And, of course, the recipients of the higher rates of unemployment assistance living in the areas which have to contribute on a poundage basis expend their allowances within those areas. I think that, bearing this in mind, it is not unreasonable to ask the local authorities, within whose areas unemployment assistance is paid at the higher rates, to contribute towards the maintenance of this substantial advantage. Indeed, if this matter is to be put in issue at all, the question might well be raised whether more substantial justice might not be done as between town taxpayer and country taxpayer, as between one local authority and another, and as between the State and the local authorities in general, by making a uniform scale of allowances for the country as a whole, whether county borough or rural area, and leaving the local authority, if it wished, to supplement that State allowance to the extent it thought necessary, and, of course, to foot the bill accordingly. I wonder how that would appeal to the ratepayers in the Cities of Dublin and Cork and in the Boroughs of Wexford and Dun Laoghaire?
The House may be interested to see how it would work out in the case of Dublin, Cork and Wexford. In Dublin the estimated annual cost of paying unemployment assistance to residents within the city boundaries amounts to £435,391 per annum. If unemployment assistance were paid in the City of Dublin on the same basis as it is paid everywhere in Ireland, except in the five county boroughs I have mentioned and within the areas controlled by the councils and corporations of towns of over 7,000 inhabitants, the cost to the Exchequer of making that payment would not be £435,000; it would only be £217,695 per annum. Accordingly, the payment of unemployment assistance at the higher rates in Dublin costs £217,000.
What should the Corporation of Dublin contribute to that? Upon the basis of the relevant section of the Unemployment Assistance Acts, as they were originally interpreted, the Corporation of Dublin should contribute towards this additional expenditure of, you might say, £218,000 per annum, £171,000 per annum in round figures, showing a net profit on the transaction to the citizens and ratepayers of Dublin of something like £47,000 per year. What did the Corporation of Dublin pay last year? They ought to have paid £171,000, and last year they only paid £118,013. Mind you, they collected £171,000 from the ratepayers of Dublin for the purpose of handing it over to the Exchequer, and, instead of handing over the £171,000, they handed over £118,000. I do not think, and I am perfectly certain that the people of the country, when these facts are put before them, will share my view, that the Corporation of Dublin, if justice is going to be done to the general body of taxpayers in the country, is going to be permitted to get away with that.
What is the position with regard to Cork? Unemployment assistance is also paid in Cork at the highest rates permitted by the statute, and it costs approximately £111,000 per annum. If unemployment assistance were to be paid at the rate at which it is paid in the rural areas around Cork and in the rest of the country, it would only cost £51,723. The estimated annual difference between these two figures is about £59,330. That is what it costs the Exchequer to pay unemployment assistance in Cork City at the highest permissible rates. How much is the Corporation of Cork expected, under the statute, to contribute towards that £59,000? Less than half. It only pays £19,551. Last year, instead of even paying that £19,551, it only chose to pay a sum of £13,132 and, once again, the general taxpayers of the country, including by far the greater section of the unemployment assistance recipients who are paid at the lowest rates permissible by the statute, had to make good the deficiency. I do not think, when that fact is thought over, it will be agreed by anybody that there is any justice in the attitude which the corporations of the county boroughs and the boroughs concerned in this matter have taken up in regard to their obligations towards the general taxpayer.
In the case of Wexford, where unemployment assistance recipients are paid not at the highest rates permissible, but at the intermediate rates, and where an unemployed man with a dependent wife and five children would receive a payment of 17/6 per week, it costs us £12,017 to make that payment at the intermediate rates; whereas, if payments were made upon the scale at which we are permitted to make them in the rural areas, it would only cost £9,067, a difference of £2,950. How much does the Corporation of Wexford contribute to that £2,950? It should contribute £873, but last year it chose to withhold some of the money rightfully due to the Exchequer, and only paid £738.
That is the justification for this Bill. We cannot permit such actions to go unchallenged. For years the principal local authorities concerned in this matter interpreted that statute as we intended it to be interpreted when putting the Bill before the Oireachtas and as we told the Oireachtas it would be interpreted. For years, as I have said, they interpreted it in a manner in which it would produce, not the whole amount of the difference between what unemployment assistance was costing the Exchequer when it was paid at the rates appropriate to the areas concerned, but only some part. In the case of the wealthiest and largest centre of population in the country at about three-quarters of what it should cost. In the case of Cork and Wexford at about one-third of what it would cost. For years, as I have said, they continued to pay upon that basis. Then they choose to put another interpretation upon the section, and then, to the grave and serious detriment of public finance last year, they choose to withhold moneys which they alleged to have been wrongfully paid.
