I think the amendments Nos. 163 and 164 were discussed together.
Public Health Bill, 1945—Committee Stage (Resumed)
Debate resumed on amendment No. 164:—
In sub-section (4), line 53, after the word "final" to add the words "but subject to an appeal to a judge of the Circuit Court in which such person resides."
They were, and the section, too.
Amendment No. 164 is before the House for decision. It asks for an appeal.
Question put and declared lost.
Question proposed: "That Section 34, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
In other words, the section in all its nakedness, is before the House. This is the eleventh day that we have sat here in Committee, discussing this measure, trying to see that the interests of the public health on the one hand and the interests of the individual on the other hand would be properly attended to and within the full resources of the country. During all that time we have had to go through our work without the assistance of a single Minister. The Parliamentary Secretary has sat here and we came up to climax after climax. Yesterday, we approached another of the important climaxes we come to in the type of legislation we are dealing with at present.
We are told briefly that Section 34 is policy. What it will cost nobody knows. The Government have not even made an attempt to say what it will cost, but it will be the responsibility of the ratepayers to face this cost when the measure passes through the House. The amount of the cost will be determined by a decision of the county manager in each case, and the appeal will be to the Minister. That means an unknown cost, to be paid by the ratepayers, determined by the manager and an appeal to the county manager's present master, the Minister. If Hitler were proposing a motion here, the person who would come in with the proposal would have a few ribbons, a few spurs, a few medals, or a bit of braid. This climax comes at the end of ten days of discussion, in a way unprecedented in the Parliamentary procedure of this country. This Parliament has been asked to carry on without a Minister daily to come into the House and speak for the Government and give any information in regard to certain aspects of the operation. The people who are going to bear this burden are people who already have had raised on them, by a very considerable amount, the burden of rates.
I do not know whether the war circumstances can be blamed in any way for raising the burden of rates on the people, but, before ever we came to the war years, the total amount of rates raised as a result of the present Government's policy, had very substantially increased. It increased from £4,677,000 in the year ended March, 1932, before the Government came into office, to £6,288,000 in the year ended March, 1939, the last year before the war. In the last year for which we have any information, the year ended in March, 1945, the total amount collected was £7,900,000. In addition to the amount by which the rates will be raised under the various provisions that have been made, and over which the local representatives will have no authority or control, under the sections of this Bill preceding Section 34, we now come to Section 34, the support of which, the Minister proposes, will be entirely the responsibility of the local rates.
We have had only one voice raised from the Government Benches, and that was Deputy Allen's. He suggested that it would be unreasonable that the Government would not make a contribution of at least 50 per cent., and he suggested even more than 50 per cent. of any expenditure that might arise under this section. The Parliamentary Secretary quickly held him up and said all this expenditure was going to fall on the local rates. It is a travesty of Parliamentary institutions. It makes it very difficult for people who are conscientiously determined to do their duty by attending here and discussing the measures that come before the House when, in an important matter like this, the whole of the Government Party can be completely silent behind the Parliamentary Secretary. The Parliamentary Secretary can tell the House that it is policy, that he does not know anything about the expenses. He does know that no public representative on a local body can affect the things decided in this measure in the giving of compensation or assistance to the people. It will be done by the county manager.
When any individual has a grievance, it will be adjudicated upon by the Minister, with the implication that if it is possible for local representatives to find out how they can interfere with the dictatorial powers of the manager or the Minister, they will be wiped out under the other Bill which is running as a kind of stable companion to this Bill. I suggest we are witnessing as outrageous an attack on Parliamentary institutions as ever we had in this country. I challenge everybody sitting behind the Parliamentary Secretary to intervene in the debate, at least to the extent to which Deputy Allen intervened, and tell us whether they consider that the whole of this expenditure should be borne by the rates or not.
I would like to say that, as between local taxation and national taxation as a means of finding the cost of this Bill, I would not be prepared to make any great difference, were it not that, to my mind, the great evil in local taxation lies in the fact that, at the present time the valuations on which local taxation is based have no real meaning in them. If we take the word value as the basis of the word valuation, then our valuations are completely out of touch with any real meaning of the word value, and the result will be that, if the charges under this Bill are to be put on local taxation, the present disparity in the way the rates strike on the people will be further increased.
National taxation has this to be said for it, that the incidence of it bears some relation to the proportionate ability of the various shoulders which have to bear it. Local taxation has not that saving grace at all. Every further burden on the ratepayer, every increase in rates, merely adds to the disparity. I wonder the Parliamentary Secretary has not considered it from this point of view. He is merely taking the easy way out. Where he has a blank cheque to be signed, he thinks it will be easier to get it signed by the county managers than by the Minister for Finance. One thing that Ministers for Finance seem to have in common is, that they cast a sort of awe on their colleagues when they go to look for money. I am quite sure the Minister for Finance will take two looks at the Parliamentary Secretary if he says "I want you to foot this bill, but I cannot tell you how much it will be." So the Parliamentary Secretary takes the easy way out and says "I will not have that difficulty; I will put it on the Parliamentary long finger and pass the bill on to the local ratepayers."
I should like to make it clear that when I say valuations are out of touch there is every basis for that statement and I do not believe the Parliamentary Secretary could challenge me. Take a country shop, a fairly prosperous one. I think you will find that in the majority of cases the valuation lies somewhere between £15 and £20. A premises with that valuation would be fairly commodious. The man who runs that shop has a certain standard of living. If you go to the country, among the farming community, and find a farmer with the same standard of living, I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that his valuation will be somewhere near £100. Possibly that is an under-statement. The result will be that if a 1/- is added to the rates, the shopkeeper will contribute £1 and the farmer with the same standard of living will have to contribute £5. That is what happens when you put further charges on local taxation, and I think the House should be very wary of adding further burdens to the rates in this way, more especially as no one seems to know just what this particular burden is going to be.
