I submit that it is the duty of a Deputy to ensure that public money is expended in accordance with law. I submit, too, that it is the right of a Deputy to inquire into the working of any Department of State to see that the evidence on which a claim to public money is successfully established will stand the test of examination. With the possible exception of the Department dealing with military service pensions, there is no other department of State, to my knowledge at any rate where such a barrier is put up to prevent a member of this House from exercising his right and his duty to the people who elected him, as in the Department of Local Government, where these old age pension cases are dealt with. A person of 70 years of age who fulfils certain statutory requirements as to means becomes entitled to an old age pension. That is a legal right and a moral right. To my mind it is the duty of every Deputy to ensure that persons of 70 years of age and over who fulfil the statutory requirements as to age will secure the pension which the law entitles them to get. It is quite obvious that that legal and moral claim cannot be successfully established if the claimant is not fully aware of the case that has been presented against him.
The Minister for Local Government has repeatedly argued in this House that the fact that a claimant is entitled to be present when the sub-committee is examining the claim is sufficient protection for a claimant, that it is a sufficient precautionary measure to take to ensure that no injustice will be done to the claimant, and that if any further representations are required on the appeal stage these can be made in writing. When a claimant applies for an old age pension the pension officer investigates the claim. He reports to the sub-committee recommending either that the claim be disallowed or that a certain amount be awarded as pension. There is nothing whatever in the law, or in the regulations issued either by the Revenue Department or the Old Age Pensions Department, that makes it obligatory on the pension officer to be present when the sub-committee is examining a case. He may be present, but he may not be present. If he is present he is under no obligation to answer any questions that may be put to him. He gives his figure. He estimates means at so much, and if he disagrees with the decision of the sub-committee he appeals. The case then goes before the deciding officer for final decision. I quite admit that if the pension officer is present when a sub-committee is examining a claim the members of the sub-committee, if they have a proper grasp—it is a big "if"—of the claimants right under the Old Age Pensions Acts, and cross-examines the pension officer, and "if" again, the pension officer is sufficiently agreeable to answer all the questions put to him, it is quite possible that the representations he intends to make on the appeal will be elicited before the sub-committee. But there are too many "ifs" in that to secure beyond any doubt that the claimant is going to get justice. The biggest "if" is that the pension officer may not be there at all. If he is not, then his representations to the deciding officer are never brought either to the notice of the sub-committee or to the notice of the claimant.
I think the Minister will agree with me in this, that so far from the sub-committee being the protecting force to the claimant which the Minister seems to think they are, it very often happens that the claimant has to appeal against the decision of the sub-committee. Such appeals have been taken, and taken with success. I think the fact that they have been taken at all is sufficient evidence, and establishes beyond doubt that it cannot be left to the sub-committee to ensure that the last word that can be effectively said will be said on behalf of the claimant. The Minister argues that the claimant can be present. The claimant can be present before the sub-committee. The Minister argues that there is no need for representation in person on the appeal. Could anything be more absurd than to argue that these poor old people, many of whom are illiterate, many blind, and many physically unfit, can argue out their legal rights either before the sub-committee or before the appeals department against an expert in the actual interpretation of the Acts? Anyone who knows the physical condition of the vast majority of the claimants will admit at once that, while some of them are fit to be present when the case is being debated—if it is debated—one in ten is not capable of presenting his case and making the best representations that could be made. If a claimant for any of the reasons I have mentioned, either through disability or blindness, is unable to be present before the sub-committee, how is he to know what representations have been made behind his back at the sub-committee and to the deciding authority?
The Minister and his Department have refused time and again to give details of the pension officer's report to claimants. If that were done, if all the representations made by the pensions officer were disclosed, even though it would be much more troublesome to make representations in writing than to make them in person, still the possibilities of serious injustice would be lessened to a great extent. Up to the present the Minister has refused to accept that suggestion in the administration of the Acts. The pension officer attributes a certain amount of income in his return. A certain amount is given for an acre or for half an acre of potatoes, and a certain amount for oats. The claimant has no means of knowing what the figure is. Obviously if the pension officer has a figure of universal application it cannot be relied upon, inasmuch as there is a great difference in the yield of a crop on different classes of land. The pension officer estimates a certain amount of income from a couple of cows on the farm. If the claimant does not know the amount put on each head of stock he does not know whether the same income is being attributed to a cow 20 years old as to a cow 6 years old. Surely in that case the claimant cannot successfully meet the case being made behind his back.
I would like to draw attention to another point regarding written representations. I find in practice that when we make written representations, presenting all the features of the case that we think can possibly have any bearing on it, these representations are sent down to the pension officer for another secret report. I called attention to this matter in the House before, and the Minister did not deny it. I do not think he will do so now. It may be all right, and the Minister is quite entitled to check through the pension officer any representations made on behalf of a claimant, but in practice it means that since we have been deprived of making representations in person, and since the files are denied to us, another secret report from the pension officer is sent up, while the claimant does not know what is going on behind his back. If everything is above board, and if the Minister is only anxious to secure that those people will get the pension who are legally entitled to it, why should the files not be disclosed to Deputies? Why should not the old people be entitled to make representations, either through Deputies or any other representative of their selection, in order to see what is the evidence, and what is the case made behind their backs to the deciding officer?
