The object of this Bill is to give effect to the reduction, which I announced in November last, in the old age pensions. That reduction has not yet been given effect to, and, in fact, even with the passing of the Bill. it cannot be given effect to for some little time. The Bill will also include provisions for a revision of the main scale and the method of calculating the annual value of capital or property held by applicants, and certain amendments in regard to the assignment or transfer of property. The whole matter of the need for this reduction was discussed very fully on a previous occasion by the Dáil, and nothing that has occurred or has come to light since in any way alters the point of view that we hold as to the necessity for reducing the amount of expenditure in this particular service. Some people are inclined to think that because of the success of the Loan there is less need for economy than previously. There is no less need. In fact, we still have to borrow, and if we were to fail to carry out the promises of economy made before the last Loan was issued it would be very difficult to carry through a second Loan with the same ease as the first. The matter is one about which I do not think it is necessary for me to say more. The events of the past year have made it necessary for us to reduce the national expenditure very drastically, and, no matter how desirous we may be of saving, there is no class that can escape the results of the destruction and damage done during the year. I accordingly move the first reading of the Bill.
OLD AGE PENSIONS BILL, 1924—FIRST STAGE.
I want to ask the verdict of the Dáil as to whether such a Bill should be printed. The Minister has referred to the promise he made in November last. On the strength of these promises of economy he appealed for a loan. I do not know whether one per cent. of the money that has been obtained in response to the appeal for a loan can be said to have been paid in as a consequence of his promise to deduct 10 per cent. from the pensions of the aged poor, and I think that that one per cent., if there were as many as one per cent., who only paid into the loan on condition that 10 per cent. was to be deducted from the old age pensions, are not worthy of any consideration in the Dáil. The case that was made, such as it was at the time, was based upon the alleged reduction in the cost of living and the purchasing power of the pension. I do not think that the case for the reduction in the pension can be sustained. This is, of course, not the occasion for a long debate upon the Bill. We are now told, of course, that, included in the proposals, are more stringent regulations regarding the administration of the Act. Presumably, it is expected that a more rigid inspection and a more "graagrind" administration of the law will save the Exchequer a considerable amount. We shall wait until we see the Bill before we say anything on that point. It may be that there is plenty of room for more stringent administration and care. I think there is, but I am afraid that the instructions that have been issued from the Pension Department to local inspectors are being interpreted in a way which, perhaps, the Pension Department may have intended, but they are doing great hardship and injustice to many of those who ought to be receiving the pension. However, that matter will come under review, I have no doubt. There are very grave doubts in the country as to the wisdom of this proposal, quite apart from any question of humanity or sympathy, quite apart even from a question of good government. Merely as a matter of tactics, merely as a matter of good politics in the narrow sense, it is considered to be a very false move when discussions are taking place regarding the unity of Ireland. One cannot hold out to the people who are aged or those who are likely to be aged within a few years, who live on the Northern side of the Border, that it would be a good thing for them to unite with their fellows in the larger part of the country, when a cut of 10 per cent. was being made in their Old Age Pensions. I would like to remind several Deputies, particularly Deputies Mulcahy, O'Higgins, Burke, Duggan, P.J. Ward, J.J. Walsh, and Pádraic O Máille, of the declaration to which they all subscribed when they said, "We approve of a sympathetic native scheme for the care of the Nation's aged and infirm, who shall not be regarded as a burden, but are entitled to the Nation's gratitude and consideration." On that ground I beg the Dáil not to agree to the first reading of the Bill.
I am sure Deputies have seen the resolutions passed by the different bodies in the Saorstát condemning the action of the Government in introducing a cut of 10 per cent. in the old-age pensions. In some cases old-age pensioners living ten miles or more outside have to come into a town for sums of a few shillings. I would like to remind the Minister that if old-age pensions are reduced it will not be a saving to the State. It may be a saving to the Exchequer, but it will be an increase in the expenditure of ratepayers, for there will be nothing left for the old-age pensioners to do but to seek admission to the County Home or to ask for relief from the bodies which they have contributed to for the upkeep of the county for sixty or seventy years of their life. If it is a question of economy, surely there are other branches of the Government where economy can be started. I do not see why the Minister should go to the country and reduce by one shilling in ten the pension of an old man or an old woman. I can assure the Minister and the Government that a shilling deducted from the old-age pension means more to those concerned than if the Attorney-General was reduced £1,000 in his salary. All the old-age pensioner has to live on is the 10s. given to him as a gratuity of honour to his old age. It may be a saving to the Free State, but it will mean an increase on the rates. The different local authorities will have to increase their rates. They have already passed a resolution condemning the action of the Government, and, to my mind, the Government elected by the people are not the masters of the people, but must be governed by the people. If the people tell you to do a certain thing I think it is necessary that that should be done. The people are the masters; we are the employees. The people are the employers. I do not see why this Bill should be enforced; the country is up against it. In the constituency which I have the honour, or rather the misfortune, to represent every public body there has passed a resolution. I use the word "misfortune" because the members there, like the Government, are out to reduce wages. All those bodies have passed resolutions asking the Government not to enforce this reduction. If this Bill goes to a division I will vote against it. I do not understand economising if you have to start at the bottom and climb up to the top. I think a much quicker way would be to begin at the top and slip down to the bottom. If any of the Deputies present happens to have a plum tree and wishes to prune it, he does not prune it at the root. He cuts away the top branches first. The same thing should be done as far as the economy of the State is concerned. I do not want to say that Ministers have too high a salary. I would give them more if I could. But you have a Lodge that costs you £38,000 a year. Saving can begin there. Every Deputy here knows that the old men and women cannot afford the reduction. If the reduction takes place it will mean expenditure in other places.