The House should resist in the strongest possible manner this attempt to put further burdens on the rates. If the valuations were such that there was some semblance of equity in them, then I would have no objection, because it does not really matter if one is a taxpayer or a ratepayer, and it would not matter which type of taxation was used to collect the money. I suggest that the system of local taxation is archaic and to add further burdens to it will make matters really bad for the local taxpayer. It seems to me that the Government, in the present circumstances of valuation, should be very reluctant indeed to add anything further to the rates. They should take their courage in their hands and do something about valuation, when any opposition I would have would fall to the ground.
I hope Deputy Sheldon, before he gives any support to the views he has expressed on valuation, will pause and consider. It is not that the Government would not like to fall in with his views, and have not reached the stage of bringing in a Bill dealing with revaluation. In his innocence, Deputy Sheldon seems to think that the purpose of a Revaluation Bill is merely to equate valuation, I would be inclined to wager that if the Government proceeds with the Valuation Bill, the farmers and everybody else will never forget it. Far from the valuation of a man with £100 valuation being brought down to something more in keeping with that of a shopkeeper, whose valuation is £20, it will probably be found that both valuations will be stiffly increased. I am not at all admitting that there is any foundation for the disparity that the Deputy attempted to show, between a country shopkeeper and a farmer with £100 valuation. What I want to do is to warn the Deputy that, knowing as I do, perhaps, a little more about the gentlemen who sit on the Front Benches opposite, if the Valuation Bill comes on it will be one to increase all valuations. If Deputy Sheldon examines the question further, he will find that if valuations were as correctly assessed as they could be, there would be big differences, whether people pay rates or taxes. As far as the great number of taxpayers is concerned, and the sources from which the bulk of the taxes comes, taxes only come to be paid when people have made a profit over and above what is allowed for the ordinary standard of living, but they pay their rates irrespective of whether they make a profit or not. The Deputy might look into that aspect of the matter.
As far as the section is concerned, with the exception of paragraph (4), the method by which appeals are to be decided, I have no quarrel with what it seeks to do. I do quarrel with where the burden is going to be placed. We have not got from the Parliamentary Secretary any indication as to what this is going to cost. Let me say quite frankly that I think it would be impossible for the Parliamentary Secretary to give even an approximate idea of what it is going to cost. He admitted last night that he was satisfied that the operation of this section would place a further heavy burden on the ratepayers. There can be no question about that. It was only before we adjourned last night that we began to see how wide-flung the implications of the section are, and how costly it may be, with the very elaborate machinery which will have to be set up in the Department of Local Government to examine and dispose of appeals. There is also the question of the various schedules the Parliamentary Secretary spoke about, as well as establishing whatever standards will have to be provided in connection with them.
I want to draw attention to this fact, that this section is going to put a heavy burden on the ratepayers, not only because of its operation, but because of its effect on Section 13. Under Section 13 local authorities, at the direction of the Minister, have to provide and to equip whatever institutions he thinks are necessary. I am not holding this against him, but I venture to suggest that when this section becomes operative and compensation is being paid to the people affected— and this is probably one of the good things—there will be ready compliance with it. The Parliamentary Secretary will admit that. One of the fears I had since the introduction of this measure is that we are going to provide machinery, whether voluntary or by force, so that people will be by order committed to institutions which, at the moment, we have not got. The fact is that we have not enough beds for people who are clamouring to get into them in the various hospitals and institutions. Remember the great variety of diseases covered by the section, from mumps to tuberculosis. I would not go as far as Deputy Allen went, and suggest that there would be a temptation for people deliberately to go out of their way to become infected. There will certainly be this temptation, that if a man or a woman becomes infected, or if they know that they are probable sources of infection, or if a local medical practitioner believes that they are a probable source of infection, then with the knowledge beforehand that they are going to suffer no pecuniary loss, and that their dependents will be maintained, they will be much more ready to comply with the provisions of this measure than if this section were not in it.
Therefore, it seems to me inevitable that there will have to be very heavy expenditure on the part of local authorities to provide institutions and to equip and maintain them and also to provide for the enlargement of existing institutions. There is no question about it, we will have to have erected in this country, if this Bill is to be made properly effective, a greater number and variety of institutions if the isolation and segregation of the various types of infectious diseases are to be carried out as they should be.
I should like the Parliamentary Secretary even to attempt to make a case as to why the cost of this section should not be borne out of central funds. I think there is hardly a Deputy, certainly there is no Deputy who has had any experience on local authorities, who is not deeply concerned at the moment at the very steep increase in rates. Deputy General Mulcahy quoted the rates for the last year for which returns are available— the year ending March, 1945—just over 12 months ago. I think it was approximately £8,000,000—£7,900,000. Having regard to the increases in rates since, covering practically every authority in the country, I am afraid that when the returns of rates for this year become available they will be shown to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of £10,000,000. Remember, that will be before the costs under this measure begin to fall on the local authorities.
I want to make that clear, because in one of our newspapers, within the last week or two, there was a special article written by, I presume, a trained newspaperman, in which he said that the rates were climbing very steeply—he was referring, of course, to the proposed increase of 2/6 in the rates for Dublin City—but, of course, that was due in the main to the operations of the new Public Health Bill. Of course, that has nothing whatever to do with it, and if this Public Health Bill was never passed, if it never got one step further than the stage it has now reached in this House, the rates of the City of Dublin will be 23/6 in the £. What they will be next year or the year afterwards, when this Bill becomes operative, nobody knows. We have to face this fact: that there are approximately 500,000 people, one-sixth of our total population, in the City of Dublin. Because of the crowded conditions under which they have to live, they are, perhaps, in greater danger of becoming infected with diseases that are described for the purpose of this section as infectious diseases, than are the people in other parts. I ask Deputies to ask themselves what percentage or proportion of that 500,000 people is likely to be claiming compensation under this section. I mention the City of Dublin simply in order to make the picture easier to review. You can get some picture in that way rather than by taking the country as a whole. I venture to say that a fairly large proportion of that 500,000 people will be affected and will be claiming compensation under this section. I have very little hesitation in saying that this section alone, apart from any of the other services provided under this Bill, is going to place—as the Parliamentary Secretary admitted last night —a very heavy burden on the already over-burdened ratepayers.
