Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 25 Jun 1924

Vol. 7 No. 30

THE ADJOURNMENT. - OLD AGE PENSION CASES.

Mr. CONLAN

After the prolonged period of listening-in and in the sultry atmosphere which we might naturally expect would be provoked by a discussion on the milk question, I am rather reluctant to obtrude the matter which I want to raise and to tire the Dáil. But taking into account the very serious grievances which many old men and women are suffering from throughout the Saorstát, through the ruling of the Minister for Local Government and the officials of his Department, I think it my duty to bring before the Dáil this matter. What I intend to refer to is the administration of the Old Age Pensions Act by the Minister for Local Government and the permanent officials of his Department, and to their interpretation, or shall I say rather their misinterpretation of some of its principal provisions.

Now, sir, as far as I can judge from several cases which have been brought before me, it is the settled policy of the Local Government Department to deny the benefits of the Act to any person who receives the slightest aid to subsistence although that person may be qualified as regards age, and as regards want of means. That is if they have been receiving maintenance or shelter from friends, whether relatives or not, who are not under any legal obligation to afford such maintenance or shelter, but have been doing so through a sense of Christian charity, a quality which, I am sorry to say, does not seem to have pervaded the Ministry of Local Government or its officials, that these persons are ipso facto debarred from the benefits of the Act. Now, I do not think there is anything whatever in the Act to justify this course of action. It is set forth as a statutory condition in the Act that persons applying for a pension must satisfy the pension authorities that their incomes do not exceed £39 5s. Now, to my mind, the term “means” must be interpreted as consisting of resources belonging to the applicant for the pension and “means” does not mean that if that person receives voluntary aid or assistance from another person, whether a relative or not, that this is to be taken into account and charged against that person. It is absurd to contend that voluntary maintenance or voluntary shelter debars a person from the benefit of the Act, considering that these benefits may be cut off at any time at the will or at the whim of the donor. I think that that is a contention that cannot stand. I think there is no warrant for it in the Act. I do not wish to speak on generalities. I will give a concrete case. Miss Maria Kelly, who lives at Cloney, Co. Kildare, attained the age of 70 years on the 24th February last. I have her baptismal certificate, so that there can be no contention whatever about it. A good many years ago she inherited a small farm from a brother who, at the same time, disposed of his other effects by will. The interest in that farm was put up for sale and realised £160. As I am informed, most of that money was dissipated in paying legal expenses and various debts which had been contracted on the credit of this holding. After that a man named Kelly, who was a first cousin of her's, asked her to come to live with him in order that he might afford her shelter. She did that, and Kelly died, and his widow continued to keep her on, although his widow was not any blood relation whatever to the applicant for the pension. That continued until this lady came to the age of 70 years, and her application for a pension was sent in. It was passed by the local committee, but it was turned down by the pension authorities.

The facts that I have stated have been certified to me by the Very Rev. Canon Mackey, the Parish Priest of Athy, who was fully conversant with everything connected with the matter. Now, sir, I put these facts before the Minister and I received in reply a letter in which he stated: "I desire to inform you that the appeal upon the claim of Miss Kelly was on the ground of means. The pension officer reported that Miss Kelly was maintained by Mrs. Jane Kelly, who holds a fully-stocked farm of 97 acres, valuation £38, rent £38 19s. 6d, and the estimated maintenance as worth in this case £49 17s. 6d. a year. The reasonableness of the estimate was not questioned, but it was pointed out by the sub-committee that the maintenance was a purely voluntary act. Miss Kelly however enjoyed benefits and privileges worth over £49 17s. 6d. a year, and so long as she continued to do so she is debarred from the old age pension." I wish the Minister could see Cloney. I think he would be puzzled to find out what benefits and privileges a person living there could obtain worth £49 17s. 6d. a year. He states in the letter that that farm of Mrs. Jane Kelly's is fully stocked. I have no doubt it is fully stocked with plover and wild duck. We had another extensive landholder there who came here last week seeking an interview with the Minister for Agriculture. He holds 190 acres of land and only on 35 acres of which he could get a dry footing.

