I beg to move:—
"That in view of the discontent prevalent amongst the lower grades in the Civil Service, the Dáil is of opinion that the Executive Council should set up a Commission of Enquiry to investigate and report on the present method of computation of the cost-of-living bonus and its application to civil servants' salaries and wages."
I do not know of any subject about which there has been so much misconception, and in many cases misrepresentation, as there has been in regard to the so-called or the mis-named bonus paid to civil servants. This ignorance is not confined to the ordinary man in the street, and on occasions it is made very manifest and evident at public boards. We have on occasions noted in the Press that many members of public boards have worked themselves almost into a frenzy at the mere suggestion of the words "cost-of-living bonus." This frenzy becomes more intensified when they hear of this cost-of-living bonus being applied to civil servants. To those who are not familiar with the system the word bonus suggests something for nothing —a free gift, something suggestive of a gift of money paid at the end of a successful year by some public company. It suggests to them the case of a company which, after having paid the usual dividends, is enabled to add to the dividend something in the nature of a large bonus. That this is not so in so far as it relates to the Civil Service I shall proceed to demonstrate, in the hope that if there are any members of the House who in any way share the opinion of the type of persons I have mentioned, I shall be able to dissipate, in some measure, these views and enlist them on the side of the lower paid servants in the Free State.
The claim for the cessation of cuts in the cost-of-living bonus has been the subject of much correspondence between the associations representing the various grades of civil servants and the Minister for Finance. This correspondence has extended over a very long period. The civil servants, particularly those in the lower grades, now claim that there should be a cessation of the cuts, pending an inquiry into the method of their application. That, on the face of it, is, I say, a reasonable suggestion. They ask that these cuts shall cease until such time as the Minister and his Department have inquired into the whole method of applying the bonus. I do not propose, as is customary on these occasions, to give anything in the nature of a history of the events that led up to the establishment of the cost-of-living bonus. But it would be just as well to recall to the House that this cost-of-living bonus, as applied to civil servants' salaries, came into operation in 1920 as a means of partially compensating civil servants for the increase in the cost during an abnormal period.
All of us who have lived through that period will, I feel sure, agree that it was an abnormal period. Most of the Deputies, too, will agree that at that particular period many of those civil servants were very badly paid, particularly those in the lower grades. It was recognised then, and it is recognised now by every fair-minded person in the Free State, that the lower grades of the Civil Service then were inadequately remunerated. I have had a fairly long association with at least two branches of the Civil Service. I have been in contact with them for the greater part of my life. I do know, particularly in the Post Office, that many of those civil servants of the lower grades had to supplement their ordinary wages by means of overtime. The only way by which the civil servant who was a married man with a family could manage to make ends meet was by thus supplementing his ordinary wages. As a matter of fact he was willy-nilly compelled to work overtime. There was a fairly good scale for overtime paid to him and this it was which enabled him to keep his head above water. As a result of changes made that avenue of revenue is cut away from him. I do not believe that many of the officials in the Civil Service think that overtime should be worked, if it could be avoided. But I want to make it clear that those men worked inordinately long hours in order to maintain themselves and their families in reasonably decent comfort.
I have stated that this cost-of-living bonus was established in 1920 owing to the abnormal conditions then and the very high cost of commodities, particularly of the necessaries of life. Even then there was some injustice. I do not want to harp back on the injustice then. I prefer to deal with the hardships and injustice of the present. At the present moment the bonus is only paid in full on the first £91 5s. of salary. The next £108 15s. per annum gets only 46 per cent. of the bonus. A salary above £200 gets only a bonus to the extent of 35 per cent. It will be seen that the greater hardship falls on the lower paid civil servants, a state of affairs which I hope that this House will remedy in as short a space of time as it possibly can by giving the necessary support to my motion. Without wanting to delay the House unnecessarily I may say that I feel the terms of my motion make it almost imperative that the Minister should not make this a vote of no confidence or a vote of confidence, but that he should use his influence with his Party to let us have a free vote of the House. I would not take it as a triumph if this motion goes through. Rather would I look upon it as an awakening of conscience on the part of certain members of the Government, notably in the case of the Minister for Finance, an awakening intensified.