Remember, there is this difference. Deputy Sheldon was quite right as far as his argument went about the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister for Finance, but the Minister for Finance would have to come before this House and this House would have to vote the money and this House, if it thought fit, could refuse to Vote the money, whereas the local authority has no such power. So that, so far as the expenditure of this money is concerned, the members of the Dublin Corporation or the Tipperary County Council or any other county council in Ireland, or urban council, will have no say whatever. It is a matter to be determined by the county manager in the first instance and, if there is an appeal, by the Minister.
I want to say again on this section, as I said on Section 13, dealing with institutions, that we ought not to be asked to pass a completely blank cheque. We ought not to be asked to vote for a section without being able to measure in some way what the cost of that section is going to be and, particularly, we ought not to do that in view of the fact that the people who are going to be forced to pay for this section have no say in the matter and no means of checking. Remember, it is the county manager and the Minister—nobody else. I would be glad if the Parliamentary Secretary would try to advance to the House reasons as to why the expenditure under this section should not be met out of central rather than local funds.
All sections of the House are agreed that this section constitutes a far-reaching social reform. It provides maintenance for persons suffering from infectious diseases and their dependents. It is a reform which has been advocated for a considerable time and which I think will contribute in a very large measure to the reduction, at any rate, of the incidence of infectious disease. The question naturally arises as to why this House, having decided upon that far-reaching reform, should not also shoulder the burden of financing that reform. The most objectionable feature in connection with this section is the fact that, while we seek to do what is desirable and what is popular, we place the whole burden of paying for it upon an entirely different body—the local authority—and through them upon the local ratepayer. I believe this tendency willingly and cheerfully to propose heavy burdens such as this and to place responsibility for them on the shoulders of other people will have to be discouraged and discontinued or, ultimately, representative government will completely collapse. It is one of the safeguards for the citizen in a democratic country that the Parliament which makes laws and initiates expenditure must also undertake the unpleasant task of trying to find the necessary finance by taxation. Here we have a steadily pursued policy of doing the things which the people desire and demand, but evading the unpleasant responsibility of finding the money. A Government is severely tempted to adopt this course.
There is always a temptation, but I do not think that a Government should be so weak as always to fall for that temptation, as the Government has been falling steadily, over a considerable number of years. I know it would be unpleasant for the Parliamentary Secretary to have to turn to the Minister for Finance and tell him that he has to raise whatever money is required to finance this section. But why should he take the easy way out by putting the whole burden on the local authorities?
What will happen now is that the Government and this House generally, having agreed to this provision, can say: "We have adopted a very far-reaching social reform; we have provided for the maintenance of all people suffering from infectious diseases and their relatives and dependents, and we demand popular support for having done so." But the unfortunate county councillors and city councillors will have to bear all the odium for increasing the rates in order to finance this section. In this matter, the unfortunate city councillors or county councillors have no option whatever. They cannot refuse to strike the necessary rate or provide the increased money. Therefore, we have a position which, I think, was never envisaged under the democratic system by which this Parliament can completely evade responsibility for raising local taxation. It is nominally passed on to the county councils and the city councils, but in reality it is passed on to the county manager, who is an official of the Local Government Department. The county councillors and the city councillors are merely made scapegoats to bear the odium and to take all the abuse that will be flung at them for raising the burden of taxation on the ratepayers. That is not a system which is compatible with democratic government. It is a system which ought to end.
It is gratifying to see that in the Fianna Fáil Party there are, what I might describe as, active pockets of resistance to this policy. Deputy Allen, who I must say represents an intelligent and well-informed section of opinion in the Fianna Fáil Party, particularly in connection with local government, has stood out against this policy. He has demanded that the central authority should at least bear half of the cost of this particular section. He has asked if this is a Public Health Bill, why the central authority should not bear half the cost. A precedent has been established that in most matters relating to public health the Dáil provides 50 per cent. of the cost. Deputy Allen very logically asked why this precedent is not followed in regard to this particular section. I think the Parliamentary Secretary would be wise to take the advice of Deputy Allen in this matter.
I agree entirely with Deputy Sheldon that central taxation is, to a very large extent at any rate, more equitably distributed than local taxation. I agree that the burden of local taxation is inequitably distributed. But I am not prepared to advocate any system of revaluation, knowing what I do of the present Government's outlook and policy on the matter. I am prepared to go further and say that no measure of revaluation can make local taxation equitable, because there will always be people who, because they own no rateable property, will be exempt from all liability to local rates, and no system of revaluation can bring them under a liability to pay rates. Both from the constitutional point of view and from the point of view of equity and justice, I think it is very wrong and undesirable that we should pass this very heavy burden on to the local authorities and to the ratepayers. After all, we enact this legislation; local authorities have no say in the matter of enacting it; and I think it is criminally wrong that honest, decent, respectable people elected on local bodies should have to bear all the odium and all the abuse which they will inevitably get when they are called upon to increase the rates in order to provide for the financing of this section.
I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary one categorical question: why have we departed from the policy of financing public health that is in operation at present? We all know that local authorities were recouped 50 per cent. of their expenditure under that heading. The only explanation we got, so far as this section is concerned, from the Parliamentary Secretary last night was that it is a policy matter. This is a very serious matter for the country and for this House. Is this House going to agree to an unlimited bill, a bill which the Parliamentary Secretary was unable to give us an estimate of, except to say that he was satisfied that it was going to be a heavy burden? Deputy Cogan tells us that it is a far-reaching social reform. When we begin to think about it and dwell upon it, I wonder whether it will be such a far-reaching social reform. It is true that it is necessary to provide the means that this section intends to provide for people unable to maintain themselves and their families in certain circumstances. But, does the Parliamentary Secretary believe that the capacity of the ratepayers is unlimited, and that without any hesitation he and his Department can continue to throw back on the local authorities and the ratepayers ever-increasing burdens? Is this the new sort of economics that was foreshadowed by Mr. Seán T. O'Kelly when he was Minister for Finance: that we are not going to put any more burdens on the taxpayers; that the new burdens are to be flung back on the ratepayers; and that the impositions will be placed there by the creature of the Minister for Local Government, the county manager?