That gentleman came to get relief from the attentions of the rate collectors. Whether he succeeded or not I do not know, but at any rate it goes to show the value of a farm valued at £38 in that district. Apart altogether from that, whether this Mrs. Kelly had a fully-stocked farm or not, or whether she had any farm at all, I assert that that does not affect the question. The real question is whether Miss Maria Kelly has means amounting to £39 5s. a year, and if she had not I say she is entitled to the pension. Look at the absurdity that this would lead to. Supposing Mrs. Jane Kelly said to her relative, her connection by affinity, that she must clear out. Miss Maria Kelly, immediately she goes out of doors, becomes entitled to the pension. Whether through the inclemency of the weather or through the activities of the myrmidons of the Minister for Justice, she is forced again to seek shelter, automatically she is deprived of the pension. I am sure the Dáil will agree that that is the acme of absurdity.

I think there could be nothing more absurd coming even from a Government Department. This is a new regulation imported into the administration of the Old Age Pensions Act in 1922. When the scheme for the amalgamation of Unions was put into operation by the late Board of Guardians of Athy, the Guardians were allowed to grant 5s. a week in addition to the pension to old people in the workhouse at the time who became entitled to the pension, and who left the institution so that they might live with their friends. The granting of that sum to these old people, in addition to the pension they received, was sanctioned by the Local Government Department, of which the Minister was not President at the time. The Minister for Finance, in speaking on the Old Age Pensions Bill, stated that it was never contemplated that the pension should be looked upon as the sole means of support of the recipients. According to the ruling of the present Minister, any assistance given to an old person, even the shelter of a roof, disqualifies. I assert that that position is quite untenable, and I hope that the Dáil will mark its disapproval of the attitude taken up by the Minister and his Department with regard to the poor old people. Speaking as a lay man, in my opinion if that decision were tested in a court of law, it would not stand, and if the Minister is obdurate in persisting in the attitude he has taken up I hope the decision will be so tested.

Mr. CORISH

I would like to speak on this matter from the point of view of the treatment meted out to the people who are in receipt of the blind pension. Since the passing of the recent Act the Minister's inspectors and his pension officers have been very busy in reviewing the cases of blind pensioners. The result has been that, in various parts of the country, people in receipt of these blind pensions now find themselves cut off. I think everybody will agree that that is not a very desirable state of affairs. At the moment I have in mind two cases from my own district of people whose blind pensions were cut off recently. When the applications of these people were being considered two years ago, the pension officer decided that they were not entitled to the pension. The local Pensions Committee, in view of the medical evidence and other information which was laid before it, decided that these people were entitled to the pension. The Local Government Department decided against the Pension Officer and on the side of the Pensions Committee, and allowed the pensions to these people at that time. The Department now comes along two years afterwards, and takes the pension away. I think it will be agreed that that is not a very desirable thing to do.

I suggest it is not a very nice thing for a Government to come along and take away the pension from these poor blind people. They had been in receipt of this 10s. a week for the last two years, and, so to speak, had resigned themselves to their fate. They were beyond doing any work in consequence of their blindness. In that connection I would like to know what is the degree of blindness that is necessary in order that the applicant may be entitled to a pension. As far as I can learn, there seems to be no agreed standard of blindness to guide local pensions committees in dealing with these cases. I am of opinion that if a doctor sends a certificate, either to the pension officer or to the local pensions committee, that a person is not able to follow his or her usual occupation in consequence of defective vision, then that ought to be sufficient in itself to secure a pension for that person. I would like the Minister to say what standard of blindness is required for a person to get the blind pension. If any standard has been arrived at, I think his Department ought to acquaint local pensions committees of it. I can quite understand the Minister tightening up his regulations so far as new applicants for pensions are concerned. There may have been abuses in the past, but it will be admitted, I think, that the number of pensions granted to blind persons constitute a very small percentage indeed under the general pension scheme. I think that the Minister ought to see that the pensions are left with the comparatively small number of blind persons who have been lucky enough to secure them.