As I have already said, that issue might be settled in one of two ways, either by litigation or by legislation. But the Dáil is the taxing authority, and the Government in this matter is acting for the Dáil and the taxpayer. When these Unemployment Assistance Acts were being put through this House they were put through this House upon the definite financial basis that where, because of local circumstances, unemployment assistance recipients had to be paid at higher rates than it was possible to pay them throughout the generality of the country, then the local authorities in those areas would contribute a certain definite amount, and that certain amount was fixed at a definite poundage upon their rateable valuation. That was the basis of the Act. When other people choose to deny that basis, to put another interpretation upon the phraseology of the section which is not in accord with the interpretation placed upon it by the taxing authority, we in whose hands rests the power to pass legislation, to correct any misapprehension of the true meaning of the section, instead of wasting public money and frittering away public time in the law courts, can come to the Oireachtas to clear up the misapprehension and put the situation straight and plain before all the parties concerned.
That is the main purpose of this Bill. There are one or two ameliorations of the present situation in the Bill, not merely in regard to the local authority but in regard to the recipients of unemployment assistance or those qualified for unemployment assistance. I will deal with those in a few minutes. The main feature and the main thing about the Bill is the provision which is set out in Section 2, particularly in paragraphs (a) and (b) thereof, which may be referred to as the clarifying provisions of the Bill. It will be noticed that in paragraphs (c), (d), (e) and (f) of Section 2 of the Bill there is provision made in the case of four county boroughs and Dun Laoghaire for a reduction by a fixed percentage of the rateable value.
That reduction is made definite by paragraph (b) of this section. That reduction arises in this way: In relation to the County Borough of Dublin and the Borough of Dun Laoghaire, the expression "rateable value" is defined by Section 26 of the 1933 Act, but the main valuation under the Valuation Acts is deemed to be reduced by Section 69 of the Local Government (Dublin) Act, 1930, in the case of the hereditaments and tenements situate in these areas, rateable on the municipal rate. Similarly, in relation to the County Borough of Limerick, the valuation was deemed to be reduced by Section 28 of the Limerick City Management Act, 1934, for the purpose of payments to be made in the following financial year, 1936-37. Section 28 of the Limerick City Management Act of 1934 was not operative in the financial year 1934-35. The rateable value which the Limerick County Borough was required to contribute in 1935-36 was not reduced by this section, but the Act does act retrospectively. In this regard it is proposed to require a reduction in the rateable value of Limerick in 1934-35 for the purpose of calculating the payments for 1935-36.
I should like to make it quite clear that it is not proposed in this Bill to take away any of the reductions which were properly allowable under the original Act. On the contrary, the benefit of such reductions, as may be properly made, are to be provided in a form more favourable to the local authority. Paragraphs (c), (d), (e), and (f), to which I have referred, define that particular value to mean 98 per cent. of what would be the rateable value without reduction. This benefit, as I have mentioned, is to be given for the past as well as for the future. In 1938-39 the reductions under the original statute were 1.9 per cent. of the rateable valuation. We are now increasing that legitimate reduction so as to bring the payment down to 98 per cent. It was 1.6 per cent. in the case of the Borough of Dun Laoghaire and 1.9 per cent. in the case of Limerick. In all these cases, as in the case of the County Borough of Dublin, the legitimate reduction to be made in the rateable valuation will now be 2 per cent., leaving 98 per cent. to be paid. In the case of the County Borough of Waterford, this 2 per cent. reduction will also operate so as to reduce the payments to be made in the first and following financial years in which they are raised by means of the municipal rate. The same will apply to the County Borough of Cork when it likewise adopts the consolidated municipal rate. The extent to which the rateable valuations of these municipalities increase is to be seen, but the advantage to be derived from this standardised reduction will also increase.