So far as rural Ireland is concerned, the heavy burdens that are bound to arise when this legislation is enacted will fall on the primary industry of this country. In the ten years before the war, 45,000 people had left the land. We have been told in a booklet published recently on national income that a further 11,000 have followed the 45,000. I submit that with any further increases in local taxation it is inevitable that more people will leave this country. The type of social reform which this Bill will bring about will be the export of more human beings. That will be the inevitable consequence of piling up taxation and increasing rates. A social security policy was outlined by Dr. Dignan, who was in charge of national health insurance and had some years' experience of administration on that committee. Without any attempt to examine the possibilities of implementing the outlines given by his Lordship, they were turned down. It was not possible to work such a scheme, although we know that Great Britain is going to build up a very elaborate social security policy. Our only social security policy is to pile on taxation regardless of where it falls or whom hurts. I agree with the Deputies who suggested that, if the Minister for Local Government had to find this money from central sources and had to go to the Minister for Finance for that purpose, that Minister would not be prepared to give him a blank cheque. He would want a close estimate of what it would cost. The Parliamentary Secretary is throwing this charge back on the ratepayers and, as the County Management Act affords machinery for so doing, there is no necessity to go to the trouble of making even a rough estimate.
A man who is a source of infection need not have an infectious disease at all. He may be only a contact and, as Deputy Allen suggested last night, he may, because of his circumstances, be drawing national health insurance. If he realised that he would get considerably more money if he proved himself to be a contact, he might, ultimately, become a contact for that purpose. It is not necessary that he should be certified a contact by the public health authority or by the county medical officer. If he is a contact and a source of danger to the public, he is entitled to benefit under this section. The potentialities of cost under this section are staggering. I am amazed at the calmness of the Parliamentary Secretary. The only excuse I can find for it is that he has not to face the searchlight of the Department of Finance. The Custom House can throw back the cost on the local authorities and they need not worry.
I was amazed to hear Deputy Sheldon say that it did not matter much whether this charge would be met out of the rates or out of taxes if the inequalities of valuation were ironed out. I am afraid that Deputy Sheldon has not considered the matter. If this charge were imposed on rates, a great many people would make only a very small contribution to it, although they might have very substantial incomes. So far as rural Ireland is concerned, the charge will fall, to the extent of almost 100 per cent., on the primary industry, if the imposition is placed on rates. Whether the charge be on rates or on taxes, burdens of the sort contemplated and burdens such as those contained in recent legislation are intolerable.
The Department of Local Government and the Minister and Parliamentary Secretary should be strongly condemned for failing to examine the possibilities of providing some form of social security by other methods than direct taxation or impositions on rates. The burden on rates has grown substantially in recent years. The leader of the Opposition has pointed out that, from 1932 up to last year, the burden had increased from £4,667,000 to £8,000,000. There is no doubt that rates for the present year will amount to substantially more than £9,000,000. To that must be added the provision to be made under this piece of legislation for increased staffs for the nursing and medical services and sufficient institutions to provide facilities for treatment. Then, the big problem of providing housing for the people must be faced in the near future. In face of those circumstances, it ought to be the policy of the Department of Local Government to avoid, so far as possible, the throwing back of these heavy burdens on the ratepayers. It has been the definite policy of the Parliamentary Secretary's Department to transfer burdens at every possible opportunity to the rates which should not be borne by the rates.
We must press for information from the Parliamentary Secretary as to why, in this case, there has been so complete a departure in the policy regarding the cost of public health services. That policy applied to the treatment of tuberculosis, venereal disease and various other diseases and 50 per cent. of the expenses was recouped to the local authorities by the Department. That is the policy now and has been the policy for many years. Why, in introducing a reform of this sort, should there be a complete departure from the policy which has been in operation up to now? If this were a small matter, I have no doubt that the burden would be shared. Because it is a heavy burden, as the Parliamentary Secretary has admitted, it is not to be shared; it is to be thrown back on an already over-burdened community. It is astounding that the Parliamentary Secretary should come in here and say that he was unable to give even a rough estimate of what the cost was likely to be. I can only explain that by taking into account the possibilities under the Bill. A man who is a mere contact can apply for benefit under this section. Because there is a legal responsibility on him to take precautions to safeguard the public health, he can remain at home, say he is a contact and he will be entitled to benefit. The Parliamentary Secretary should reconsider this whole matter. Not alone should consideration be given to the question of where the money is to be raised, but the section should be tightened up. It is far too wide and too loosely drawn.
As the section stands, it is bound to impose a very heavy burden. Regardless of where that burden is going to fall, it would be very injudicious to permit this section to pass into law. If a Deputy puts down an amendment to have any portion of this charge made a charge on central funds, it will be ruled out of order. The only thing we can do is to appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to reconsider the whole matter, to point out to him that the burden will be too much, and that instead of being a social reform, it will prove another burden that will drive more people out of the country. If taxation becomes heavier, and local rates become too burdensome, the inevitable consequence will be that there will be a tightening-up of money. Money may be free enough at the moment, but I think it is the history of every war that, a short time after the war, the world has to experience a period of economic difficulty. That period cannot be so far off now. In making plans of this sort, we ought to envisage what is likely to happen in the next three or four years. If these burdens are permitted to fall, and a situation like that develops, then the position will be intolerable for the ratepayers and taxpayers of the country.