It is not admitted by any of those persons affected, the persons for whom I am pleading, that the index figure is a true indication of the civil servants' cost of living. Even granting that that is so, I submit, and the civil servants of the lower grades—in fact, of all grades—submit, that the present method of application to salaries does not fully compensate for the increase over the pre-war cost of living. We all know that the largest single item of expenditure in every household is rent. That is particularly true in the case of the married man. In the case of the single man the largest expenditure is for board and lodging. I speak for Cork City and I can also speak for Dublin, though I do admit that I do not know the conditions in Dublin as well as I know them in Cork; but at the same time I can speak with some authority. I think the view will be shared by every Deputy here that so far as these items are concerned the cost of housing or rent in the case of the married man with a family, and the cost of board and lodging to the single man, have not changed within the last decade or so except in so far as the figures have gone up somewhat. I know that is true of Cork and I am sure it is equally true of Dublin. I know of rentals in Dublin which have been nearly doubled within the last couple of years and I know of rentals in Cork that have nearly quadrupled in the same period.
It is contended, and with a good deal of truth, that so far as the Civil Service organisation is concerned, before the last cut came into operation in September, 1930, the time had arrived when the already inadequate remuneration of the vast majority of these employees had reached a point below which there could not be any reduction without inflicting a very grave hardship and causing further and more widespread discontent amongst a very deserving body of civil servants. In recognition of this we have the action of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer when he agreed last year to suspend the reduction in bonus when the British figure fell from 70 to 65. I want Deputies to mark and digest what follows. The Chancellor agreed to regard the figure as 65 for bonus purposes when it had actually fallen to 60, notwithstanding that the economic conditions as we all know are not so very rosy at the moment in Britain.
I have shown that in consequence of the method of computing the bonus of civil servants from the index figure the lower grades suffer in a greater degree than those in the higher paid branches. The main complaint of the staff with regard to the cost of living bonus machinery is that with their low pre-war wages the cost of living bonus does not provide them with an adequate wage in view of the responsibility of the work and the prevailing high cost of living. The primary purpose of the cost of living bonus was to insure that so far as these officials were concerned their positions should not be changed or at least not worsened because of the fluctuations in the index figure. However, we find in practice that it has had very serious results in so far as it relates to the salaries of the lower paid civil servants.
Under the present system of applying the cost-of-living bonus to basic wages, I will illustrate what occurs to a postman in Cork, Dublin, Waterford or Limerick. I will deal with some of the other lower-paid branches at a later period. Under the present system of applying the cost-of-living bonus to basic wages, a postman in Dublin at his maximum wages receives 66/2 per week, and the earliest possible age at which he can receive this wage is 31 years. A postman at Cork at his maximum rate of wages receives only 62/2 at 30 years of age, and a postman at Waterford can receive a maximum wage of only 57/10 at 30 years of age. A Grade B post Office clerk at Dublin receives £4 13s. 11d. at his maximum, and the earliest age at which he can receive that wage is 35 years. In Cork a similar officer receives £4 0s. 6d. at his maximum, obtainable at 34 years. At Waterford such an officer would receive £3 18s. 1d. at his maximum at 33 years. I will give you an example of how the cost-of-living bonus is applied to some of these grades. I will quote only two cases. I have a table here which gives you the minimum, the mean and the maximum in each case. I will content myself with the minimum and the maximum. In Dublin a postman receives a minimum wage of 34/- There is for the cost of living a 70 per cent. increase. The mean is 51/- and the maximum 66/2. A Post Office clerk, Grade B (male), receives a minimum of 30/8, a mean of 65/6, and a maximum of 93/11. I submit that the maximum wages in all cases are low, having regard to the responsibilities and the very onerous duties these men have to perform.
I do not want to make any further comment upon that matter. I could do so if I wished, but perhaps it might be misconstrued here. At any rate, I believe that it does not tend towards good, efficient, or honest service that such low maximum rates should obtain in this country. A case was made by the British Treasury for limiting the amount of the cost of living bonus on basic wages in excess of 35/- a week when the index figure was 130. I would like Deputies to grasp the position fully, because this is a matter on which, apparently, there is a good deal of misunderstanding. Usually when these things are seen in the newspapers in a tabulated form very few people take the trouble to make any analysis of the figures. A case was made by the British Treasury for limiting the amount of the cost of living bonus on basic wages in excess of 35/- a week with the index figure at 130. Having regard to the fact that the index figure is now about 70, you will quite understand the position now as compared with the time when the index figure was 130. There appeared to be no logical reason at that time for a limitation, and there can be no possible reason advanced for the limitation to-day when the index figure has fallen to 70.
