The question is: "That the Bill be now read a second time."
OLD AGE PENSIONS BILL.—SECOND STAGE (RESUMED).
This Bill has been criticised as to its form. I understand well enough the objection to legislation by reference, and I will take to heart what has been said in that respect. I think, however, when we have a Bill amending fairly recent Acts, the amount of reference that is allowable may be taken to be greater than when we were dealing with old Acts—perhaps a large series of old Acts.
I also hoped that it would be possible to have some arrangement whereby Deputies could consult previous statutes without going all around the town. Even if we do not manage very quickly to have a Parliamentary Library, I think arrangements could be made whereby Deputies could go into the National Library at any reasonable time so that they might look up any references that are contained in Bills. I can quite well see that it would be desirable to print relevant Sections from previous Acts, but I would not like to undertake that we should always print Sections referred to in any particular Bill, because that would be in many cases quite unnecessary, and it would involve a considerable amount of printing.
Turning to the arguments which were used yesterday, I would like to deal first with that put forward by Deputy Johnson to the effect that the destruction of the past two years was not responsible for the necessity for this cut in the old age pensions. I have no hesitation in saying that the destruction of the last two years can be taken to be solely responsible for this particular cut. I am aware that, apart from the Army charges, apart from the compensation charges, and apart from the charges which that destruction is directly responsible for, there would be a comparatively small deficit in the revenue. That deficit would be such as could be met by ordinary savings that we would be able to effect in the departments, and that are being effected in those departments. We are now, however, as a result of the damage that has been done, faced with a deficit so great that it cannot be met without much more drastic measures. It is even open to doubt whether, if the destruction in the past two years had not taken place, there would be any deficit at all. When the Compensation Bill was under consideration in the Dáil there was a great deal of talk about consequential loss, and, I think, we said many times from these benches that if we admitted consequential loss, the bill would probably be twice as great. That consequential loss and the wastage it represents are great, and there can be no doubt that they have caused a loss of revenue. When a loss is suffered and the country is thereby impoverished, you will find that that will always decrease your revenue.
Further, the destruction and turmoil of the past couple of years have driven large numbers out of the country, whose presence here would have resulted in employment, and, through employment, would have helped the revenue, and whose presence would have meant income tax coming into the Exchequer. I think it is possible that if we had not the campaign of the last two years, without having to undertake any particular economies, we would have been able to meet our expenditure out of income. In any case, it is quite certain, had it not been for the destruction of the past two years, we would have had a saving of £40,000 or £50,000 on the Stationery Office, and £70,000 on national health insurance, as well as other savings which we have in hand, and we would be able to make up the deficit without going to such a length as we have to go to at present.
Does the Minister assume that there would be no debt to pay interest on?
That is a matter that I will discuss in the proper time, and I do not want to say anything about the debt that we might have to pay interest on. In any case all the factors, such as our liability to meet old age pension charges, would, I presume, have to be taken into account if we were to arrive at the amount of any debt. I will deal with that matter at the proper time. Deputy Cole again asked: "Why touch the old age pensioner first; why not consider other methods of economy?" Now, dealing with old age pensions is not such a pleasant thing that one rushes to deal with them first, without considering whether other economies cannot be effected. We have considered other economies, and have put other cuts into effect before old age pensions have been touched. The teachers' cut has come into operation. The pay of the Army has been cut, and the pay of the police has been cut, and, I take it, that the remuneration of the doctors in connection with national health certification will be affected before old age pensions are cut. Even when this Bill goes through the Dáil there will be certain delays before there is anything taken off old age pensions, and the cut in the old age pensions will be very far from being the first cut. We had to survey the field, when we got the opportunity, as the result of the cessation of hostilities, and we had to put our house in order. We had to survey the field and see what the deficit was, and where it could be met. There was no use leaving out of consideration the economies and the measures which would give us large savings until we had exhausted the methods which we knew would not give nearly sufficient. We have to get the Budget balanced as soon as possible. It would be easy to come along this year and make half a dozen very inadequate economies, and make another half dozen next year before we came to the bigger things that would yield bigger sums, but we would all the time be increasing the debt and making the financial position of the country more insecure.