The principles embodied in this section constitute, as do many of the principles embodied in other sections, further examples of the socialistic tendency of present Government policy. It can be demonstrated that the actions of the present Government, in the line of socialism, are far in advance of those of self-confessed socialistic governments. Into even the most private aspect of the lives of individual citizens of this State, the Government, through the measures they have passed through this House, have not hesitated to enter. By the provisions of this Bill, as I repeatedly said in discussions on this measure, the personal rights and personal dignities of the individual have been infringed in the name of the community. It is claimed that private rights must be subordinated to the rights of the State; that individual liberty must give way to public interest. All that is nothing but the merest veneer of State socialism.
In this section we have a masquerade of social reform. The Government had every opportunity of considering an extensive scheme of social insurance which would enable individual citizens themselves to participate in such a scheme and not find themselves by the operation of Government policy in the position which they will find themselves in under this section, with their relations on the rates. The people of this country for many years have considered pauperism as the greatest stigma that could be placed upon any man. No greater stigma could be placed on any man than to say that he or his family were on the rates. Here, masquerading as social reform, people who are put into institutions without their consent, or people who are supposed to be, in the opinion of some unknown medical practitioner, a probable source of infection, are snatched away from their families, and their families are thereupon placed upon the rates as paupers.
This particular section not merely places a liability upon the rates for the upkeep of an afflicted person and his family, but it goes further as was pointed out in the debate yesterday. In addition to involving a large expenditure for an unspecified amount on the rates it will involve a considerable increase in expenditure from general taxation. It will be necessary, if this section is put into operation in its present form, to have at least a completely new branch in the Department to deal exclusively with Section 34. The Parliamentary Secretary refused all amendments yesterday designed to secure that the amount of the expenses payable to a particular individual for the maintenance of his family would, in case of dispute, be determined by a court. The Parliamentary Secretary persisted in the attitude that all disputes and differences must be determined by his Department. That will involve a large increase in staff. The Parliamentary Secretary stated yesterday that each case must be considered on its merits, so that each case must be the subject of an individual file. Staff will be piled upon staff in that way, with a consequent increase in taxation. What justification there may be for that, it is impossible to say. The section as it stands is merely a masquerade of social reform. It places a stigma upon people who may hope to derive any benefit from it. It will place an undue burden on the ratepayers and, in addition, it will cause an unspecified, but a very considerable, increase in expenditure from general taxation.
I feel there is very little I can add to the discussion, but I should like to emphasise my view that this section embodies one of the radical departures in the Bill which will involve a very considerable increase in local taxation. This Bill must be considered closely in connection with Section 27 of the Local Government Bill. As Deputies are aware, that section gives the Minister for Local Government power to order a local inquiry where it appears to him that the rates which have been struck are insufficient. Deputies must now realise, considering this section and earlier sections of the Bill, the reasons which prompted the Department to introduce a section such as Section 27 into the Local Government Bill.
I think a number of Deputies, when that Bill was going through, failed to realise sufficiently the gravity of the step they were taking. I further think that it is only when this Bill comes into operation that we shall realise the full effect of Section 27 of the Local Government Bill. I think there is no Deputy on any side of the House who is not in favour of adequate provision being made for people suffering from either a serious or infectious disease when such people are unable to provide for their own maintenance. But, it is an entirely different matter, when the system which it is proposed to operate under this section continues one of the most objectionable features of the old poor law system, namely, the maintenance of people directly out of the rates. As Deputy Costello has said, the people of this country for a long time have objected, and rightly so, to the poor law system which it must be said has, in many respects, been changed almost out of recognition. We see in this section the retrograde step of returning again to a system under which a section of the community, unable to maintain themselves or their dependents, will be maintained directly out of the rates.
Now, without going in detail into a system of social insurance, or a system under which people could be maintained by other means, it is desirable to look at schemes adopted elsewhere. In considering the alternative schemes proposed for this country, it is desirable that under whatever scheme is adopted the participants or their relations would have to contribute. That would remove entirely the stigma that attaches to the rate-aided system which this section will entail on the beneficiaries. In addition, this section, if adopted as it stands, will increase probably beyond estimation at the present time the number of civil servants that will be required to administer it. The section is widely framed. It provides that any person who is suspected of being a probable source of infection may be detained. The detention may be for a short, or a protracted period, but whatever the period is, if the dependents of that person are not able to maintain themselves out of their income they are to be maintained out of the rates. All cases of that kind will have to be investigated, to see if the family is in poor circumstances, and if so, what provision should be made for its support, during the period of detention of the suspected member.
With the exception of the section dealing with the mother and child scheme, this particular section has, I think, far wider ramifications than any other section in the Bill. In view of that it is not unreasonable for Deputies to ask that a sensible estimate of the cost should be given by the Government. The operation of this section will inevitably entail a considerable increase in the rates. It is a cardinal principle that, when a burden is thrown on the people, they should be informed as accurately as possible of what the weight of it is likely to be.
Every member of the House agrees that the principles enshrined in the section are desirable in so far as they aim at providing the means to enable a stricken person to maintain himself and his family. There is, however, objection from every part of the House to the method which the Minister is adopting for raising this money through the rates only, thereby further increasing the heavy burden which the ratepayers are at the moment carrying. We are all satisfied that, if there were sufficient brains in the Department, a scheme could be devised and operated through the national health section that would give the persons that we are anxious to help sufficient means to maintain themselves and their families if stricken down. The Most Revd. Dr. Dignan put such a scheme before the Minister's Department and showed him how that could be done. This section is just an effort at patchwork, to cover up the Department's failure to adopt Dr. Dignan's scheme. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to go through that scheme again, and see if it is not possible to adopt a portion of it instead of this section. By doing that, people in good employment would be afforded the opportunity of contributing through the National Health towards their maintenance if stricken down, and would not have to depend on the rate-paying community to take them out of their difficulties.
I understand that some Deputy said that it made no difference whether the money for this Bill came out of the rates or out of taxation. As everybody knows, there is a great difference, especially in a city like Dublin, whether these reforms are paid for through taxation or out of the rates. Under this section the Minister will appoint inspectors to apply the means test when a member of a family is stricken down. The inspectors will pry into the private affairs of the family to find out what each member is earning.
