

In the case of orphans, the amount provided, £2 10s, is very low. If these children had to be kept in an institution, the cost would be far greater. The same applies to the children of widows. The cost of keeping them in an institution would be far more than the amount that is given to enable them to be maintained at home. We should recognise that it is much more desirable to keep them at home and help the mother to rear her children. Therefore, I appeal to the Minister to reconsider this code in the coming 12 months and not to be afraid to come back with a really decent Bill. If he will earmark luxury taxes to offset the Bill, then all Senators will give him every assistance in speedily implementing any such legislation.

Minister for Social Welfare (Mr. J. Brennan)

I am grateful to the Seanad for the expenditious passage of the Second Stage. I know that the House appreciates the importance of getting the Bill through in time. It might be correct to say that the Bill has been rushed and that Senators did not get a proper opportunity of getting a look at it but it is an annual measures, as some Senators pointed out. It merely treats of matters that come before us every year. On the whole, there is a remarkable improvement in the progressive rhythm of social welfare in this country since 1933.

One Senator kept on talking about the Victorian code we are operating. He did not attempt to refer to the code in any other country, which he could not. I do not blame him because at one time I myself spoke in the same way until I had to examine the different social welfare codes objectively, particularly those in operation in Western Europe where they are more complicated. They are no more comprehensive than our code except that the rates are better and the State contribution is infinitely less than in this country. As a percentage of the total, our proportion of social welfare benefits coming directly from the Exchequer is perhaps greater than any country in Europe. In continental countries, particularly in Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and France, the greater portion of the money comes from the employer and the employee. In many cases the whole scheme is operated outside of State assistance altogether.

Producing a new social welfare code is a very simple matter provided one has the resources from which to draw the necessary capital and it must take absolute priority over everything else. No matter what type of code we operate, whether it is on the lines of the Beveridge Plan or any other type of plan, the basic things which it covers are already covered by our payments and in the same way. If we are going to produce a new code, we shall have to extend social insurance to other classes that are not at present covered, such as self-employed persons—as referred to by Senator Mrs. Farrell—and the amount which one should be prepared to take from it.

One Senator tried to have the best of both worlds when he complained about the cost of the stamp. Before that he devoted almost his entire speech to complaining about the inadequacy of our present code. You cannot have it both ways. At the moment the cost of the stamp is pretty high—it is almost £2—and it gives cover for many things, including health. However, there is a limit to the amount we can take from the employer and the employee at a given time. We must consider moving in the direction of expanding the scope of compulsory insurance to take in other classes in order that the fund may be augmented in that way.

As an Opposition Deputy, I myself always liked to speak on social welfare for it always gives good scope for criticism. I had the pleasure of doing so for six years in the Dáil—two periods of three years—to great effect. I sat down feeling that I had really made a contribution. However, one day I found myself faced with the realities of the situation. One has to grapple objectively with what is possible and what one may expect reasonably to extract from the public purse at a given time. It is as simple as that.

It is easy to say that the benefits given are not sufficient to catch up with the increase in the consumer price index. That is not true. They are greater than the percentage increase in the consumer price index. All our benefits for the past number of years have been greater. They are not merely keeping up with it, they are keeping ahead of it. When we talk about the increased cost of living, it is admitted by all economists and by the man-in-the street—the latter, perhaps, knows in a practical way as much as the theoretical economist nowadays—that there are three things which contribute seriously to the rising cost of living. One of these is beyond our control— prices on the foreign market from which we import our goods. The other is rising incomes and wages, which we should and must try to control. The third, and a most important one, is the imposition of new taxes.

These are the three essential ingredients which contribute to the rising cost of living. Every time we make a contribution to the welfare classes in order to pay them more, we invariably must resort to imposing new taxes which, in turn, send up the cost of living and to some extent erode the benefits that we are giving them. It is difficult to criticise social welfare, to advocate better payments and, at the same time, to point out that what we are giving is being eroded by the rise in the consumer price index. That is true but it is a spiral which nobody has seriously grappled with in this or any other country up to the present time.

Senator Quinlan has just said that luxuries could take more taxes. I wonder was he quite serious in that? Let us consider the tax element in the price of spirits and tobacco. Let us consider the tax on motor cars and petrol. We are frequently criticised for having very high taxes, but, when we consider these things, let us see how ready we are to support the extra tax which must be imposed for social welfare purposes. Year after year I have seen Deputies voting against the imposition of taxes in the Budget irrespective of what good would spring from what they were doing. Nevertheless, the improving standards of living and the expansion of the economy have enabled us to go on expanding our social welfare code each year, not merely increasing the rates but bringing in people who heretofore were not brought in under the code. The deserted wives is one example of a group which was included in the last 18 months.

I should like to give everyone ten times more than what he already has. Do not for one moment think that, if I did, and got up here anybody in the House would rise and say they have got too much. They would always say: "You could have done more." The public conscience is now prepared to permit the payment of more in these fields.

