asked the Minister for Local Government and Public Health if he will amend the regulations concerning free plots to include persons in receipt of national health insurance benefit, old age pensions, and widows' and orphans' pensions.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Free Plots.
The Acquisition of Land (Allotments) (Amendment) Act, 1934, was passed to enable unemployed persons to be provided with allotments at nominal rents and to supply, free of charge, seeds, manures and implements to such persons. It is intended to benefit persons who are employable but who are, for the time being, unable to get work. Persons in receipt of old age pensions, or in receipt of benefit under the National Health Insurance Acts, are in receipt of allowances by reason of their old age or ill-health and cannot be regarded as being employable. Persons in receipt of pensions under the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Acts are not debarred from receiving plots as "unemployed persons" if they are, in fact, unemployed and if their incomes do not exceed £52 a year in a county borough or the Borough of Dun Laoghaire, or £39 elsewhere.
Does the Minister realise that there is very little difference between these various classes of people—people who are unemployed and who are in receipt of unemployment assistance or home assistance and those who are in receipt of old age pensions, insurance benefit or widows' and orphans' pensions—but people in receipt of national health insurance, old age pensions or widows' and orphans' pensions are deprived of the advantages of free plots? I think they should be all put in the same category. Perhaps the Minister will reconsider the position?
I am afraid not, Deputy. We provide all these plots for the purpose of having them utilised to the full in order to produce food. A person in receipt of an old age pension is deemed to have passed his labour, and a person who is suffering disablement cannot be expected to cultivate these plots properly.
Mr. Larkin
Does the Minister consider that any man of 70 years who is quite capable of doing it should be denied the right to cultivate a plot?
I have just given the answer, Deputy.