Vol. 88 No. 1
I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £266,670 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending the 31st day of March, 1943, for Allowances in kind to certain Beneficiaries under the Unemployment Assistance Acts, 1933 to 1940, the Old Age Pensions Acts, 1908 to 1938, the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Acts, 1935 to 1940, and the National Health Insurance Acts, 1911 to 1936 (No. 28 of 1939).
May I ask the Minister whether he has done anything to see whether food allowances could not be granted to all the children in the family, without restricting them simply to five children? That matter also arises on Vote 49—Unemployment Assistance.
No doubt the Deputy is aware that there is special provision for enabling local authorities to supplement the assistance given under the Unemployment Assistance Act, and also to provide food vouchers in cases not covered under the food voucher scheme associated with unemployment assistance.
It drives the family into the position that it applies for a certain number of food vouchers, which it gets through one particular machinery, and then has to apply for additional food vouchers through another machinery.
The position is that the State machine deals with general circumstances of families in need of assistance, while the local authorities' machine undertakes special investigation of the circumstances of individual families, and, as a result of that special investigation, augments, or decides not to augment, the State allowances.
But it has the particular effect that families which never had come in contact with the poor law schemes and who, in regard to whatever they are getting now under unemployment assistance, are linked to that through the unemployment insurance machinery.
The Deputy will understand that, as we are working on the basis of the Unemployment Assistance Act, there is no record of dependents over and above the number provided for in that Act.
But the machinery at the disposal of the people administering unemployment insurance benefit and unemployment assistance is surely big enough to enable particulars to be supplied to them with regard to the extra number of children. It is, I think, a regrettable thing at the present time, that the emergency should be used, in the case of people whose only relief contact with the State was through employment offices, to switch them over to the poor relief machinery as well. In the critical circumstances of the present time, when there is stress and a certain amount of mental agitation amongst the people, it is a very bad thing that a larger section of the people should be pushed back to the poor law assistance than would normally come into contact with it— especially when they never had experience of it before.
We must work on the basis of the Unemployment Assistance Act, or amend that Act.
I think the Minister ought to amend the Act, in that case.
It would be a big job.
I do not believe it would be a big job.
As the Minister knows, in very many towns there are people living just outside the urban boundary. There is no work inside the towns available for them. They have to pay the same amount for goods as the people in the towns, yet they are not getting any vouchers. The Minister says they can get them through the poor relief scheme, but these people never have been on the poor relief scheme and have no desire to be on it. I suggest that some means should be arranged for them to get something supplementary to unemployment assistance, and that the Minister should reconsider the new scheme. There are huge blocks of houses in various towns, just outside the urban boundary, and they should be under the same conditions as those inside the boundary.
In any scheme of national application it is impossible to prevent anomalies or to have different schemes for different areas. It is precisely because such anomalies exist that we have power to assist local authorities to supplement the provisions under the State scheme; and there is no reason why local authorities should not assist in reducing the anomalies.
If the Minister is in touch with local authorities, he must know that they will not give a food voucher to a person in receipt of unemployment assistance.
May I ask the Minister to revise the regulations regarding food vouchers?
In what respect?
In respect of people in receipt of unemployment benefit. There are some cases of families of ten applying for food vouchers.
We are basing the food vouchers on the Unemployment Assistance Act, which provides only for the payment of assistance in respect of dependents up to a certain number. Beyond that there is no record. We cannot alter that without, altering the Act and setting up new machinery for the investigation of the circumstances of individual families and for reviewing those circumstances from time to time. It is much better to put the onus on the local authority, which can carry out the investigation of individual cases and adjust the amount of assistance in accordance with the circumstances of such cases.
I would suggest that, if investigation has to be made and if the local authority has the officers for it, the investigation could very well be carried out by officers of the local authority and a certificate issued by them directed to the Minister's Department. That certificate of the local authority could be used to cover the issue of the additional vouchers.
And the whole purpose of that is to have the vouchers sent out by one body instead of by another?
Yes, and not to have introduced into a very stringent situation the additional irritation, that people feel they are allowed by the State to be driven into contact with the poor law relief scheme, where they never had to go before.
There is no other method.
That is all very well; but if you are pushed into the position of being dependent on poor relief, it is a very different thing.
