I move that the Bill do now pass. I do not think I could add anything to any of the arguments already put forward. The Bill has been very fully discussed in all its phases on previous stages, and I would move that the Fifth Stage be now passed.
PRIVATE BILL. - OLD AGE PENSIONS BILL, 1924—FIFTH STAGE.
I want to oppose this Bill to the end, and I am going to ask the House to refuse to give a final reading to this Bill to penalise old age. I do not think that Deputies individually, whatever the Dáil collectively may have done, appreciate what is being done by this Bill that they are enacting, and what they are giving their assent and consent to. It has generally gone abroad, and Deputies seem to be satisfied, that the effect will be to cut off one shilling a week from those receiving 10/- a week. People have been persuaded by the arguments of the Minister for Finance that they are as well off to-day or that they will be as well off on 9/- a week as they were two years ago on 10/- a week, and that sacrifices have to be made after the country has gone through rough times, and many evil things have been done and much great damage has been done, and that the country is in a financial mess and that old age pensioners have to bear a share of it. That is the argument that has appealed to members of the House. I want Deputies to consider the matter a little more closely again and to realise that it is not only one shilling a week that is taken from pensioners receiving 10s., that is not the only punishment awarded under this Bill. I pointed out several times that the effect of it is to deprive pensioners who are also in receipt of other income which brings their total income, pension and other, to £1 to reduce that total income to 16/-. That is to say, we are reducing the standard of living of people over 70 years of age by 20 per cent.
, Acting Chairman, at this stage took the chair.
It is not only that, but the intention is under this Bill to revalue the income from whatever source outside his or her pension. If this income was from any little property that may have been in his or her possession bringing in a small income to supplement the pension that is to be revalued, and a good portion of the value as previously allowed is to be deducted. We are asked to agree—and I would like if Deputy Hewat and Deputy Good and others had been present to hear again what I said before—we are asked to agree that in the case of the aged poor, and only in the case of the aged poor, capital property held by them producing interest is to be deemed to be exhausted in 10 years time. Now, that is a principle that has not yet been affected in the case of any other section of the community so far as I know, and while I think it is ethically sound to say that certain property in bricks and mortar or materials of any kind does exhaust itself and is therefore not entitled to perpetual drain from the community, I am not prepared to say that that principle should be adopted in the case of old age pensioners until it is adopted in the case of property owners generally.
But there is running alongside this new proposal of the Minister, and implicit in it a review of all the existing pensions, a re-examination of the present pensions and a re-valuing of all the present living, and what has happened is this; that acting on the instructions of the Pensions Authority, presumably the Local Government authority, and the Local Government Minister, as I suspect, but acting at the instigation of the Minister for Finance, pensions officers are to-day going through the country making inquiry into the kind of livelihood that old men or old women are being allowed by their friends and re-valuing them with a view to cutting down the existing pensions. Now, I am not making any complaint that there should be an examination and re-examination, if necessary, of pensions. I am making a complaint that the kind of instruction, or, shall I say, the action that is being taken presumably upon instruction is to so re-value the perquisites as they are called, as to involve a deprivation of a great portion of the present pensions even before the cut that is involved in the Bill takes place at all. That is being done with regard to pensioners generally. I ask the members of the Dáil here to realise the effect of that upon a very helpless section of the community whose case I have tried to plead, namely, the blind.
We are learning that there is a special inquisition going on into the cases of blind persons who are receiving pensions, and apparently, in accord with the intentions of the Bill pensions officers have decided to object to the retention of pensions in cases where any blind recipient cannot be said to be stone blind. It was never intended that stone blindness should be absolutely essential to receiving the pension. What is laid down is such blindness as would prevent such a person earning a living; that is clearly the intention. But what is being acted upon now is an interpretation which says unless a person is absolutely stone blind he is to be deprived of his pension. That is cruel, and it is going to be detrimental to the good name of the country and to the Government of the country. I have, for instance, a case which appropriately I received yesterday. It is authenticated by a local schoolmaster. It is a case of two blind persons. In one instance the man is paralysed for the last ten years; he is speechless for the last four years; he had a cataract on his eyes about ten years ago, and was suffering such terrible pain in consequence that he injured himself jumping out of bed, and became paralysed. He has been paralysed since. He is in such a state now that his wife cannot understand anything he says, as he is suffering from paralysis of the tongue. He has to be spoon-fed like a baby. This cataract dissolves at certain periods of the year. During the winter his sight slightly returns. Now he is told by the medical inspector that he is deprived of his pension, and the local shopkeepers have deprived him of credit.
The other case is also a very sad one. It is the case of a man who all his life has been known as "Blind Sheehy." He had a cataract on his eyes all his life until about six years ago. He then lost one of his eyes altogether. The cataract remained chronic on the other eye. He is practically blind because of the growth of the cataract on the second eye, and he is now in the position of a person who cannot earn a living on account of the loss of his sight. That, again, is a case where, for some reason or other that I cannot understand, the local pensions officer has reported that the pension must be taken from him. That is an illustration—one of many that one hears of—of the way that the Ministry is now proceeding to economise at the expense of the poor, the aged and the blind. Then there is the case of men who have, by thrifty habits and care in their youth and manhood, made some attempt to supplement whatever may come to them in their old age. They have paid in for superannuation to trades unions, friendly societies, and the like. If that superannuation amounts to 10s. a week, then because of the fact that the contributor was thrifty he has to lose 3s. per week. His total income henceforward is to be 16s. I say that that is a deprivation which we ought not to sanction; it is penalising thrift and is running entirely against the current of social justice. Nothing that has been said in defence of this Bill satisfies me that we ought to take our revenge upon the aged and the poor. We ought not to oblige the aged and the poor to pay for the faults and the waste and, if you like, the criminality of the youth during the last few years. The effect of this Measure is to impose upon the aged that responsibility, and also the effect of it will be to sever family relationships. The effect of it will be to oblige in many cases the old man or the old woman to be discharged from the care of the son or the daughter. Although it may seem inhuman and unfilial, it has been done, and it will be done in many cases. The aged will be discharged from the house of the son or the daughter and obliged to seek the protection of the Poor Law to get the pension, and then, perhaps, they will go back to the house. You are not doing justice in this Bill. Worse than that, you are doing positive injustice; you are acting unreasonably and, in some cases, almost inhumanly. We have talked of contracts, but there is, and has been, an implied contract; there has been an understanding, at any rate, with the aged that we were not going to let them down, a phrase that has become very common recently. We are asked in this Bill to let down the aged poor, and I am going to ask the Dáil to refuse to agree to the passing of this Bill to let down the aged poor and the blind.