All that will be put against the maintenance allowed for the principal breadwinner, who will also be the rent-payer. In a good many cases, instead of providing a family with the means to enable it to carry on, it will just get a small contribution. Who is going to pay for all this when the rates go up? The small room-keeper, in the poorest parts of our cities and towns, and especially here in Dublin. That room-keeper may be getting poor law relief or unemployment benefit, and his or her rent will be increased by a few pence per week which will have to be taken out of the home assistance or the unemployment benefit. If the cost of this Bill were borne on the Central Fund, that unfortunate room-keeper would be saved that amount.
Take the block of buildings in Foley Street, Dublin, which is off Talbot Street, where the rooms are 3/- a week and are occupied by hardworking people with large families, as well as by people who are not in employment and are getting unemployment benefit. The moment this Bill is put into operation, the rates will go up as the result of further demands to be made by the Parliamentary Secretary. He has already made a demand of 1/- for the upkeep of patients in Dublin hospitals, and I understand there is to be a demand from him for another 9d. in the £ or so before the year is out; with the result that the rent of these rooms in corporation dwellings will go up by 3d. or 4d. per room on people who are unable to pay it and whose unemployment benefits or home assistance will not be increased to meet it. In the case of some of our cottages recently built for working-class people, the rents will be increased in order to meet the demands of those in the Custom House.
If it were on a 50-50 basis and if we could get a contribution from central funds towards the cost of carrying out these provisions, the increase in the rents of these people would not be so high. When one sees the millions given to the hospital funds from the Hospitals' Sweepstakes, one wonders why there should be a demand on the rates of Dublin to pay for the cost of necessitous patients. We hold that some of the proceeds of the Hospitals' Sweepstakes, which everybody thought were to be devoted to public health, should be utilised in connection with this Bill, and if there was a grant from these funds and a grant from the central funds, together with a payment of one-third by the ratepaying community, the burden would be shared equally, but so far neither the hospital funds nor central funds are to be called in to pay any share of the cost.
I put it to the Parliamentary Secretary that he and those in his Department must sooner or later consider the advisability of slackening down and of refraining from imposing increased burdens on the ratepaying community day after day. In the case of tuberculosis patients especially, who are lying in sanatoriums, unable to earn anything, the constant fear that eviction notices will be served on their families has the effect of retarding their progress and I welcome the suggestion that a landlord should have no right to serve an eviction notice where a person is in Crooksling or any other sanatorium; but I want the Parliamentary Secretary and those who support him to recognise that the ratepaying community can no longer pay.
People in Dublin are paying high rents for rooms, and this means an increase in those rents. My Dublin colleagues may as well face it—when this Bill passes, the moneys which will have to be collected from the Dublin ratepayers, in conjunction with the demand which has been made on Dublin for the upkeep of hospital patients, will mean another couple of shillings on the rates. I do not plead for those who can afford it. What I fear is that the rents of tenement rooms and blocks of flats in the City of Dublin will go up and that these people will be called on to pay sums of money which they are unable to pay. The occupants of a very large number of Dublin tenement rooms are on relief. Will their relief payments be increased by 6d. per week to enable them to pay the 6d. which will be demanded from them by way of an increase in rent to carry out this Bill?
I say that we have in this section a deliberate effort at patchwork instead of the adoption of the Dr. Dignan scheme in full, and the Parliamentary Secretary should stay his hand and give a chance to the people for whom I plead. As well as having to meet the cost of this Bill, every Deputy knows that the cost of living is going up rapidly and that the assistance which these people get is not to be increased to enable them to meet it. When potatoes go up in price by 6d. per stone or milk by 1d. per pint, these people on home assistance and unemployment assistance get no corresponding increase in their payments, and here we are to-day adding further increases. I know that what will happen in this city in the course of another couple of months as a result of Government demands on the corporation is that the rents of most of these people will be increased. An increase of 3d. per room sounds small, but to a person with 10/- a week it represents a substantial sum.
The Parliamentary Secretary last night made a statement on an amendment to this section in which he gave us his views and his ambitions. I must say I was struck by the sincerity of the Parliamentary Secretary in that regard. I think he wanted to keep the administration of disputes in his own hands and that he wished to do that in order to benefit the people concerned. That was the tenor of his speech, but I do not think it will work out that way, because I think the machinery of a Government Department will break down the wishes of any Parliamentary Secretary in that matter. It would be wiser and better to rely on the courts.
If I interpret correctly the Parliamentary Secretary's wishes and ambitions, he will, presumably, start off with a sympathy, perhaps, a bias, in favour of the person who is ill and who is suspected to be a probable source of infection, but even if the Parliamentary Secretary is able to carry it out, and I do not think he will be, he will not be there for all time, and the matter of doubts and disputes, and the questions arising out of them, will be thrown for all time to what I may call the whim of the Minister or Parliamentary Secretary. None of us knows what will be the views of the Minister from day to day and still less do we know what will be the views and opinions of Ministers in the future. I would suggest that the best way to ensure that there would be a regular continuity of policy in this connection would be to seek the assistance of the courts, which are accustomed to carrying out a continuous policy, in a way to which Ministers of State and Parliamentary Secretaries are not accustomed.
There is another matter I would put before the House and I do not want to put it forward in any partisan spirit. Nevertheless, I think any fair-minded person will admit that this danger exists. Enormous powers for good or ill are being placed in the hands of a Minister. That is essentially political power. It may be used in years to come as a reward for political adherence and as a punishment for political opposition. That is all I will say on that matter, but it seems to me that it is a very real danger in connection with this section.
