asked the Postmaster-General if he is aware that Miss Lucy Dunne, Postwoman, Kilmeague, Co. Kildare, has been transferred from the route she was travelling for the last seven years, and where she gave every satisfaction to the public, as can be testified by the Memorials sent to him by the residents and the Parish Priest; further, that her salary has been reduced from £1 1s. 9d. per week as a whole time officer to 9s. 3d. as a half time officer; and, further, that the Department has ceased to stamp her National Health and Unemployment Insurance cards, thereby depriving her of the benefits conferred by those Acts, and whether the Minister will give instructions to have this woman restored to her former route and salary, as she is the sole support of a widowed mother.
CEISTEANNA—QUESTIONS. ORAL ANSWERS. - TRANSFER OF KILDARE POSTWOMAN.
It was recently found necessary to reduce the frequency of an unremunerative rural post at Kilmeague from six to three days a week, and in order that the wages of the Auxiliary Postman, who performed the duty, might not be correspondingly reduced, he was transferred to the walk on which Miss Dunne had been employed.
Miss Dunne, who has been acting in a temporary capacity as an Auxiliary Postwoman, has no claim to employment as an Auxiliary or to any particular route, and she was given the three day walk with the reduced wages attaching to it.
Since the change of her duties Miss Dunne ceased to be insurable under the National Health Insurance Acts, as persons paid under an allowance who are employed for not more than eighteen hours a week on the delivery or collection of letters are exempt from Insurance.