I may, when speaking in November, have said that we proposed to save £70,000 or £80,000 on the Stationery Office, and I may have said one or two other minor things, but we wanted to give an indication that we were prepared to go the whole hog in taking the necessary steps to balance the Budget, and there was no use in leaving out things that would give us a saving of £400,000, and mention things that would give us only one-tenth of that amount. In no sense did we deal with old age pensions first. We only came to that decision when the best survey we could make convinced us that only in this way could we balance the Budget. No doubt, it is only talk to the gallery when people say, "Why cut old age pensions first?" We have heard it said that we are going to make the present Border permanent as the result of this cut. I have no belief it will have any such result. I certainly believe that we would easily make the boundary, not at any rate the present boundary, but the division of the country permanent by any sort of imprudent finance, and by letting the country get into a mess financially. I have been talking to people who were engaged in the recent elections in Tyrone and Fermanagh, and I asked them was there any refusal on the part of old age pensioners to go to the poll because of the cut which had been announced in the old age pensions, and I was told that the old age pensioners had gone to the poll just as before. I think it is wrong to assume that because people are old they have neither reason, sense, nor patriotism, and that they have regard simply to some purely personal and material considerations. I think in one sense the suggestion is that the cut is going to make the old age pensioners turn their backs on all the things that they believe is insulting to them. Suggestions were made by some Deputies, if I heard the suggestions right, that we might put additional stamps on the National Insurance Cards and pay the old age pensioners. That would mean considerable taxation on the people who would be involved, to pay the old age pensions in full. It would involve a half-a-crown stamp every week, but of course, to pay the difference would not involve nearly that amount. We have had Deputies asking what the Secret Service Fund was spent on. If I told them that, it would not be Secret Service any longer. I do not intend to tell them. Deputies can very well realise that while as large sums will not be necessary in future as have been even this year, in the state of this country, for another year or two some fairly substantial sums will have to be available for the prevention of any action against the State that might be suddenly sprung.
We heard reference to other items of expenditure. Now, supposing we could wipe out these items, they are only a very small fraction of the three millions, and of the amount that would come to the Exchequer as a result of the changes proposed in this Bill. There is no use if a very big sum is to be saved in suggesting measures which probably are impossible, and which if possible, would give us only a small fraction of the money that is necessary. We have to face these things in some sort of business-like way, and if the thing has to be done, let us do it in full and not be simply tinkering at it. To get any radical improvement, the services that are done by the Ministry for External Affairs, or very nearly all of them, will have to be done by some other Ministry. If you had no such Department, most of that expenditure you could not avoid. Then you have a Deputy dragging in the Viceregal Lodge. Of course, that is only dragged in for the purpose of drawing a red herring across, and for purposes of propaganda. He knows very well we are bound to provide for that establishment, and that we are bound to provide the salary, too, and that that is not a matter we can avoid. Certainly, as far as we are concerned, we are not going to invite a breach of the Treaty by making any breaches ourselves, or going near to any breach of it. We stand for the fulfilment of it, and we stand for demanding our full rights under it. I think any Government which did anything else would be acting against the interests of the future of this country.
One Deputy said it would be better to leave the Budget unbalanced, or to increase taxation, rather than effect this cut. That Deputy does not bring his mind to bear on the matter at all; he speaks from the depths of his emotions, I presume. If he would think, he would be able to realise what the effect of leaving the Budget unbalanced would be, and he would realise that it would not do one bit of good to the old age pensioners. If we let the country get into a bad financial condition, if we put ourselves into the position where we may have a 20 per cent. increase in taxation all round, the old age pensioner would be more hit by that than he would be by this cut. To say we should let things go to the devil rather than take the necessary steps to save ourselves, even if these steps are somewhat hard, is not a sensible suggestion. I wish the Deputies, whether they agree or disagree with us, would realise that if a certain thing has to be done there is no use in leaving it undone. If any practical suggestions, or better proposals can be put forward, I would be glad to hear them. I am not wedded to the particular proposals I have put forward, and I have no pleasure in putting them forward. I have put forward proposals which, I am convinced, are necessary, and to which I see no adequate alternative. I think Deputies, when they criticise our proposals, might endeavour to see, when we are faced with a difficult and unpleasant work, that their criticisms would be constructive, and not merely foolish vapouring. Deputy Johnson has said that by certain proposals we are penalising people.