In talking about the Victorian code, up to 1933 the only social welfare we had was 9s for the old age pension. All our present payments are based on the principles of the modern social welfare state and could not, in any way, be regarded as Victorian in their administration.

Before I go on to answer points raised by the different Senators, I want to say a few words about the cockshot which is made of the Department of Social Welfare and Áras Mhic Dhiarmada as an institution by everybody who wishes to criticise the public administration. We must remember, in this context, that the Department of Social Welfare is the one Department which reaches out into practically every home in Ireland. They have practically a weekly contact with virtually every home in Ireland. We have a relatively small Department endeavouring to keep public administration costs as low as possible. We have a relatively small Department staffed by what I would call first class civil servants coping with a job the magnitude of which is not even appreciated by anybody who has not had the opportunity to work in it.

On the social assistance or non-contributory side there are 112,500 old age pensioners. These pensions vary in different types and grades. The books have to be changed frequently, particularly after each Budget and a complete new set has to be produced. On the social insurance side dealing with old age pensions there are 48,000 more. This makes almost 170,000 people on the old age pension side. On widows' side, non-contributory, there are 17,400. On this side there is a movement towards the contributory side increasing the gap each year. On the contributory widow's side there are 53,000 widows. With the 53,000 widows are 20,700 dependants and on the non-contributory widow's side there are 7,800 dependent children.

These are only some of the figures. When it is considered that we have 800,000 people in employment with social welfare cards, each card having a number, cards being exchanged frequently and some 60,000 claims current at a particular time with an average of 3,000 new claims coming in per week, it is very easy for people who feel offended to write into the newspapers and blame the Department of Social Welfare if they did not get their payment overnight.

I would like if we could reach the stage where we would be living in some sort of a community where a person could write in saying that he is unemployed and he wants £5 a week and that some civil servant could send him out that £5 by return of post. That is not likely to happen. Certain qualifications are needed; the person must be alive, he must be insured, and he must be checked. That cannot be called red tape. If they send in their claims duly made, knowing what to do in order to present their qualifications there is no delay. There are thousands of cases where there is a lot of delay. There must be delay otherwise a chance is taken and payment is made without having the necessary information.

The Department is not antiquated. They are up to date in their filing system. We have a computer system in part of the Department. We are as modern as any other Department of the Civil Service with regard to our indexing and filing systems. I hope during the Recess to examine the computerised system operated in Britain in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I was talking to the British Minister for Security a few weeks ago in Geneva and he said: "No matter what system of computerisation you will install, you will not eliminate complaints." That is one thing the computer does not do. It is only a bit of ignorant machinery that is as good as the information that is fed into it. It will not provide payment for people who are not qualified for it. Those who do not qualify to get the payment they expect to get will always complain. There are hundreds and thousands of these. If someone expects he is entitled to get £7 a week when he became unemployed and we discover that he is one stamp short, he does not get it, and he is disappointed. He writes to Ask the Experts and he tells about the way he is being treated by these desperate people in Aras Mhic Dhiarmada whose only interest is to suck the blood of everybody and deprive everybody of that to which they are entitled.

The staff of my Department are human beings like that of any other Department in the Civil Service. They are anxious to do what they can. We have imposed on them, in the Oireachtas, certain rules and regulations and we have asked them to operate those rules and regulations. They are statutory regulations. If we want them to do otherwise, then let us release them from these regulations and say: "Pay out ad lib without seeking the qualifications that are necessarily required for payment at a particular time.”

We are constantly seeking to reduce to the minimum the complaints that will arise from-delays in processing cases. We have a service out in the field, investigation officers who do their work well. Their job is to examine cases. We have local old age pension committees. They are a buffer between bureaucracy and democracy, who examine cases for old age pensions. Sometimes, they are not the most expenditious groups. However, they enable the local people to see that this terrible monster of the Civil Service is not overriding the rights to which the people are entitled. For that reason I am always pleased to allow old age pension commitees to operate.

We are dealing with 800,000 people having insurance cards and coming in periodically with claims for sickness benefit, occupational injuries, unemployment benefit and for the optical and dental benefits that they are entitled to is impossible. Also, there is almost 1,000,000 children for whom there are children's allowances.

There are some 160,000 old age pensioners and 100,000 widows. We have benefits in our social welfare code that are not available in any other country in the world. I doubt if any country gives free travel to its old age pensioners and free TV licences. We never hear about these things. If you compare notes with Ministers you meet abroad you realise how far our code goes. If it is weak in any sense it is in the rates we pay. We are supposed to be far behind the British in this respect but some of their rates do not compare favourably with ours. In some cases where there are a number of dependants getting unemployment benefit I think we are better than Britain. Our occupational injuries code is as good as theirs and our children's allowance scheme has features which their has not got.