I would also like to say a word with regard to the arguments used just now by Deputy Conlan in dealing with the particular case which he brought forward and with the arguments which members of the Farmers' Party put forward on various occasions during the passage of the recent Old Age Pensions Bill through this House. I have a distinct recollection that Deputies on these benches received very little support or assistance from the Deputies sitting with Deputy Conlan when that Bill was going through. I have a distinct recollection that on the Second Reading of that Bill two members of the Farmers' Party voted for it with the Government, while the remainder abstained from voting. If Deputies on the Farmers' benches had paid as much attention to that Bill then as Deputy Conlan is doing now, it would have had a much stormier passage through the Dáil than it had, and perhaps the Minister would have found himself compelled by the pressure brought to bear on him by two responsible parties in the Dáil to reconsider his position with regard to many of its most important details, and he would have been obliged to take action that would have been of advantage to the old age pensioners in the country generally.

Mr. HOGAN (Clare)

In listening to Deputy Conlan's speech, I could not help regretting that he did not decide to take part in the play instead of reciting the epilogue. If he had given us more information when the recent Old Age Pensions Bill was going through than he has given us now, perhaps we would be better able to deal with the situation. We got a circular quite recently from the Minister, in which he told us of some of the conditions by which those who could not procure certificates of age would be able to have their claims passed. He referred to the preparation and production of affidavits. For my part, I know of many cases in which affidavits have been submitted, and submitted by responsible people—responsible people in my opinion, but, of course, I do not know who are responsible people in the Minister's opinion—and yet these claims have been turned down. To my mind, the only person who is capable of making an affidavit as to the age of anyone is somebody who is old enough to make that affidavit. Otherwise the affidavit would be useless. We are told that you must connect your statement with some event in the past life of the applicant so as to prove that. I would ask the Minister what event in the first 20 years of his life he could connect 50 years afterwards to prove that he was 70 years then? Will he give us one event in the first 20 years of his life that he could connect with an event 50 years afterwards? Would he point to one event as the last election? Then let us take a hypothetical case, the case of a farmer, a father or a mother, who have reached 70 years of age and who are cut out on the question of means. Four or five years ago those people came to an agreement. The father and the mother and the young people—boy or girl who had married— entered into an agreement that a certain amount is to be paid to the old people. The Minister comes along now, irrespective of that agreement, and says no matter what agreement you make, your support has the first claim upon the farm, and irrespective of any agreement you must suffer the penalty, because we in this new Act have altered the basis of calculation and you must suffer accordingly. Unless those people hand over their farms to their sons and daughters, these farms would cease to be productive quantities in the State. There is only one thing to do; either to make the farms over to their children and make the agreements, or to work them in their old age and lose their productivity to the nation. I hold with Deputy Conlan that the interpretation of all these clauses, sections, regulations and all the red-tapeism which binds up the consideration of the old age pensions claims is something that should go, and the sooner we have some definite statement regarding both the proof of old age and the basis of calculation for property the better for everybody concerned.

MINISTER for LOCAL GOVERNMENT (Mr. Burke)

