I do not intend to say very much on this section but it is the one which deals with the non-contributory old age pensions which is considered as a basic statistic when used in relation to our social welfare benefits in general. This pension is being raised in this Bill by 21.2 per cent. One welcomes this but one is entitled to point out, particularly in relation to some of the statistics that the Parliamentary Secretary quoted in his closing speech on Second Reading, that in the last three months alone the cost of living increased by 8 per cent. Under these kinds of circumstances a 21 per cent increase in the old age pension is definitely not over-generous. One must have reference to the fact that old age pensioners, even more than other recipients of social welfare benefits and allowances, depend greatly on food and fuel, the cost of which have, in general, risen even more than the general cost of living. While we welcome this increase as set out in this section it cannot be regarded as being over-generous.
Social Welfare Bill, 1975: Committee and Final Stages.
This section imposes additional payments on workers and employers. I got the impression from the Parliamentary Secretary that he queried the overall figure of £40 million. It may be £39 million, but around £40 million seems to be an accurate estimate of the imposition. We hear a lot about open Government from the present Government. I am not sure what "open Government" is supposed to mean but in so far as it means anything it would suggest that the Government are open in the sense that they convey information to the public and all their affairs are open to inspection and that their policies and decisions are known.
It is significant in the light of that that in financial matters they are one of the most closed Governments we have had. When it comes to budgetary matters the policies of the Government, particularly in so far as they relate to increased taxation or other imposts on the public, are made known day by day but never all at one time. We had the "petrol budget" in the autumn, followed by the annual budget in January, and then the Government, when the Opposition inquired of them, professed not to know at that stage what these impositions would be. I do not believe that this or any other government could be so incompetent that they were unable for two months to work out what increase in the stamp was necessary to pay for the increased social welfare benefits and the element of profit included in this section in order to deal with the increase in unemployment.
In the course of the budget debates in both Houses they professed not to know and not to be able to say. We have the situation that after the budget is over and, particularly, after the by-elections are over we have these announcements like a bombshell, that a further £40 million burden is to be imposed on the public.
I do not know if the suggestion is being made that the £27 million of this which is to be covered by the employers on their side of the stamp in some way is not an impost on the workers, and that big businesses only have to provide these sums. Of course, we all know big business does nothing of the kind. Even if businessmen were able to produce £27 million out of their profits we know that is not what they would do; it would be raised by increased prices. Business people will have to raise their prices in order to pay this large sum and the workers, and everybody else, will have to pay accordingly. It is not just the £13 million that is paid by the workers but the entire £40 million which is being imposed essentially as a form of taxation.
I object to this section because the proposals were concealed from the public in the budget and because, for the first time, it contains the element of profit. The State is requiring a further increase in the stamp beyond what is needed for increased benefits in order to pay for the increased costs that arise as a result of unemployment. As far as I know this has never been done before and is an extremely undesirable precedent. The Parliamentary Secretary said that this was temporary but I would be prepared to bet almost any sum that we will never see the day when the stamp will be cheaper. This may be temporary but we can take it as an indubitable and inevitable fact of life that this increased sum will never come off the stamp.
Senator Yeats is somewhat confused about the procedure that has been the practice all through the years with regard to the increase in the stamp. He states that we were trying to conceal the amount of the increase from the public because it was not announced in the budget. An increase in the price of the stamp is never announced in the budget and never has been. The parliamentary procedure is that that increase is included in the Social Welfare Bill that comes before both Houses.
The Senator also has a mistaken belief that with regard to the motivation which he implies to this and he said it had something to do with the Galway by-elections. In fact, the Social Welfare Bill in its entirety was circulated the Friday before the by-election. It was in the possession of Deputies, and the media, on the Saturday morning and, in fact, was given big headlines in The Irish Press on the Monday morning before the by-elections. The Senator is a little confused about the procedure and about his implied motive for doing it in that way.
The question of profit has been mentioned and I cannot understand where it comes from. The Exchequer contribution to social welfare is £35½ million. I hope that clears it up. The normal procedure was adopted with regard to the announcement of the increase in the stamp and the only departure I could see from the normal procedure was that it was published before the by-elections and the public were aware of what was contained in the Bill.