To anyone who thinks that I or any other Minister who is continually seeking to improve the code will have a difficult task, I say it will not be all that difficult. We have a section examining the code and categorising the changes that must take place. With reference to the employment period order which was reintroduced this year, there was a hue and cry about the number of people who would be at a serious disadvantage, who would be embarrassed as a result. In 1967, I continued unemployment assistance for the first time throughout the year and there was no flourish of trumpets and, indeed, there was some adverse criticism from the press at the time. Before that there were two employment period orders which cut off even people with dependants and young married couples with children. When we decided to reintroduce what had been done for 30 years I insisted that it would not refer to people with dependants and even then there was a hue and cry.

We learned a lot from it. Many of the people who complained pointed out openly that they were not fit to work and that immediately led me to make the decision that we must devise a new scheme to reach out to these people, but let us not call it unemployment benefit, assistance or dole. There are people who are anxious to work and they should be provided with a pool of work. There are people who have been drawing unemployment assistance and who quite openly admit that, physically or domestically, they are not available for work, which is one of the statutory requirements. If they want these payments and cannot live without them we have got to give them, but let us give them under another name.

That is the type of scheme I am working on. When I said in the House at Easter that there would be a modification of the system announced within a few days, I was referring to the fact that the Minister for Finance, in his Budget which was introduced a few days after I spoke, brought back all those over 50 and the islanders into the scheme, even those without dependants. I hope to present to the Government at the earliest possible date a scheme dealing mainly with what is commonly known as the dole and this may incorporate some drastic changes in the system. It is a big scheme and will be, I hope, a marked step forward in the social welfare code.

Senator Belton referred to the difficulty of reading the Bill when the Acts which are being amended are not before us. I quite agree. I find it difficult to follow amendments. Each annual Bill refers to previous Acts and if you were to understand it thoroughly you would need to have these Acts before you. We depend a good deal on explanatory memoranda in that respect. These spell out in a simple way what the section really means.

Senator Desmond referred to the pence. I know 18s sounds better than 90p. Deputy Desmond referred to a few pence here and a few pence there, but this adds up to about £5 million in the social welfare payments this year, and directly out of the Exchequer comes some £4,385,000. As the old people used to say "It does not grow on bushes". You have to take the money out of the people's pockets. When you start to spread £5 million in taxation a few people start groaning too. I would love if it was £15 million rather than £5 million, but there is no painless extraction. Senator Quinlan talks about taxing luxuries. You can reach the stage of diminishing returns, as has been reached in tobacco at present. There is a limit to the scope there.

We must also bring the public conscience with us, and I think we have done this. I do not think that, 40 years ago, we could take £15 million or £10 million from the people's pockets each year to give to the poorer classes without a hue and cry. There is a good deal of talk now about the responsibility of the citizen to his weaker fellowman and, as a result, the public conscience has awakened to the extent of almost exploding in favour of this. It is possible now to seek moneys from the taxpayer in order to pay the weaker sections of the community. We are taking a fair amount from them now and, please God, we will take more from them as they can afford it as the years go on.

Senator Farrell said the self-employed and small employers get no benefit. I would not agree with this. In so far as the moneys that are payable to his employees safeguard him against the various risks, the employer is getting benefit from his weekly contribution towards each employee. He is covered for occupational injuries, for the hazards of sickness, even for death, for unemployment etc. That is in itself a considerable benefit to the employer. He is also getting benefit in so far as the social welfare system is an income support and when an employee takes up a job with an employer, he regards the cover he has got under social welfare as part of what makes up the security of his employment.

So it is not quite correct to say that an employer gets no benefit. I hope we can expand the social insurance scheme to bring in self-employed people and employers and, in fact, everybody, if we can make a stronger social insurance fund. In that way we would be relieving the Exchequer of a great deal of the expenditure they have to meet at present on the assistance side.

I do not think there were any other specific points made. Senators have been good enough to extend the time to permit me to finish the Second Stage. I would, indeed, have wished that they would have given me all stages today. This is in no way a denigration of this House and its importance as a legislative assembly because we did exactly the same thing in the Dáil yesterday. We went through all Stages in the knowledge that it is an annual Bill which actually covers the same ground each year, as is well known to every Member of the Oireachtas.

In so far as that is true it cannot be said that it has been sprung on anybody. Senators are all familiar with these provisions. The only provision in the Bill that was not in the Budget is that whereby we take power to pay the contributions in cases where the employer has not paid them. In that connection I should say what I had in mind. We always had power to make the employer pay up whatever was lost, and in bankruptcies or liquidations we were unable fairly often to get the money even by taking action. This does give us power to credit the insured person with the contributions he had that were not paid on his behalf. We have stepped up the penalties.

Senator Boland said that defaulters should be jailed. We have power to put them in jail and make them pay a financial penalty as well. I am grateful to the House for having so patiently dealt with this Second Stage. The Bill itself only provides for spending the money that is being provided in the Budget. I could not possibly extend in any way the provisions by any amendment Senators would introduce because it is just using the money that has been provided in the Budget, and that is all that is available to me. Therefore if the Seanad would consider giving me all Stages I would be very happy. I am entirely in their hands.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining stages today.