The Minister and other Deputies seem to have failed to realise that this amendment is a proposal to ensure that what is suggested in the Bill as likely to be carried out shall be carried out. The Deputies who opposed the amendment seemed to agree that under Section 12 the board of health, having power to appoint committees, will certainly appoint them. That is the suggestion made by Deputy Sir James Craig and others who have opposed the amendment. The board of health is to be given power to appoint committees, and it is assumed that, having these powers, they will appoint the committees. The board of health is not a body that is certainly going to represent specified areas. It may have representatives of specified areas or it may not. We may have the condition that certain urban areas would have no representation upon it. There may be an officer appointed to administer home assistance. If there is no representative on the board of health from that area there is nothing in the Bill to make it certain that there will be any other authority of any kind except the home assistance officer in the area to administer this service.
If there is anything in the argument that Section 12 provides all that is necessary, and on the assumption that what is hoped for in Section 12 will be carried out, why is there any objection to making it mandatory that in every area — areas which may be rural districts, or urban districts, or may be areas to be defined by the board of health — there shall be a local assistance committee consisting of three persons who may be members of the board of health or otherwise? I would imagine that a proposition of that kind should appeal to anyone who wants to disentangle the administration of home assistance from the old conception of the poor law, the relieving officer and all the rest. The very existence of these county schemes shows that there was an attempt on the one hand to save cost, and on the other to humanise the administration of the poor law. It was pauperism before; it was poor law relief. The very change of name indicated a desire to get away from the old conception of the relieving officer, and bring into the administration of this service the human influence of people in the locality who know the poor and can say whether such a person is worthy and can benefit by assistance, or whether another person is merely sponging upon the public. The amendment seeks to make it mandatory that such committees shall be set up for this service, and that they will be functioning even in the time preparatory to this new Bill which the Minister hopes for in the future.
I think there have been from the benches occupied by Deputies in the Farmers' Party recently a good many criticisms of the substitution of the official in the case of old age pensions for local knowledge. The official goes into the house, looks around, and finds from his observation what is the condition of the old age pensioner. That has been protested against as being something not as valuable as local knowledge — a check upon local knowledge, perhaps a check on any attempt on the part of neighbours to malinger — but nevertheless it has been objected that the introduction and the substitution of the official for the human influence is something objectionable. If that is true — and I believe it is true — the setting up of local committees should surely receive the support of any such Deputy. When the Minister points out that the home assistance officer, if he allows a person to die, is liable to a charge of manslaughter, and that that is the check and the assurance that the home assistance officer will do his duty to the poor, well, it suggests to me that the Minister has not got in his mind the humanising of the poor law. Surely we are going to treat people humanly who are not at the stage where they may die if they do not get treatment? Surely the purpose of this scheme is to prevent people getting to that stage where they may die from poverty, or hunger? If we are to rely on the home assistant officer's fears that a verdict of manslaughter may be his due, and that that only is to be the only stimulus to action, that is all the more reason why we should have a committee of this kind who may be expected to know the circumstances of the person seeking relief, and be able to advise, and, if necessary, check the home assistance officer.
I claim the support for this amendment of all those Deputies who want to humanise the poor law, and who want to bring some human feeling, as against official feeling, into the treatment of the poor on this question of relief. I claim the support of the Deputies who want to ensure that there shall be some equity in the treatment of the poor. If any Deputy is relying on Section 12, and the power that is given by that section to boards of health and public assistance, to appoint committees and if any Deputy hopes and expects that such committees must be appointed because power is given to appoint them there, then I claim the support of those Deputies for a provision which makes the appointment of such committees mandatory. I ask the Dáil to support the amendment and not allow the risk to be run that any area in the country not represented on the board of health will be without anybody but an official to look after the interest of the poor.