I assure the Parliamentary Secretary that I am not in the least confused about budgetary procedure. I am well aware that a separate Bill is needed in order to bring in increased social welfare benefits and to increase or change the cost of the stamp. I am doing the Parliamentary Secretary credit in assuming that two months ago he, and his Department, were able to work out what the cost of the stamp would be. I am complaining that when questions were asked in the course of the budget debate as to how much the stamp would cost the Parliamentary Secretary and his Minister, and everybody concerned, stood up blandly and said they did not know. I have sufficient confidence, if not in the efficiency of the Ministers of this Government at least in their Departments, to assume that they did know but were not willing to say. That is the burden of my complaint.
As regards the by-elections I think that the publication of a matter of this kind a couple of days before an election is too late to have any influence on the result. My main complaint is the concealment of what must have been known at the time of the budget.
The element of profit I was referring to is not the question of the £35 million the State is producing. There is a considerable sum imposed in this section which is not needed in order to pay the high rates. That is a new step and a complete precedent. On previous occasions the increase in the stamp was sufficient, and only sufficient, to pay for increased rates. But now we have a situation in which millions are being acquired on foot of increases in stamps to pay for the large number it is expected will be unemployed. That is what I mean by the element of profit. It is completely without precedent to have an increase in the stamp, particularly on this scale, which was not required in any way to increase the rates.
The matter I referred to in my Second Reading speech concerns an anomaly that has existed between County Dublin and the Dublin Corporation area in regard to the provision of school meals over a number of years. This is the first attempt to deal with the matter. School meals are given in the old corporation area because it is a corporation. Under the School Meals Acts, going back to 1914, only corporations and urban councils can provide these meals. The old corporation area no longer represents what is really Dublin city. What we have now is a Greater Dublin and a county. The reality of the matter is that there are huge conurbations outside the corporation jurisdiction and in the county council area; the population is about 300,000, and they have been deprived of school meals because they were on the county council side whereas the schools on the corporation side had these meals.
In this section the Minister attempts, for the first time, to deal with the anomaly but he does so in a rather bureaucratic fashion by stating that where a local authority is satisfied that not less than one half of the children attending national schools situate outside the authority's functional area reside either in that area or outside it but in dwellings owned or provided by the authority, the local authority may determine that the School Meals Acts apply. The situation is that, if in a particular school 55 per cent of the children come from the corporation area and 45 per cent come from the council area, the school gives free meals; but if 55 per cent of the children come from the county council area and 45 per cent come from the corporation area they do not get free meals.
The sensible thing to do is to amend the School Meals Acts and regard Dublin city and county as one entity for the provision of meals. Places like Blanchardstown and Clondalkin in County Dublin are similar urban conurbations to those which exist within the city boundary.
The existing situation is a complete anomaly dating back to 1914. As shown in the White Paper on local government which we produced before we left office, the whole structure of local government, particularly in regard to Dublin city and county, does not make sense. When London can have a Greater London Council we surely can have a Greater Dublin Council administering Dublin city, county and Dún Laoghaire Borough Corporation. School meals are a small part of what should be a common service in that area.
I welcome the fact that a step is being taken in this section, but I ask that, between now and the next Social Welfare Bill, what I have said will be borne in mind with a view to rectifying the matter.
I think the section meets the requirements but I will examine the matter further.
I was glad to read that the Parliamentary Secretary said in the Dáil he would try to do something about the extraordinary conglomeration of Acts and regulations which make up the social welfare code. He said there are about 60 Acts and more than 300 assorted ministerial regulations dealing with this matter. I should like to hear something from him as to what he proposes to do and when he thinks it will be possible to do it. Can we visualise a situation where there might be some kind of consolidating Act which would incorporate all this material, or does he propose to try to consolidate each section of them — old age pensions Acts, unemployment assistance Acts and so on? What kind of inroads on the mountain does he think it might be possible to make in the foreseeable future?
The early stage of examination of this has started within the Department. Codification is desirable from everyone's point of view. Members of the Oireachtas, social workers, and statutory and voluntary organisations interested in this area are finding it extremely difficult to plough through the very complex legislation covering social welfare. It will be a very detailed and complex job and it will not be possible to come up with concrete proposals in the immediate future, but I hope we will have made substantial progress by sometime next year.