Paragraph (g) of Section 2 of the Bill contains a not unimportant easement for the local authority. It proposes to enable the councils to use in the calculation of the amounts payable, any valuations as determined at the beginning of the financial year immediately preceding the financial year in which the payments are to be made but regard is to be had to valuations as determined on appeal on or before the 30th June in the financial year in respect of which the payment is due. In this way the benefit of any change made as a result of the appeals against the valuations is given to the councils in so far as these appeals are determined in the 15 months that will have expired when the first payments fall due. Provision is made in Section 4 of the Bill in the matter of payments by councils of amounts withheld. That provision with regard to amounts withheld or deducted by the councils is, I think it will be conceded, as reasonable as possible. The excess payments in any year will be credited against the payments in other years. Power is taken to enable payments due to be made by instalments. The full circumstances of each case will be fully considered when fixing the instalments to be made and the times of payment. Having regard to the difficulties encountered in checking the amounts payable by councils, the Bill by Section 5 proposes to have the rateable value on which the poundage is payable, settled in each case by obtaining as the final document for this purpose the certificate of the Commissioner of Valuation. This provides a simple method of obtaining the necessary information in a manner that leaves no doubt as to its accuracy and it is fixed beyond all possibility of dispute. The amount of each poundage which is payable in each case is fixed beyond dispute. Two further matters are included in the Bill, both of which are advantageous to applicants for unemployment assistance. Under the definitions of the word "unemployment" and of the word "day" in the existing Unemployment Assistance Acts, a person who obtains employment beginning one day and extending into midnight on the next day is not entitled to unemployment assistance for either day. It is desirable to bring the position under the Unemployment Assistance Acts into line with the position under the Unemployment Insurance Acts by enabling persons casually employed on night work to receive unemployment assistance for one or two days during portions of which they are employed, and Section 6 of the Bill now before the House enables the Minister for Industry and Commerce to make regulations for that purpose.
The provision in the Unemployment Assistance Acts which requires a person resident in an urban area either to have been resident in such area for at least one year immediately preceding his application for unemployment assistance or to have had three months' employment in such area during that year, was intended merely to discourage persons resident in rural areas from coming into those cities and towns where the higher rates of unemployment assistance are payable. This provision, it is believed, causes hardship to men who, having resided for many years in an urban area, are called upon to establish residence elsewhere for protracted periods to work or to search for work. On returning to what they regard as their home towns or cities, they have found themselves debarred from unemployment assistance by the existing provision. This causes irritation and, to some extent, induces immobility. To enable such persons to be paid unemployment assistance on returning to what they regard as their home towns or cities, the more flexible alternative of five years' residence in the area at any time is provided by Section 7 of the present Bill. Section 8 is a repeal section, and Section 9 deals with the short title, citation and construction.
I should like to remind the House that this is not the first time it has had an opportunity of considering the general principle enshrined in this Bill. Speaking last May, when introducing the Budget for the current year, I drew attention to one of the special circumstances which had aggravated the position of the Exchequer during the previous financial year and helped to bring about the deficit with which the Budget of the year closed, that circumstance being a deficiency of £68,000 which had arisen in the Appropriations-in-Aid of Vote 61 on account of Unemployment Assistance. As I pointed out to the House then, this deficiency in the Appropriations-in-Aid of Vote 61 arose through certain public authorities withholding payment of moneys due, under the Unemployment Assistance Acts, to the Exchequer. I said that "a Bill which will fully clear up the position in that regard will be introduced in due course". Later, in the same statement, in considering the monetary provision which would have to be made for the public services for the year, I said:—
"There is another sum which, in our present need, may be appropriated for the purpose of this year's Budget. I have already mentioned that a factor in making up the deficit of last year was the non-payment by certain local authorities of moneys totalling £68,000, which it was always intended they should pay to the Exchequer under the Unemployment Assistance Acts. I have also said that a Bill to clarify the statutory position in this regard and to provide for the due payment of the sums withheld will be introduced at an early date. In the circumstances of the present year, I do not think that it would be right to saddle the general body of taxpayers with a burden of £68,000 when that amount which was withheld to their detriment in the last year will be paid over to us in this. I am, therefore, bringing it in against the year's expenditure."
I have read the debates on the Budget statement with some little care, and I have not been able to find that, in the course of these debates, anyone in any section of the House had the hardihood to challenge the principle enshrined in this measure—that is to say, that local authorities should contribute to the relief of unemployment in accordance with the original intention of the Oireachtas, that they should pay upon the basis on which they paid in 1934-5, 1935-6, 1936-7 and 1937-8, and that those who, in the year 1938-9, levied upon their citizens a rate the public purpose of which was to enable them to fulfil their commitments to the Exchequer in respect of unemployment assistance should now pay over to the State the money which they collected from their own ratepayers. That is the principle of this Bill. That is the purpose which it is intended to secure, and I am perfectly certain the House will not reject it.