It is difficult to understand how an officer on a pre-war wage of 50/- which, with the cost of living bonus added, means 79/5, has a margin over and above his ordinary expenses; yet the illustration of the payment of the full bonus on basic wages of 35/- a week does make that untenable suggestion. The present position of most of these Post Office workers is that they are financially much worse off than they were in 1914. What I say now applies not alone to the staff of the Post Office, but to every other branch of the Civil Service. The staff claim that their present financial position is such that they are hardly able to bear any further reduction in the cost of living bonus in view of the high cost of living. It will, of course, be readily admitted that the application of this cut is a greater hardship on lower paid servants than in the higher grades. As I have indicated, this cost of living bonus machinery was devised to meet war-time conditions. As time went on it was found that that machinery was becoming obsolete and, consequently, ineffective. A rather unfortunate thing, in my view, is that our Government did not see fit to emulate the example of the Government across the Channel, which set up Whitley Councils to deal with Civil Service matters. The Minister may reply that a certain council was set up here. I think he called it a representative council. That council was set up by our Government to deal with such cases, but I do know that even the departments in the Civil Service which are represented on that council, and whose representatives attended its meetings from time to time and had conferences with the Minister, are not satisfied with the machinery. I also know that representations have been made to the Minister to discuss the whole position of the service.
On the 23rd October, 1929, the Minister for Finance was requested to receive a deputation from the Cost-of-Living Bonus Joint Committee. That request was refused. Further correspondence ensued without any result, and an appeal was addressed to the President in July, 1930. The President, as we all know, was then rather unwell and was recuperating in the country, but the appeal was forwarded to the Minister for Finance, again without any result. In consequence of the refusal of the Minister to meet a deputation from the Civil Service organisations, representations were made to members of the Oireachtas. I shall mention their names, as I want to show how catholic in taste civil servants are, and how they do not discriminate between one Party and another. They went to such people as Deputy P.S. Doyle, Deputy Lemass, Deputy G. Boland, Deputy T.J. O'Connell, Deputy Dr. Hennessy, and Senator Thomas Johnson. These gentlemen, all members of the Oireachtas, waited on the Acting Minister for Finance on Thursday, 28th August, 1930, for the purpose of advocating the suspension of a further cut pending inquiry, but the Acting Minister for Finance was not prepared either to suspend the impending cut or to promise an inquiry.
While it was very good of those members of the Oireachtas to take up the cudgels for the Civil Service organisations, at the same time I feel, and I know that a good many Deputies of all Parties with whom I have discussed this matter also feel, that these organisations should have been heard and their case considered by the Minister for Finance. The Minister for Finance in this country is no more, and I suggest no less, than the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Great Britain, and when the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Great Britain is prepared to receive representatives of the civil servants, either through the Whitley Council or some other organised method of expression which civil servants have, I do not see why the Minister for Finance of this State should not do likewise. I do not suggest that he should imitate everything that people do on the other side. I do not say that there are any great differences in practice here as compared with the Civil Service across-Channel where they have an older and longer tradition of service, so far as it relates, at any rate, to the staffs about whom I speak.
I have said that the cost-of-living bonus machinery was devised to meet war-time conditions. Whilst it may, perhaps, have met those conditions in so far as they related to 1920 and some of the succeeding years, it is generally felt that its application now over a period of eleven years has shown that it is merely an instrument for inflicting grave hardships on a very deserving body of civil servants, greater hardships, in fact, than have been inflicted by private employers on their employees. I will give a concrete case which has been brought under my notice where a member of one branch of the Civil Service, who had to submit to the cut brought about by the operation of the index figure in this country and whose combined wage, that is to say, pre-war wage and bonus, amounted to £5 1s. 6d. per week in March, 1921, has now had his weekly pay reduced to £3 6s. 1d., a loss per week of 35/5. I think that any fair-minded Deputy will readily concede that that is not a fair, adequate, or proper wage to offer to any civil servant in this country, all the time having regard to the responsibility of his office and to the fact that too much temptation must not be put in the way of persons who are charged with heavy responsibility. Surely the Minister for Finance will not contend that any member of this community who has to shoulder such responsibility as I have just mentioned, an employment which necessitates trustworthiness, probity and honesty, could maintain a decent standard of living, particularly if he be a married man, on 35/5 per week less in 1931 than he had in 1921. I would like when the Minister is replying if he would try to solve that riddle for me. It would be quite interesting to the persons concerned who have to try and live now on a considerably reduced wage while the cost of living has not been reduced in proportion to that wage. I move the adjournment of the debate.