I want to direct the Minister's attention to the position which has arisen in Cork arising out of slum clearance. On the 19th February I asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce "if unemployment assistance at rates applicable to persons resident in Cork City will be paid to persons at present residing in the city who are being transferred to houses built outside the city boundary for the purpose of slum clearance." The Minister, of course, gave the only obvious answer, the one I anticipated. He said:
"The rates at which unemployment assistance may be paid to applicants are prescribed in the Schedule to the Unemployment Assistance Act, 1933. The persons resident in Cork City who are being transferred to houses built outside the county borough boundary will, therefore, from the date of their removal, be entitled to unemployment assistance at the rates prescribed for the district of their new residence. I have no power to increase these rates."
I agree that no Minister can foresee certain things that might arise out of the administration of any Act. It is because of that that so many amending Bills have to be brought in, not alone in this, but other Parliaments. But this is an exceptional case. I understand that the City Manager in Cork has been in communication with the Minister in reference to the matter. Everyone will admit that slum clearance is a very necessary thing, and that the housing of working-class people under decent conditions is not only necessary but highly desirable. If the Minister is able to grasp the position that I have put to him, I feel sure that he will do something to ameliorate the condition of the persons referred to in my question. The position is that the Cork Corporation, like the Corporation of Dublin, has embarked on large schemes to house the working-classes. The first thing that has to be done is to clear a slum area. The houses in those areas have to be demolished gradually, the occupants being provided with new houses in another area. It so happens in Cork that the new houses are erected at a place that is only slightly outside the borough boundary, and that all those who were in receipt of unemployment assistance when living in a slum area have been deprived of the benefit of the rate that applies to a city. I am in entire agreement with the Minister and with the policy that finds expression in one of the sections of the Unemployment Assistance Act, which provides different rates for large boroughs and rural areas. We in Cork, just as the people in Dublin, have suffered from the effects of the large influx of rural labourers into the city to swell the already overcrowded labour market. That influx is detrimental to many who have been resident in the city over a long period of years. I am not raising, and no citizen should raise, any objection to that influx, because it is only natural, I suppose, for people to gravitate from the rural areas into the cities. I applaud the action of the Minister when he does not encourage, or rather when the Act does not encourage, the migration of people into the cities, many of them no doubt being attracted to the cities by the extra money to be gained under the Act.
The case to which I have referred is one which demands serious consideration from the Minister. The suggestion that I would make to him is this, that the city rate should apply to those persons who have been removed from a slum area, certainly for some period that he could fix, say, five, six or seven years. Some of the people whom it is proposed to house in the new area object to leaving the city area. I think the Minister should consider this matter and, if necessary, introduce amending legislation to enable him to deal with the cases of those people. I believe that they are suffering a genuine hardship. They are industrious people, genuinely seeking work, and if the Minister makes inquiries from his officials he will find that my statement can be fully substantiated.
There is another point that I want to raise in connection with the whole scheme of administration. First of all, I want to pay a tribute to the officials of the employment exchange, and particularly the officials in Cork. They are most courteous and administer the Act without fear or favour. To my own personal knowledge, and to the knowledge of those who have at any time visited the office, I can say that those officials have never discriminated in any shape or form. They have very onerous and, at times, difficult duties to perform. They are subjected, both in public and private, to all kinds of abuse from people who believe that it is the officials who withhold the payment of moneys from them, and that they are not administering the Act as it should be administered. Times out of number many public men, including myself, have told those people that the officials are simply administering the Act and that it is not their duty to dictate policy. I think that I am not making too big a demand on the Minister when I ask him, in the interests of the officials, that he should have suitable notices put up in the offices which would save the officials a good deal of trouble and abuse. I may say that the abuse does not come from the man genuinely seeking employment, but usually from the man who has never worked and does not want to work. I am well acquainted with the habits and with the lives of honest working men, and I know they are not the class of person who would abuse an official in any Government Department.
On Thursday, at a meeting of the Cork Board of Assistance, a number of cases were presented to the board by the chief home assistance officer. These were the cases of people struck off unemployment assistance. They were making application for home assistance. I, and other public men, feel that it is unfair to transfer the obligation of maintaining these people back on the home assistance authorities. Numbers of them were told that when the Unemployment Assistance Act became operative, the stigma of having to seek home assistance would no longer be put on them. The position to-day is that numbers of those people are automatically thrown back on home assistance—on the rates in Cork City and in other cities which are high enough already without the Government of the country throwing over what is a national responsibility on the local ratepayers. I emphasise that in view of the fact that when the Unemployment Assistance Act was being put through the Dáil it was trumpeted all over the country that the amount that was being spent on home assistance would be considerably reduced, if not altogether abolished.
I just want to say a word in conclusion in regard to a number of temporary clerks who have been appointed in the Department. The duties that they perform are almost the same as those performed by established officials. The Minister is aware of the rates of pay they receive and that little or no opportunity is given to them to get established. I think the Minister might consider introducing a system with which I was conversant for a short time, one that operates in the British Civil Service. There, when it was found necessary to employ men in a temporary capacity, a limited competition was held afterwards for the purpose of enabling them to get established. At the examination marks were allotted to each subject according to the number of years' service that each candidate had. The temporary clerks for whom I speak have proved themselves to be very efficient, and I think it is due to them that their cases should get proper consideration. The principal officials might be consulted, and if they are I think it will be found that they will endorse what I have said as to the efficiency and so on of those temporary clerks. Their case, I think, is deserving of the best consideration of the Minister and of the Executive Council. In conclusion, I hope that the Minister will give special attention to the position in Cork created by slum clearance.