To move on to the question of payment, which arises under this section, the burden of maintenance of a person who is a probable source of infection, or who is actually infected, is thrown upon the local authority. At the present moment so many extra charges have been thrown on the local authorities that they do not know where they stand. In Dublin, we have had the extra cost of hospitalisation thrown on to us. Now we will have this extra charge, and nobody knows, not even the Parliamentary Secretary, what the cost is going to be. I do not think anybody can tell. Certainly, on this side of the House we have had no information on which we can base any figures whatsoever.
In fact, the local authorities are being asked to sign a blank cheque and I must say I view that with a great deal of alarm. The rates will go up quite enough, irrespective of any extra charges. Anyone who is in contact with the local authorities knows that, owing to the increased cost of material and increased wages, the rates are bound to increase; but these quite new charges will send them rocketing to heights we do not know of at present. I submit that a fairer way to deal with these charges would be to make them a charge on the Central Fund instead of on the rates.
Though I dealt with this matter in some detail last night, I feel I cannot allow the section to be put without further contributing to the discussion—not indeed that I have any burning desire to prolong the debate unduly. Let me say right at the beginning that I find myself in agreement with those Deputies who complain that the section as drafted is open to abuse. I shall consider carefully between this and the Report Stage any suggestions that have been made for tightening up the machinery of the section and any further suggestions that may be made if the discussion on the section does not close immediately.
We are all at one, apparently, on the general principle as to the urgent need of making provision for the dependents of the people who will be affected in one way or another under the terms of this Bill. I do not think any Deputy from any Party or any section of the House suggested that it was not necessary to make such provision. Last night, Deputy Hughes said it was essential, so we start off, anyhow, on that foundation. We have that common ground and it becomes a question as to the best method of making the provision that everybody agrees will constitute an essential feature of our plans for the control of infectious diseases.
We have confessed a lot of things in the last couple of weeks and have got quite confidential with one another. I think that has all helped and so. I would assure Deputies listening to me that I do not get any pleasure out of hurting anyone, no matter what the appearances may be. Anything I have to say is not said for the purpose of hurting anyone. So, without meaning to hurt anyone's feelings, I must say I feel there has been a certain amount of loose thinking on the part of the critics of this plan. Not only is it possible, but I suppose it is likely that many of those Deputies think that the loose thinking has been on my side. There will always be that degree of difference of opinion.
The soft word turneth away wrath.
We have turned away a good deal of it in the past week. People talked about free social services of one kind or another. There is no such thing, there is no free service for the poor or for anybody else. For any service that is being provided for the poor, the poor are contributing certainly their share and probably more than their share. That is a fundamental fact. Whether we are going to find the money by way of rating or by way of taxation, do not let anyone think that the poor are not going to contribute their share. The position I would like to have fully accepted in this House and outside is that the poor, by reason of their contribution to our social services, are fully entitled to any services that we provide for them. I think it is time it was accepted that there is no stigma attaching to any service we are providing for our people. The services we are providing for our people are services that they are entitled to as a right, whether they are financed out of local rates or financed out of central taxation.
The difficulty here is the difficulty that a Government that tries to bring about improvement in social conditions is usually faced with, and always will be faced with. Everybody will tell us that the new services are desirable, the new services are necessary, the new services are essential. But the representatives of the different sections of the community will invariably say, "Wherever you go for your money, do not come to me." The people who speak for the ratepayers say "Give us the new services, but do not increase the rates." On the other hand, we will be asked in this House, and outside it, and through the various organs that go to form public opinion, to reduce taxation. We must produce services, we must produce costly services, and we must reduce the rates and taxes at the same time.
Well, it is a difficult proposition. If we are to reduce taxation in order to be in a position to finance these new services, well, we have to tackle the problem of under what particular heading we are going to cut down expenditure. I have been asked by some Deputies, more than once in the course of this discussion, to give an estimate of the cost of Section 34. Some Deputies have been frank and honest enough—and I am glad to have heard it from the Opposition Benches—to admit that it is not possible for anybody to give an estimate. How could I forecast, or how could anybody forecast, the extent of the incidence of infectious disease in the coming year, in the year after, or in any other year?
The Parliamentary Secretary has the records of the last 20 years on the subject.
How could anyone forecast the extent of the problem of securing treatment of persons in the early stages of tuberculosis? We do not know. If anybody can tell me, I would be glad to know. We cannot know until we go out on a more intensive case-finding campaign. I believe we will be surprised—I say that from professional knowledge rather than from any other point of view. I believe that if we are able to institute a mass radiography service in this country, and make it available to the community, we will be surprised as to the extent of the tuberculosis problem.
We will be surprised at the size of it?
Yes, the magnitude of it. While I say that, I do not think that I can reasonably be asked to give any figures that could be in any way reliable in anticipation of the carrying out of such a survey. But clearly, as I said last night, if we are to make such provision for the breadwinner, particularly in the case of tuberculosis, and for his dependents, if we are to ensure that reasonable provision will be made for himself and his dependents, in order, if you like, to induce him to submit to early treatment, we have to pay. There is no alternative to it. It is not necessary that I should elaborate that, or waste the time of the House in drawing a picture that is as familiar to Deputies as it is to me of the breadwinner who has been found in a very early stage of tuberculosis, but who feels fit to work and believes he is fit to work and who is fit to work in a sense, but who, if he continues to work, we know will submit himself to treatment at a time when he is late. That man must be induced to give up work, and it is sound economy to do it, because, instead of leaving his family a burden on the community, perhaps for the rest of their lives or for a considerable time anyhow, instead of leaving himself a chronic invalid, if he can be got under treatment early enough the treatment will be simple, the treatment will be satisfactory. The vast bulk of these people can be cured if they are got early enough. That is the kind of problem I am trying to tackle.
We have the other problem that is closely related to it. We have the tuberculosis patient who is infective. We have brought him into our institution. We have placed at his disposal the best service that medical science can provide. We have not been able to cure him. He is reasonably well, but he is not able to earn a living. He is not able to provide for his dependents. Even if he were able to provide for his dependents, if we have not been able to render him sputum negative, if we have not been able to get rid of his infective condition, we are only remaining in a vicious circle if we allow that man to go out and work in factories or workshops in close contact with other people.