One can see the argument in favour of giving an old age pension to every person who has reached the age of seventy years, irrespective of means. But it would certainly double the cost. It would certainly mean that we would have to pay six millions out on this, and perhaps more, instead of the three millions, or so, that we are paying now. That is a change that we could not afford. It is a change, again, which would not benefit the people very much, because the money would have to be collected off them, and you would have the cost of collection added. It would be a case of having money taken out of one pocket and put into another, and you would have a toll taken in the process. The cost of the collection would have to be borne. If this money were taken off in the form of duty on tea and sugar, the shopkeeper would make his profit on the article as he paid for it, and that profit would include the increased duty, and you would have a higher profit coming off the article in the course of distribution, as well as the higher tax and cost of collection, and you would probably find that there would be very little satisfaction with the change if it came. To the extent that we have a means limit at all, we are penalising thrift. But there seems to be no alternative in our circumstances to penalising thrift to that extent. Of course, thrift that provides merely for old age is not the only kind of thrift, and is not in fact the best kind of thrift. The thrift that provides for the actual doing of things by the person who saves money and who gathers up capital for doing things, is thrift that is more productive to the nation. But there is no possibility of avoiding it. We have heard talk about the British rate of pension, and the fact that they were able, in spite of five years' war, to pay the 10s. pension. We have also heard the statement that the British had a huge national debt that we have not, and that they are able to pay interest on that, and not reduce the pension. The fact is that they are able to do so because England is a richer country with a lower taxation than we have; they are able to meet all their charges. We are not. We have a higher taxation and we are not able to meet our charges. It is no use our comparing this country and its resources with the resources of Great Britain. We have taken our own course and we have to follow it, and to develop it in our own way. There is no doubt at all that one of the reasons why we are not able to pay what Great Britain is able to pay, is that the administration and legislation that we have had in this country has been made without reference to the conditions and requirements of the country. We have had services and establishments set up here which are costly beyond what the country is able to bear. It does not follow that this country was not overtaxed even when the British Exchequer was losing on it. It was overtaxed because the type of administration and departments that were set up here were of such a sort that the country could not afford. And even if the British had to come to the rescue, as they had to do at a certain stage, and pay for what they had set up, that did not alter the fact that this country was overtaxed.
We have heard it said in the course of this debate that we had increased the superannuation burden by causing people in the service to feel insecure and to resign under the Treaty. What I have to say about that is the behaviour of large sections of Civil Servants under the Treaty must certainly lower one's opinion of their honesty and public spirit. We had all sorts of people simply going out at an increased pension which they could get under the Treaty in the belief that with that pension they would pick up employment outside that would pay them better. They did not mind robbing the State when they got the opportunity. There was certainly the meanest and the most dishonest attitude on the part of very large numbers of Civil Servants who had no real objection to serve under an Irish Government, but who pretended they had and were willing to come forward to testify falsely that they had, in order to grab this advantage. I had no doubt about that. One could not prove a particular case, but when one has seen what anybody who has been dealing with the matter has seen, one has no doubt about it at all. We certainly have done nothing that we could help to swell that burden of superannuation, and we have resisted any particular drive from any particular side that might lead us to take action that would increase that burden beyond the minimum.
Mr. O'CONNELL
Does that refer to the 400 who were forced out and who were compelled to resign their position?
Four hundred were not compelled to resign their position.
Mr. O'CONNELL
There was a large number, I understand.
There was certainly a number of people, but the number was very small. For instance, there were certain people who had been very prominently identified in the Local Government Board in the struggle with the local Boards. There were a few in the old Local Government Board who had been prominent in the fight with the local Councils. We felt at the time that it was necessary that they should no longer be associated with the work of the Local Government Department. Perhaps if the particular type of struggle that took place in this country had not been developing it would not be necessary. But we had to have regard to the attitude of the Councils.
Then again, we had the question of the Resident Magistrates. I have no hesitation in saying that it was an absolutely necessary thing to let them go and that we could not have got the courts now held by District Justices, or the Civic Guard, going in the way they have been going, if we had kept the old Resident Magistrates. It was an utterly impossible thing to keep them. It meant a certain amount of money to dispense with them, but I feel it would have cost us perhaps ten times more money because of the dissatisfaction and delay there would have been in the country if we had retained them, by reason of the difficulty in getting any sort of civil law. There are certain small cases like that where we did force out men. We certainly let these go; but in regard to the Civil Service, the number of employees there discharged was very small, indeed. It was certainly the minimum.
There was no forcing out of anybody. Anybody who was got rid of through political necessity—using the word "political" in the wider sense—was got rid of openly and definitely, but there was no such thing as forcing anybody out. The talk about forcing people out is one of the lies that some of these people who went out and who saw the opportunity of mulcting the public put forward in their own defence when they had gone out.
Could not those officials who were pushed out, forced out, or told that they were not required, have been transferred to other Departments where the State would get a return for the money paid them?
No. There is one case that occurs to me which I may mention, though it is a little wide of this topic. It is the case of a man who was transferred from one branch in a Department to another branch in the same Department. He was transferred at the same rate of pay, but his status was somewhat reduced by the transfer. The reduction was rather technical than otherwise. That individual, who was transferred at the same rate of pay, was able to take advantage of the Treaty provisions because of the technical reduction in his status, and he got 17 added years.