I wish to say that 10s. a week given to the old age pensioner is the only relief for the unemployed that I see up to now. A father and a mother might be getting the pension, and the son with the grand-children are hungry until that £1 a week comes in. That 10s. a week is spent on tea, sugar, and a few other things that could be reduced immediately by the Cabinet before they attempted to take away from the poor man or woman of eighty years of age one-tenth of his or her salary, which was well earned from the State before we were born. It is the only relief of the unemployed. The unemployment in my district and throughout the country is becoming a serious menace, especially when I am told that the poor people have actually eaten their own seed potatoes. How are they going to sow potatoes in the coming year? On that account I am compelled to vote against the Bill.
I agree with Deputy Daly and Deputy Lyons in the attitude they have taken up in connection with this Bill, and I would only add to the reasons they have given by pointing out that it has been forced upon us on the Labour benches to realise that the attitude the Government has taken up so far as the workers are concerned is an attitude that is entirely hostile. We saw the recommendations of the Postal Commission, and the recommendations of the Reconstruction Commission turned down, and we see that every effort is being made to give a headline to the employers to assail and attack the position of the workers. And now, last of all, we see the despicable effort that is being made to increase the poverty that exists amongst the aged poor. I think the attitude of the Government is unworthy of them as a Government, and is a complete disappointment to the expectations of the people of Ireland who made the Government. It is a poor recompense for the sacrifice made by the workers to establish native government in Ireland. I agree with the attitude adopted by members of the Dáil who have spoken against this Bill, and I hope the Dáil will reject the Bill when it comes to a division.
It is very likely that this debate is going to take a line entirely different from the perspective of the Minister. In the first place, Deputy Johnson said that no persons, or a very small percentage of persons —I think he said 10 per cent.—had subscribed to the loan, feeling that they had a certain amount of security in the money to be saved from this particular service.
I said one per cent.
That is not putting the case as the Minister for Finance put it, at the time, or putting the case as it is put forward in this particular Bill for consideration. The case is that the Minister for Finance had got to insure both to the investors in the loan, and to the business community throughout the country, that the business of the State is going to be run on honest lines.
It is time it was.
And you can only run the business of the State, or the business of your own private house, if you run it on honest lines——
What about the profiteers?
As far as we are concerned we are not profiteering, and the profiteers and other people of that sort must be dealt with in our own time; but other matters of pressing importance, which in our judgement must come first, have to be dealt with. We are not, no more than is the Deputy, absolutely free to deal with things as we would like to deal with them. Nobody knows better than the Deputy the great difficulties there are in trying to solve everything at one time, but there is one thing we have got to make up our minds upon definitely, and it is whether or not you are going to exceed the sum of money in expenditure which you raise in revenue. If you exceed that money you have got no right to set up Courts to collect money from debtors against whom judgement is marked in the Courts, or against whom decrees are obtained in the Courts. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot impose upon the individual what you are afraid to face yourself. We have in three or four services in this country 50 per cent. of the entire revenues of the State involved to keep them going. One is Education, the other Old Age Pensions, and the third superannuation. Superannuation we cannot interfere with, because we have pledged our word to it; we are bound by the terms in the Treaty to carry it out. Is it contended that we should break our word in regard to that? I have not heard anybody putting that argument forward, I have not heard anybody make the declaration on any public platform that that is a service in respect of which we are entitled to demand a reduction. There are two or three services that have been examined—the Army, Education and Old Age Pensions—I do not know that the Minister for Finance has examined closely a great many of the other services; he has not completed the whole of his examination yet. The Army estimates will be enormously reduced this year, and they would be further reduced if we had not got such political humbugs as we have to deal with in this country — little gentlemen who call themselves soldiers when the fight is over, and warriors who object to peaceful picketting, and other people of that type who have committed this State, either by innuendo or acquiescence or silence, or by any other methods, to enormous expenditure of treasure and of blood. The Minister for Finance, in introducing this Bill, has fulfilled his bond to the whole country. He has fulfilled his bond to every person who has a single penny in the banks on deposit, to every person who has invested in the loan, and to every person who will be invited, a little later on, to contribute something towards running the State, and to keeping it out of pawn to other countries—
Is that a promise?
