I move the adjournment of the Dáil to Tuesday next at 3 o'clock.
QUESTION ON THE ADJOURNMENT. - DISTRESS IN LON FORD AND WESTMEATH.
I gave notice to-day that, on the motion for the adjournment, I would call attention to the neglect of the Department of Local Government and Public Health in dealing with distress and illness amongst the unemployed in Longford and Westmeath. What applies to these counties applies to every part of the Saorstát. If the Minister were to go down to these two counties he could see for himself the pitiful destitution that prevails amongst so many families, owing to the fact that the parents have not been able to get employment for the last 12 or 18 months. He would see the little ones weeping and some in a dying condition from starvation. If other Deputies had the interests of their constituents at heart they would be doing as I am—bringing the sufferings of the people to the notice of the Government. It does not matter whether these suffering children are the children of ex-servicemen of the National Army or of British ex-servicemen, or civilians, it is the duty of the Government to look to the rising generation and not allow them to starve for the want of food. The Minister, in his reply to-day, referred me to the county board of health. The board of health for the County Westmeath is paying out something in the neighbourhood of £9,000 a year. The Longford County Council is paying something like £9,500. Does the Minister think that 8/- a week in outdoor relief is sufficient to keep a man and his wife and perhaps five children? It may be that the man has to pay 3/6 a week for rent, so that all that is left for the support of seven people for the week is 4/6. I am asking the Government to give some assistance to these workers. The Government is estimating to raise in taxation something like 23½ millions. I ask that some of this money be given by the Government to the county boards of health in Westmeath and Longford, to enable them to look after the children of the unemployed who at the present time are on the brink of death through starvation. The question that I wanted to put to the Minister was not the question that appears on the Paper. The question that I handed in was to ask if the dispensary doctors——
Was the question altered?
Yes.
With the Deputy's consent?
I do not know.
We got this question yesterday and put it on the Order Paper to-day in order to enable the Deputy to get an answer.
Yes.
It could have been held over until Tuesday. In fact, under the Standing Orders it ought to have been. The Deputy was, therefore, met by having the question put on the Order Paper to-day in what was thought the best form. He cannot evade that now by giving the original form that was objected to.
All I wanted was that the dispensary doctors be authorised to give provisional relief where acute distress prevails, and where the wives and children of the unemployed are suffering from influenza. I had the sad experience of visiting some of the homes of the unemployed in the weekend. One little child was dead. There was neither fire nor food in the house, and other children were also sick. But for the dispensary doctor, who had given money out of his own pocket to try and relieve distress and get nourishment for these people, two or three would be dead. The Inspector of the Board of Health can give provisional relief, but he lives 10 or 12 miles away.
We are living about 100 miles away and we are supposed to know more about it.
I live in a town where the home inspector lives about 12½ miles away. When the children are sick the mother cannot go to the home inspector; she has to wait until the end of the week. Has this Government any wish to save the children of the unemployed? It is the duty of any Government to see that children are not starved, and to look to the interest of the unemployed for whom they are unable to find employment. If the Government do not help the children of Westmeath and Longford, a great number will be dead within a few weeks. Every school in the county is closed. In Mullingar and Moate children are laid up. In Athlone hundreds are lying sick. They will never get better, because they have been semi-starved for the past 12 months or so. The County Board of Health has done everything in its power. In Athlone the St. Vincent de Paul Society distributes £350 yearly amongst the people the Government represent. The Government are allowing people to hold out their hands for charity. I ask for assistance for the different County Boards of Health, whereby nurses will be appointed to visit the homes of those who are sick and unemployed, and whereby doctors will be able to issue provisional relief. In reply to a question of mine last Friday, the Minister informed me that £51,389 in grants for the trunk roads and the upkeep of the main roads for the financial year 1927-'28 is coming to Westmeath. Cannot some of those grants be given immediately? If people find employment, they do not want charity. It is clear that at present the children of the unemployed are starving. They have no nourishment or fuel in the house. They are pitifully destitute. Will the Government do anything to save the children of the worker? I am surprised that Deputies think so little of the workers' children that they do not think it worth their while to remain here for half an hour to discuss this matter.
Every other Deputy is as much concerned as I am. The Minister may laugh. If he goes to Tipperary he will find the same distress there. Let him go to Cahir, or Nenagh, and visit the houses of the unemployed. He will find the same thing. I am afraid to go into this question. The time is so short that I feel I could not say half enough in the interests of the children of the unemployed who are now lying on their death beds. Some of them, unfortunately, have not a bed. Every stick of furniture has been sold. In a few months time the Government will be painting glorious pictures of future prosperity. If I cannot get money direct from the Government to relieve distress among the unemployed, then I ask that a few thousand pounds of this £51,389 be forwarded immediately to the county council so that they can give employment to the fathers of children who are dying.