We have heard it said that the old age pensioners were going to be forced into the County Homes as a result of this cut. At a time when the 10s. was worth very much less than the 9s. would be worth now, they were not forced into the County Homes. Reference was made, too, to old people who were living entirely on their pensions and who had no friends to assist them in their support. They were not the people to whom Deputy Johnson referred who were assisted by the fact that their relatives were in more remunerative and constant employment. I do not think we really could take that suggestion very seriously. We have been spoken to about new methods of taxation and about increased taxation. Now, new methods of taxation would be at any rate experimental, and if they yield an increase in revenue there is no doubt—temporarily at any rate—that any increase in revenue is going to be reflected in an increase in the cost of living, and it simply means that certain Deputies prefer to camouflage the cut on the old age pensioners. They prefer to increase taxation, send up the cost of living and attack purchasing power, as it were, by stealth instead of doing it openly and directly. When we think it is necessary to do a thing we are prepared to take the responsibility for doing it. There is no doubt that you cannot save the old age pensioners from suffering a certain amount unless you definitely increase the burden on the population in general.
Or the luxuries of the rich.
Anything that can be done in the matter of the luxuries of the rich will have sympathetic consideration.
Income-tax on the publicans.
It is much more easy to say you can do certain things to the luxuries of the rich, but I would have the Deputy remember that by increasing the rate of taxation you can very easily reduce the yield. It would be quite easy to drive a certain number of rich people out of the country and lose thereby Income-tax and Super-tax, and the death duties that would be payable when the Almighty would take them away, and a decrease in yield could very easily be the result of the increase in the rate. I believe that, as a matter of fact, we are losing, at the present time, by having a higher rate of Income-tax than there is in Great Britain. To cut off the 6d. would mean an immediate loss, of course, but I have little doubt, on the other hand, that to bring it down to the English level would mean that in a year or two the yield would improve so as to meet the loss.
Coming events cast their shadows before.
No shadow yet, anyhow. You have to bear in mind the particular circumstances of this country and the close commercial and financial ties that have existed, not merely from the Governmental, but from the commercial, point of view, with Great Britain, and you have to realise that you might lose by doing things in this country, in the particular circumstances that exist, that would not cause a loss in another country where there would not be those close ties and channels to which people are accustomed to, not only in their social but in their commercial and financial matters. We believe there is no actual hardship inflicted on the old age pensioner by this change. We know that we are proposing a rate which will, in the maximum case, be of much more value than the maximum of a couple of years ago. We believe we are saving them from a greater loss by preventing any state of affairs in this country which would require largely increased taxation in the future, which would lead, before that increased taxation became absolutely necessary, to insecurity, to increase in the cost of living, and to, perhaps, the necessity for financial measures that would make the nominal ten shillings only a fraction of the value of the nine shillings which we offer the pensioners under conditions of security and financial stability.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 46; Níl, 21.
Tá.
- Earnán de Blaghd.
- Séamus Breathnach.
- Seoirse de Bhulbh.
- Próinsias Bulfin.
- Séamus de Búrca.
- Bryan R. Cooper.
- Louis J. D'Alton.
- Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean Uí
- Dhrisceóil.
- Osmond Grattan Esmonde.
- Henry J. Finlay.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- John Good.
- John Hennigan.
- William Hewat.
- Tomás Mac Artúir.
- Alasdair Mac Cába.
- Domhnall Mac Cárthaigh.
- Liam T. Mac Cosgair.
- Pádraig Mac Fadáin.
- Risteárd Mac Liam.
- Eoin Mac Néill.
- Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- Liam Mac Aonghusa.
- Pádraig S. Mag Ualghairg.
- Martin M. Nally.
- John T. Nolan.
- Peadar O hAodha.
- Criostóir O Broin.
- Seán O Bruadair.
- Próinsias O Cathail.
- Aodh O Cinnéide.
- Eoghan O Dochartaigh.
- Séamus N. O Dóláin.
- Peadar S. O Dubhghaill.
- Pádraig O Dubhthaigh.
- Eamon S. O Dúgáin.
- Mícheál R. O hIfearnáin.
- Aindriú O Láimhín.
- Séamus O Leadáin.
- Fionán O Loingsigh.
- Thomas O'Mahony.
- Pádraig O Máille.
- Seán M. O Súilleabháin.
- Caoimhghín O hUigín.
- Liam Thrift.
Níl.
- Seán Buitléir.
- John J. Cole.
- John Daly.
- Séamus Eabhróid.
- Darrell Figgis.
- David Hall.
- Séamus Mac Cosgair.
- Maolmhuire Mac Eochadha.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- Risteárd Mac Fheorais.
- Pádraig Mac Fhlannchadha.
- James Sproule Myles.
- Tomás de Nógla.
- Ailfrid O Broin.
- Tomás O Conaill.
- Aodh O Cúlacháin.
- Liam O Daimhín.
- Eamon O Dubhghaill.
- Seán O Laidhin.
- Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
- Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).
Motion declared carried.
When will the next stage be taken?
On Tuesday.
I submit that is not giving sufficient time for amendments to come in unless it is taken day by day, each following the other.
It is quite impossible for Deputies in the country to have amendments in by Tuesday.
Very well; Tuesday week, then.
Third Stage (Committee) ordered for Tuesday, March 4th.