Certainly, we have always kept it out of pawn, and we intend to keep it so. I never heard, at any time, the allegation sustained that we had allowed it to get into pawn.
If you do you are going to go down.
We have been told that we have not responded to any of the recommendations made by Commissions. My experience of Commissions extends over a great many years. Every Commission that is set up has not got before it the difficulties which face the Minister for Finance; it has only to concern itself with one subject. The Minister for Finance, unlike the lady in the Gospel, has to concern himself with many things, and has to be busy about many things. He has to solve everything in relation to the one problem that should be his first concern, and that is a problem that ought to be the concern of any State which means, in times of difficulty and stress, to maintain a position of honour and integrity amongst the other States in the world. Deputy Lyons, I think, mentioned something about a plum tree. I would like to know if the Deputy would submit himself to the particular operation he mentioned—improving the rest of his body at the expense of his head. I am afraid the Deputy could not afford anything off the top.
On a point of explanation, I think I can answer that question. If I let my hair grow long enough I must get it removed if I am to look well.
There is no more popular subject that one could address himself to than this question of the needs, the requirements and the comfort of the aged. We are as much concerned here with their needs, requirements and comfort as anybody else, and we want to know where else we are going to get £400,000? The case may not be as strong now as it was when the Minister made his first statement. The cost of living may possibly vary a little in a contrary direction, but the facts are that during a period of something like twelve months the cost of living did warrant, granted that the original sum of five shillings was the basis, a reduction to 9s, and even the cost of living, prices, salaries, and so on must all subordinate themselves to the fact, whether or not you can afford to pay. There is little use in saying to old-age pensioners or to people interested in education, or to people who say to us—"You must keep up the army and the police forces," and so on, that we must continue to pay this money. But suppose you do pay this year and next year and the year after, and then find in the fourth year that you have not got a single penny to give them, what will be the case then? You will be faced with bankruptcy and with a position of being unable to run any of the services of the State. Do you not fail then in your duty which is to maintain the State? We are suffering here in this country now not much more than has been suffered in other countries through the terrible war that took place some years ago. Other countries are bearing their sufferings and bearing them well, and they have responded to the troubles of their time by making better efforts themselves. It is our duty to make a better effort here, and to see, if there are times of difficulty and stress, what sacrifices we are going to make in order that the State may function and discharge its obligations to all its services.
Tá.
- Earnán Altún.
- Earnán de Blaghd.
- Séamus Breathnach.
- Séamus de Burca.
- Bryan R. Cooper.
- Sir James Craig.
- Louis J. D'Alton.
- Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean Uí Dhrisceóil.
- Osmond Grattan Esmonde.
- Henry J. Finlay.
- John Good.
- Connor Hogan.
- Peadar Mac a' Bháird.
- Seosamh Mac Bhrighde.
- Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh.
- Liam T. Mac Cosgair.
- Pádraig Mac Fadáin.
- Pádraig Mac Giollagáin.
- Seán Mac Giolla 'n Ríogh.
- Risteárd Mac Liam.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- Liam Mag. Aonghusa.
- John T. Nolan.
- Peadar O hAodha.
- Criostóir O Broin.
- Seán O Bruadair.
- Proinsias O Cathail.
- Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
- Séamus N. O Dóláin.
- Peadar S.O Dubhghaill.
- Pádraig O Dubhthaigh. Eamon S.O Dúgáin.
- Seán O Duinnín.
- Donchadh S.O Guaire.
- Mícheál O hIfearnáin.
- Aindriú O Láimhín.
- Séamus O Leadáin.
- Fionán O Loingsigh.
- Thomas O'Mahony.
- Pádraig O Máille.
- Risteárd O Maolchatha.
- Séamus O Murchadha.
- Seán M. O Súilleabháin.
- Caoimhghín O hUigín.
- Patrick W. Shaw.
- Liam Thrift.
Níl.
- Seán Buitléir.
- John Daly.
- Darrell Figgis.
- Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- Pádraig Mac Fhlannchadha.
- Tomás de Nógla.
- Ailfrid O Broin.
- Tomás O Conaill.
- Aodh O Cúlacháin.
- Liam O Daimhín.
- Eamon O Dubhghaill.
- Seán O Laidhin.
- Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
- Tadhg O Murchadha.