As Chairman of the Westmeath County Board of Health, I will confine myself entirely to the question Deputy Lyons put forward. He has brought in the matter of unemployment, which, of course, is a separate matter. In the year 1925-26 the County Board of Health estimated a sum of £9,000 for home help. Unfortunately, owing to unemployment and sickness, they were obliged to exceed the amount of their estimate by £1,400. In the estimate for 1926-27 they have estimated for home help a sum of £10,400. That amount is practically one-third of the entire estimate, £36,000. Deputy Lyons is quite correct in saying that in Westmeath—I do not know so much about Longford, but I presume it is the same—there is an enormous number sick. There are four home help inspectors in Westmeath, not one.
In addition there are a large number of dispensary doctors. When any person gets a certificate from a doctor that there is illness in his home he is entitled to receive a certain amount of relief, which he can get immediately by getting in touch with the home help inspector or by posting the certificate to him. Owing to the enormous amount of illness which prevails at present the county board of health is paying out £300 a week. As far as the board is concerned they are taxed to an enormous degree owing to this illness particularly because of the wave of influenza. I do not propose to touch the unemployment matter, because the Government has already given £20,000 to Westmeath, and that has been spent. It was announced the other day that a further £8,700 was being given and Deputy Lyons is aware that £36,500 is coming in addition. These are matters which I do not intend to mix up with the other, but as chairman of the board of health—and I speak for every member of the board—I would like to make it perfectly clear that we are doing our utmost to cope with the illness which prevails. The sum of £300 a week which the board is administering goes all over the county, including Moate, and there is a representative of Moate on the board of health, Mr. Adamson, whom Deputy Lyons probably knows. If he knows of any particular case in that vicinity and brings it under the notice of the home health inspectors or any member of the board, or before me, I will, as always have done, do my utmost to relieve it.
I understand that Deputy Lyons's point is a very special one. He asks for an emergency regulation that would empower doctors visiting the sick poor, or the sick children of the unemployed, in a case requiring emergency relief, to issue it and grant assistance without the people concerned having to travel, or to post the certificate, to an official who may be in some outlying district. I think that point is a very good one and one which the Minister ought to consider seriously, because relief given to-day instead of to-morrow might save the life of a sick child. This point should be considered, not alone in regard to Deputy Lyons's constituency but for all parts of the Saorstát. As we all know, there is much unemployment. This influenza outbreak finds its way into the homes of the unemployed and really its effects are worse in homes where there is hunger than in the homes of the better class. I join with Deputy Lyons, who may have been a little vigorous in putting his case, in asking the House to support him in the proposal that he makes.
It is really an abuse of the privileges of the House to have a question of this kind raised on the adjournment.
Is it an abuse of the privileges of the House to see the children of the workers dying?
It is one of the most obnoxious and vexatious pieces of electioneering that we have been treated to in this House since its establishment. The Deputy raised this question before in the Dáil in the ordinary way, and I gave him his answer. I told him that as there was nothing exceptional about the state of affairs in his county there was no occasion for my Department to intervene, that we had no functions in the matter. It is exclusively a matter for the Board of Health. Under the rules and regulations for the administration of home assistance there is ample power to deal with the situation.
Section 13, sub-section (4), of these rules gives ample powers to the Assistance Officer. It says: "In every case of sudden and urgent necessity," amongst his other duties is to "afford such provisional assistance to a person eligible for assistance as may be necessary, that is to say (a) if such person requires immediate treatment in hospital by conveying such person to the county hospital, or (b) by procuring on the prescribed form an order for admission to the County Home signed by a member of the board of health or other authorised person, and by conveying the person thereto if necessary, and (c) by affording such person temporary assistance in food, lodging, medicine or medical assistance." The Deputy has stated that in some cases this officer may live as far as 4 miles away from the habitations of the people who are in need of assistance. I put it to him it is much easier for that person to look after the needs of these people than it is for us, who are one hundred miles away from the scene of the trouble.
Deputy Byrne raised the point that the medical officer might be empowered to give relief himself but in none of these cases has the medical officer sufficient knowledge to decide whether the person is entitled to that relief or not. The Assistance Officer is the only person who has a knowledge of the means of these people and he knows whether it would be an abuse of the powers of the local authority to give relief or to withhold it in a particular case. As I say it is purely a local matter. It is scarcely a matter for discussion in the Dáil at all, as the local authority has full power to deal with the situation and in a matter of this kind, if the epidemic becomes widespread local charity could very properly be called into requisition. Members of the Dáil have had some experience of the fact that Deputy Lyons is quite a good organiser in the cause of particular kinds of charity. I remember myself as well as other Deputies getting an appeal from the Deputy in the shape of a circular.
I think we ought not go into that.
I just put that to him —that if he directed his attention to the needs of those people in the same way perhaps, very good results would follow but I do not think there is anything to be gained by trying to throw odium on my Department for not taking action in cases in which they have absolutely no functions.
Deputy Lyons rose.
The Deputy has already made a speech.
I am not going to make a speech. I only want to say that I quite agree with what Deputy Shaw said—that our local people are doing their best. I think it is not fair for the Minister to make the statement here in the House that I was trying to throw odium on his Department. I was not.
The Deputy is making a speech.
The Dáil adjourned at 3.40 p.m. to Tuesday, 22nd March.