The forces of labour and agriculture have combined very successfully in closing me out in answering their arguments. I may state first of all for the benefit of Deputies that those cases only come before me on appeal, and it is only on appeal that I have any function in regard to them at all. The onus of proof is on the applicant in all those cases, and I have to treat evidence, in the same way as it is treated in an ordinary court of law. Certain cases of hardship of that kind have been placed before me. I cannot go into those cases in detail. I have no facts before me. Now, it is necessary for us to take every precaution to see that applicants do not evade the Act by making property over on various relations on the understanding that they get relief, and that the State will come to their assistance. We cannot afford to distribute charity on that extremely liberal scale. Hundreds of cases raised by Deputies and others in regard to hardships in relation to old age pensions have come before me, and in not one single case have I seen them prove any instance where our officials in the matter did not accord due importance to the evidence in favour of the applicant. Cases are often cited to me where the old age pensioner says he is a certain age, and that everyone knows that he is of that certain age; but appearance is a very unreliable criterion in matters of this kind. One person may look older at 50 than another at 80, and in that way people on the spot are the very worst judges of a person's age. I think Deputy Hogan understands sufficiently clearly what is necessary in an affidavit. There is no good in making an affidavit merely to the effect that one party believes that another party is a certain age. They must give something to go on. The person who makes the affidavit must link up some event in his life with the life of the person in favour of whom he makes the affidavit, otherwise there is no real proof in the case at all. In some cases the affidavit is made by persons so mentally infirm that it is of no real value, and then these affidavits are often contradicted by marriage records and records of a similar kind. It is a cheap way of earning popularity to pose as a defender of the aged and infirm. I have too keen a sense of my responsibilities to compete with Deputy Conlan for popularity in these matters.

The position I hold is not a position where one seeks popularity. It is a position where one has to take his reponsibilities very seriously. At the same time I may say that one of the most serious defects of the Irish character is this tendency to dependence of one kind or another, and it is a very serious thing in the State at the present time. The number of people who lead a parasitic existence, more or less, is increasing in proportion to the number of people who are striving to make an honest living, and it is, therefore, not an easy thing to encourage thrift and providence. This country was brought to the verge of disaster by the famine in the 'forties of the last century, and it was mainly as a result of charity continually distributed at the expense of the provident and thrifty, who continually decreased in proportion as the destitute and the dependent increased, and owing to the system of charity and poorhouses and various charity institutions established, and we must endeavour to avoid falling into a similar danger. I do not know if Deputies are aware of the very high cost of the administration of the old age pensions at the present time. They amount to three million pounds; that is a very considerable revenue, and it is a revenue that some people consider ought to be sufficient to run the whole government of this country. It amounts to 50 per cent. more than the whole charge of running all the other services of my Department. That is a matter to be pondered over. I am not in a position at the moment to compare the figures—that is the amount expended—on old age pensions in Ireland with that of England, Scotland and Wales.

Mr. CORISH

Before the Minister deals with that will he say something about the blind people and their pensions?

Mr. BURKE

With regard to the blind pensions, I am in a position to compare the amount of money expended in Ireland with that expended in England and Scotland. In Ireland the number of blind pensions payable on the 30th June, 1922, was 3,283; in Scotland, 1,436; in England and Wales, 9,333. In Ireland it amounted to one out of every 956 of the population, in Scotland it amounted to one in every 3,315 of the population, and in England and Wales it amounted to one in every 3,864 of the population. The approximate cost per year amounted in Ireland to £82,050, in Scotland to £35,900, and in England and Wales to £233,325. That would give some idea of how those services are administered in Ireland. Yet, I am still being condemned for being heartless and uncharitable in this matter. I am prepared to put up with that charge as long as the proportion of these figures remain as they are.

Mr. CORISH

What is the standard of blindness required?

Mr. BURKE

The standard of blindness is decided by a specialist. Science has been brought to such a state at the present time that a medical man who has a training in optics has no difficulty in finding whether a man is blind or not.

Mr. CORISH

The point I want to know is, is it necessary for a man to be stone blind, or is it sufficient for a doctor to say that he is not able to follow his usual occupation in consequence of defective vision?

Mr. CONLAN

Before the Minister answers, I would like to ask him what method is pursued in fixing an applicant's old age pension.

Mr. HOGAN (Clare)

He must be so blind that he cannot see the Minister's point.

Mr. BURKE

I think I dealt with Deputy Conlan's question in a paper I laid on the Table of the House. I am not in a position to give detailed information now. With regard to Deputy Corish's question, a person who receives a blind pension is supposed to be so blind that he cannot perform his ordinary duties. That is a statutory requirement.

Mr. JOHNSON

Will the Minister put in the new Local Government Bill a provision making it a punitive offence to grow old and get blind?

The Dáil adjourned at 10.35 p.m.