When I moved the adjournment of the debate last night, I had drawn the attention of the Minister to some of the reasons which I believed were responsible for creating the situation which the Minister is seeking to deal with now. I expressed the view that unification was not the best way of meeting the situation. I said that we had embarked upon an experiment in unification of which nobody had experience and that the difficulties which had arisen might have been overcome partially by amalgamation and partially by extension of the Old Age Pension Scheme if and when possible, as also by a readjustment, if necessary, of the contributions of insured persons. Seeing that the Minister has decided to make an experiment in unification, our business is to make such suggestions as may assist him to make unification as successful as it can be made. The Dáil should bear in mind that, no matter what form unification takes, some of the approved societies are going to suffer. Certain approved societies, by prudent management, have accumulated satisfactory surpluses and are in a position to give extra benefits by way of dental and optical treatment as well, sometimes, as a higher rate of sickness benefit than their neighbours give. Some societies, by the peculiar character of their membership, have been in an exceptionally favourable position. We must bear in mind that both these classes of society are going to be brought down and not up to the statutory rate of benefit. That should be constantly present to our minds when examining the details of the scheme which, I have no doubt, the Minister will open more fully in the course of the debate.
The next point that arises is as to how the employees of the approved societies and the national health insurance system, as a whole, are to be dealt with. The scheme in the Bill is not one of superannuation but of compensation. In my opinion, that is a mistake. Some of these men and women have been working for 21 years in the approved societies. They are so circumstanced now by the lapse of time and by the fact that the best years of their lives have been given to this service that a lump sum in compensation is not an equitable way of meeting their claims. There is a good precedent in the Railway Acts of 1924 and 1926, in the Blessington Tramway Act and in the Electricity Supply Board Acts. Superannuation on a much more generous basis was provided under these Acts than the compensation proposed in this Bill. I suggest to the Minister that it would be well to consider the desirability of changing this part of the Bill in Committee Stage and of accepting the scheme proposed by the approved societies representatives who met and considered this question. That scheme is, I think, based upon the legislative precedents we had here for superannuation. The Minister, speaking in 1929 on the Committee Stage of the National Health Insurance Bill, referred to these precedents. He moved an amendment there in connection with the compensation of secretaries and other officials of not less than five years' service whose income from other employment did not exceed £200 and he based his scale of compensation on the Railways Act of 1924. He approved of that as a fair and reasonable precedent for the scale of compensation that should be adopted in connection with a Bill that Deputy Mulcahy was then steering through the House.
When we consider compensation we have to consider the classes into which the employees will be divided for the purpose of seeing whether they are eligible and to what extent they shall be eligible for compensation. It seems to me that they fall broadly into four classes. One is the whole-time employee who has no other source of income and is in the direct employment of an approved society. The next is the part-time employee of an insurance and approved society. That class can be sub-divided because I think you have men who are directly on the pay roll of the approved societies for part of their time doing national health insurance work and part of their time on the pay roll of the insurance companies. Then you have another type of employee who is in the employment of insurance companies who are members, for instance, of the Irish Amalgamated, and who are doing the national health insurance work on foot of a contract with the Amalgamated Society, that contract having been approved by the National Health Insurance Commissioners. In that case I think the insurance companies receive a lump sum from the Amalgamated Society and they arrange for the routine national health insurance work to be done by certain members of their staff and these men are part-time. Part of their wages is paid out of this lump sum that the insurance company gets from the Amalgamated Society for doing the work. Whether the Minister will consider these men are entitled to compensation, in the event of their suffering as a result of the abolition of the Amalgamated Society, is a question which I would like him to speak about later on. The next class is the part-time rural agent who derives the greater measure of his income from his work as an agent of a national health insurance approved society and who is provided for in the Bill. The fourth is the same class of agent whose revenue is not largely composed of earnings as a national health insurance agent. I understand that these men are not going to get any compensation. I am not yet quite clear as to who is to be the deciding authority as to whether a rural agent is in fact deriving the bulk of his income from his agency or from some other occupation. Probably the Minister will take occasion to explain that later on.
The actual proposal made by the Minister is in Section 21 and I submit to the Minister that that is a departure from precedent for which there can be little justification. I cannot imagine why the Minister has extended the five years period which he himself sponsored two years ago to ten years under the Bill. In that regard I sincerely trust that the Minister will hold himself open to an amendment which will involve the national health insurance funds in very little additional cost, and which will set right what would seem to be otherwise something amounting to a grave injustice. In that connection we should also bear constantly in mind that the proposal for a more generous scheme of compensation under this Bill will lay no burden on the taxes or rates of this country. The compensation or superannuation proposed by the Bill will be borne by the savings anticipated by the Minister under the unification, and in dealing fairly with these men we are not asking people who are gravely embarrassed by other circumstances in the country to contribute anything more by way of taxes or rates. This is going to be a self-supporting scheme which will be in a position to pay its own superannuation without looking to the Central Fund or any other Government fund for assistance.
The compensation is to be on the basis of one-eighth of the annual remuneration for every completed year of qualifying service. I hope the Minister will consent to reduce that period to five years and I do not think he would be going too far if he went on to give a person who had completed five years' service, who was about to be compulsorily retired, to whom he was not prepared to offer any alternative employment, one year's salary in lieu of notice. I think the equitable proposal would be that the figure there should be reduced to five and that the fraction should be increased to one-fifth.