Deputy Johnson has said that in this Bill we are going against the current of social justice. We are driven to do things that we would not wish to do, but we are interfering with the aged poor as little as we can interfere with them. We are doing it in such a way as to inflict no injustice, and in such a way as not to inflict hardship on them, as compared with their state a year or two years ago. It cannot be denied that there is greater purchasing power in money at the present time than there was, say, two years ago or three years ago. It is, I think, also undeniable that the reduction of a shilling in the maximum pension does not leave the pensioner any worse off than that pensioner was a couple of years ago, when the value of money was less than it is at the present time. To that extent at any rate we are not going against the course of social justice; we are not injuring the position of these old people. Perhaps we are not able to go forward, but if we are not able to go forward in this matter of making the lot of those who are old and worn more comfortable, it is due to circumstances which everybody knows about. In regard to the review of pensions, anything that is taken off the pensioners is not taken off those who are poorest or those who are most needy. It is taken off the pensioners who have other means of a character which, having regard to the means of the majority of old age pensioners, are somewhat substantial. The overwhelming majority of the old age pensioners will not, by this Bill, suffer anything except the one-shilling cut. Deputy Johnson has gone over many matters that were discussed on the previous Stages of the Bill. I replied to these points from time to time, and I do not want to go over them again. He has quoted cases that seem very pitiable. I would just say that a law, especially a law which throws charges on the Central Fund, has to be administered with some degree of strictness. It is often more necessary that such a measure should be administered with strictness than a law which throws a burden on the local rates. The people affected by excess or improper charges where local rates are concerned will have a greater opportunity of seeing them and will more readily intervene. Where the charges are thrown on the Central Fund, a great deal that is wrong may happen in a particular district and may not be brought to notice at all.
In regard to the Blind Pensions, we certainly found that there was a very considerable degree of laxity, that very large numbers of persons were receiving the Blind Pension who, by no stretch of the imagination, could be regarded as entitled to receive it, because their sight was, in some cases, perhaps as good as the sight of most members of this assembly. It is necessary that the Act should be enforced with some degree of strictness. It is necessary that the Blind Pension should be given because of blindness. One can hardly ask, in administering such an Act, that other circumstances of the person should be taken into account if the degree of blindness required by the Act does not exist. I do not want to stand over what was done in a particular case without having an opportunity of examining the facts. I would simply say that most of the pitiful circumstances related by Deputy Johnson are, as it were, irrelevant. The real question that the Inspector had to decide was: Was there blindness as required by the Act? I do not think we should have any undue rigidity in the matter. I think we should only have that degree of strictness which is necessary to prevent the growth of great abuses. In putting forward this Bill, we have in mind that it might be possible to effect, as it were, economies on this particular service by very great strictness in administration, by forcing, as it were, every point against the old age pensioner or against the applicant. Our view is that while the law shall be administered in the fairest way, that we shall not force it against the pensioner, that it is better where you have to effect economies, to effect them by changing the scales or basis rather than by too much forcing of the pace from the point of view of administrative strictness.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 43; Níl, 18.
Tá.
- Earnán de Blaghd.
- Séamus Breathnach.
- Seoirse de Bhulbh.
- Próinsias Bulfin.
- Séamus de Búrca.
- John Conlan.
- Sir James Craig.
- Louis J. D'Alton.
- Máighréad Ní Choileáin Bean Uí
- Dhrisceoil.
- Patrick J. Egan.
- Osmond Grattan Esmonde.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- Connor Hogan.
- Seosamh Mac 'a Bhrighde.
- Liam T. Mac Cosgair.
- Risteárd Mac Liam.
- Eoin Mac Néill.
- Seoirse Mac Niocaill.
- Liam Mac Sioghaird.
- Liam Mag Aonghusa.
- Patrick McKenna.
- Martin M. Nally.
- Peadar O hAodha.
- Criostóir O Broin.
- Seán O Bruadair.
- Aodh Ua Cinnéidigh.
- 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.
- Pádraic O Máille.
- Risteárd O Maolchatha.
- Pádraig O hOgáin (Gaillimh).
- Seán M. O Súilleabháin.
- Caoimhghín O hUigín.
- Liam Thrift.
Níl.
- Seán Buitléir.
- John J. Cole.
- John Daly.
- Darrell Figgis.
- Séamus Mac Cosgair.
- Tomás Mac Eoin.
- Risteárd Mac Fheorais.
- Pádraig Mac Fhlannchadha.
- Tomás de Nógla.
- Ailfrid O Broin.
- Tomás O Conaill.
- Aodh O Cúlacháin.
- Liam O Daimhín.
- Eamon O Dubhghaill.
- Domhnall O Muirgheasa.
- Tadhg O Murchadha.
- Pádraig O hOgáin (An Clár).
- William A. Redmond.
Motion declared carried.
Message to be sent to the Seanad accordingly.