[Professor Thrift took the Chair.]
I have previously drawn the attention of the Minister to the fact that a claimant was notified that the pension officer had appealed on the grounds of the claimant's qualification as to age. The Department was subsequently satisfied that the statutory qualification as to age had been fulfilled, but the pension was disallowed on another ground—means. That has actually happened, and I quoted the case here some months ago. I am prepared to quote another case that occurred within the last month. In that particular case the statutory qualification which was the ground of the appeal was fulfilled, yet the pension was disallowed on another statutory qualification without any notice being given to the claimant. That is not only grossly unfair, but, to my mind, it is dishonest. When the claimant is notified that there is an appeal by the pension officer on the ground of age, that claimant is entitled to assume—he cannot in reason assume anything else —that the only ground for appeal is the question of age.
If personal representations to the Department were allowed, if Deputies were in a position to see the files, such things would not occur as an appeal on the grounds of age being disallowed on the ground of means. The Minister may challenge the accuracy of the assertion, but I am prepared to give proof. Wrong and unjust decisions are liable to be arrived at on the ground of age in the absence of personal representation before the deciding officer. I have known it to happen that where statutory evidence of age has not been procurable, the pension officer has turned up an old school register and an extract from that register has been submitted as evidence of the claimant's age. These extracts have, to my knowledge, been submitted without the claimint being acquainted that such evidence was going to be used against him. The same applies to marriage certificates. The heads of the Old Age Pensions Department will inform the Minister, if he does not know it already, that I have proved these school registers to be inaccurate to the extent of a period of ten years. I have done that by submitting birth certificates side by side with extracts from school registers.
The system that permits of the possibility of such evidence of age being put before the appeals department, behind the backs of claimants, is wrong. That is what is happening since the files of evidence have been refused to Deputies. Such a system is bound to result in grave injustice to claimants. The Minister may hold that all these matters have been argued before the sub-committees and hence before the claimants. There is nothing in the instructions issued to pension officers to ensure that any of the evidence I have referred to ever goes before the sub-committee or the claimant. What is the real reason for this order? The Minister will scarcely suggest that the deciding officer could not resist the representations made by members of this House. If that is his case, then the deciding officer who is not capable of resisting representations by Deputies should not be in office. If the deciding officer is capable of resisting personal appeals by Deputies, I cannot see how anything could be wrong in ensuring that injustice will not be done to claimants by having these personal representations made. The only line the Minister can take is that he may suggest that Deputies going into the appeals department hold up business. If the Minister makes that case, it will not be consistent with the facts.
Often I have been thanked by officers in the appeals department for the efforts I made in procuring all the evidence possible for or against a claimant. When evidence against a claimant was turned up by Deputies, on this side of the House at any rate, that evidence was given to the deciding officer just as well as evidence in favour of the claimant. I have been told by responsible officers in the Department that Deputies here were of great assistance to them in arriving at proper decisions. The Minister may not admit that, but it is true, and perhaps the occasion will arise sometime in the future when it can be proved to be true.
It is a strange thing that the old age pensioners are the only people in the country who are to be deprived of the assistance of their elected representatives when endeavouring to secure their legal rights. I have never heard a Deputy here say that we were denied access to the Agricultural Credit Corporation, to the Housing Department when grants were in question, or to the Revenue Commissioners when we were being charged too much income tax. I have never heard it suggested that the claimant of a military service pension could not secure the personal representation of a Deputy or a lawyer or any other person. Even in the case of those able-bodied men who are well able to present their own arguments, and who are appearing before a tribunal that has a good deal of sympathy with them, not only are they allowed to be represented by Deputies, Ministers, officers, and lawyers, but the people who are giving evidence on their behalf are guaranteed that, no matter how false their representations may be, the light of day will never be let in upon them. The Minister may defend that attitude.
The old age pensioners may not be as important a body from the political point of view as the people who are drawing military service pensions. At the same time, the Minister ought to consider the justice of the case, regardless altogether of the political aspect. The other pensioners who are afforded all the facilities it is possible to afford them are able-bodied men, most of them able to earn a living if they would only work.
I hope this debate will have the effect of securing the withdrawal of this objectionable order. It will certainly make for better administration of the Acts, and it will bring about the removal of a very grave injustice that is now being inflicted on the aged poor. It may possibly have a damaging effect on Deputies in this House, who have got into lackadaisical methods of discharging their duties, and who are too lazy to make either personal or written representation. If this order is removed it will have an effect on the Deputies who will not bother about old age pensioners and who up to this have contented themselves by saying: "The Minister has made an order that I cannot appear in his Department in your behalf, and, consequently, I cannot do anything for you." I think the number of Deputies who would deal with the matter in that way is very small, and I appeal to the Minister to ignore them. Some of them, no doubt, are very influential, and possibly most of them could be found on the Minister's own Benches.