In sub-section (2) (b) a very arbitrary restriction is introduced. I cannot conceive the frame of mind of whoever proposed it for the Minister's consideration. It reads: "In case such person has ten or more completed years of qualifying service, a sum not exceeding in any case three times his annual remuneration, and subject to that limitation a sum calculated on the basis of one-sixth of his annual remuneration for every completed year of qualifying service." That means that you are going to give credit for 18 years as the maximum service, that the man who was in this business since the beginning, who did all the spade work, who did the difficult work, who got the machine going, who unravelled the multitudinous complications that existed in the early stages of national health insurance work, is not to be compensated for the three years in which he worked hardest. My experience, if I might say so with all respect, of the Minister for Local Government in handling legislation in this Dáil gives me encouragement to hope that it is only necessary to draw attention to a matter of that kind to ensure that the point will be met on the Committee Stage and what seems to be a serious injustice removed.
When I say that, I am advancing arguments on the basis that the Minister will not consider the proposal which I believe to be really the only means of doing full justice to these people and that is by superannuation. The bulk of these employees will not come under this provision at all, because the great majority of them will be taken over. They will have to be taken over in order to make it possible to work this scheme at all. But I am suggesting that those who are not taken over should have the option of a fair and even a generous measure of superannuation and I am convinced that if he is prepared to accept that point of view he will remove from his path what is otherwise going to be a serious difficulty and a cause of grave discontent amongst a body of men and women to whom the State owes a material debt for hard and unostentatious work.
Another question arises which, it may be, is capable of explanation. My study of the Bill may have been inadequate to get the information I look for here. I can find no guarantee in the Bill that a person at present employed by an approved society will be offered any degree of permanency in his employment after he is taken over, or that he will be offered a position approximately the same as he had before he was taken over. I raise the point now in order to give the Minister an opportunity of dealing with it at the conclusion of the Bill. What consolation is it to a man to be taken over on Monday and dismissed on Saturday? The Bill as it at present stands entitles the unified society to take over the employees of an approved society and dispose of them in a month's time, thereby depriving them of their rights under the Statute. I fully appreciate that the unified society would not intentionally or fraudulently deprive men of their rights under this Bill, but at the same time I will suggest a case to the Minister whereunder that very difficulty could arise. Before doing that I should like to draw his attention to this point. Under the terms of this Bill, what is to prevent the unified society from notifying the secretary of an approved society that they are going to take him over and give him a job as claims clerk? What is to prevent the administrators of the unified society from taking over a man who has been 15 or 20 years secretary of an approved society, controlling the activities of dozens of claims clerks and ordinary clerks, and offering him a position on a stool beside one of his most junior officials? Surely that is not justice. Surely in drafting a measure of this kind we should ensure that if we take over an official compulsorily—because if he does not consent to come over he sacrifices his right to compensation—we should provide that he will get a position in no sense inferior to the position he enjoyed before being taken over, and that if we offer him a position inferior to that which he previously enjoyed he will have a right to compensation or superannuation in accordance with the terms of the Bill.
Secondly, I respectfully submit that we should further provide that where we take over an officer from an approved society he should have the right to the compensation or superannuation which is provided in the Bill if he is dispensed with for any reason other than that stated, misconduct, within, say, two years of his being taken over. A situation may arise in which an officer is taken over by a unified society and after he has been at work for six or twelve months the officials responsible for the unified society may say "this man's competency or temperament does not suit the work we have available for him, and in the best interests of everybody it would be better to superannuate him and get in a man who is more fitted for the job." So long as we make fair provision for that, no one can complain; but a situation of the greatest difficulty will arise if the responsible officers in the unified society take over a man in good faith, give him an alternative position, and then discover that while he was suitable for the particular kind of work he had in the approved society the work that they have made available for him in the unified society may be entirely unsuitable to him; they are married to him for the rest of his natural days, or else they must dispense with his services and leave him without any of the benefits available under this Bill. I feel that a discretion should be given here, unless we are prepared to face the danger of serious injustice arising in the future.
I do not propose to go at length into the superannuation proposals that have been laid before the Minister. I think many Deputies have had copies furnished to them. They are exceedingly long; it would take me practically half an hour to deal with them exhaustively, and that is quite unnecessary, because the Minister is well aware of the details proposed. Most of the Deputies interested in this legislation have also studied the proposals, and I think will agree that, taking everything into consideration, they are equitable and fair. They are completely supported by precedents which have already been established by this House, notably the Railways Acts of 1924 and 1926, the Blessington Steam Tramway Act which was passed by this Government in 1932, and the Electricity Supply Acts of the relevant years.
The Minister may rest assured, so far as I and this Party are concerned, that we believe that that scheme is the one calculated to best serve the interests and the purposes he has in mind. We are, however, in no sense desirous of blocking or hindering him, and any information or co-operation we can give him, we need hardly say, is at his disposal. We would urge him strongly to accept the superannuation proposals, but in the alternative—if after mature consideration he feels that that cannot be done—we ask him to consider favourably the amendments which it is our intention to put down for the purpose of bringing the compensation proposals which he has incorporated in the Bill more into line with what we believe will be equity, not to speak of generosity.