What are we going to do? We are either going to continue to provide the fuel that gives us this tuberculosis problem, or we are going to say, taking the long view, that it is sound economy to provide for this man and for his dependents in order to ensure that, at any rate, he will not continue to spread the disease amongst his fellowmen. We are all in agreement on that. I may be wearying the House, but it is a subject that is very close to me.
You are not wearying us at all—not one bit.
We have the third type of case so far as tuberculosis is concerned, and it is the problem of tuberculosis that is behind this section more than the problem of the other diseases, because most of them are of short duration; most of the ordinary infectious diseases are of short duration, and, unless for the occasional typhoid carrier, I am pretty certain there will not be any heavy expenditure arising out of the other diseases. We have early cases that we can deal with without sending to an institution at all if we can get them to go home and stay in bed for a few months, provided there are any reasonable facilities for segregation in the families, under medical supervision. We have cases which will have to go to institutions for proper treatment. We also have cases that have been in institutions, and cannot be cured. We cannot keep them in institutions for the rest of their lives, we will have to let them out after having trained them in certain hygienic habits. We have then done all we can do for them in the medical sense. Whether we send them home or not, we have to make provision for their dependents.
Deputies say to me: "We are in full agreement with you. We are, in fact, enthusiastically in support of the general sentiments you have expressed, but do not put a burden on the rates." Taxpayers tell us: "Do not put a burden on industry." There is something to be said for that. We could have a very interesting discussion on the economic aspects of this matter. The thesis has been often advanced that if income-tax, for example, continues to rise, a stage will shortly be reached, if it has not already been reached, when people who have money to invest in industry—thereby providing employment, and paying wages which enable breadwinners to maintain their families—will consider that if the State keeps taking more and more of every £ earned it would be safer not to invest at all. The investor might say: "If I put the money into industry I risk whatever money I have, and if I make money, the State will take almost the whole of it. If I do not make money I lose all my capital." Deputies have probably given as much consideration to economic problems as I have, but I have no doubt, social reformer and all as I may be, that there is an upward limit to taxation, as there is an upward limit to rates. Let me say that under our income-tax code it is not the wealthy alone who contribute income-tax. Income-tax constitutes a burden on people whose incomes are not by any means excessive. I do not have to labour that point.
Is the Parliamentary Secretary foreshadowing the Budget statement?
I am not foreshadowing anything except what is involved in this Bill. The Minister for Finance can handle the Budget. If I got all I wanted off him, he would have a more difficult problem. Other people will, perhaps, feel that it is quite a sound suggestion that other commodities might be taxed for the purpose of financing a service such as this. When you start searching around you have to ask yourself this question: "If we had to tax any essential commodity that is in general use, will the poor not contribute more than their share as compared with the rating method of raising money?"
Is it on what is in general use by those living in rooms?
Tobacco, tea and sugar. Let us examine this question as far as it is possible to do so. If we tax any essential commodity to finance this or any other measure, I submit to the House that, proportionately, the poor will pay more of any tax on an essential commodity than they will pay if we raise the corresponding amount of money by rates.
Outside of sweepstakes.
Outside of sweepstakes. Deputy Sheldon has views which are shared by others on rateable valuations. Taking them as we find them, the shopkeepers that he cited in the course of the discussion constitute a pretty small proportion of the community.
But a useful tax-collecting machine.
We have many useful tax-collecting machines, no doubt, and we require them all. Let us assume for the sake of discussion that the product of 6d. in the £ on the rates would be required to finance Section 34.
It would be more.
For the sake of discussion, let us assume that the product of 6d. in the £ is approximately £300,000. How would such a tax operate on the poor as compared with the better off? Bear in mind always that as a rule the high ratepayer is also the high taxpayer. A man whose property was valued at £100 for rating purposes would pay 50/- in the year, and a man whose property was valued at £5 would pay 2/6 each year towards financing this service on the basis of 6d. in the £. To me it is more attractive as a social policy to go to the rates for the financing of such a service as this than to go to central taxation, because I believe it is a sounder social policy although I know that the contrary can be argued. I believe, as far as the impact of the burden on the poorer sections of the community is concerned, that the impact is heavier on the poor by the taxation method than by the rating method. Mention has been made here about a stigma. I have dealt with that already and I will not delay the House on it now.
I should like to remind the House that a considerable proportion of the anticipated burden under Section 34 would, in the ordinary course of things, if this section were not incorporated or if this Bill were not passed at all, fall upon the rating authority. The public assistance authority has obligations—statutory obligations—to the poor for the reasonable maintenance of the poor in their respective areas and it is time that the poor and those people who speak for the poor realised that they have a statutory right and that there is no stigma attached to the money that is raised by rates, no more than there is to the money that is raised by taxation. I have yet to meet a public official who felt there was any stigma connected with the salary that he was paid by the rates. He is on the rates, the same as anybody else, with a right to his salary, and there is no stigma attached to it. I have never heard, in recent times, that there has been any reluctance to avail of our public assistance institutions throughout the country, our county hospitals, and so on. Deputies would be surprised to know that the proportion of people who pay the full cost of their maintenance in these institutions is very small indeed. I am not criticising that; I am not finding fault with it; but I do suggest it is time we got away from the question of stigma. One more word on the question of stigma: the local authorities, under the public health law, have a statutory obligation in this regard at present and Deputies who are interested in this matter might refer to Section 274 of our old friend, the Act of 1878. That section reads:—
"Where any person sustains any damage by reason of the exercise of any of the powers of this Act, in relation to any matter as to which he is not himself in default, full compensation shall be made to such person by the sanitary authority exercising such powers; and any dispute as to the fact of damage or amount of compensation shall be settled by arbitration in manner provided by this Act, or if the compensation claimed does not exceed the sum of £20, the same may, at the option of either party, be ascertained by and recovered before a court of summary jurisdiction."
The District Court.
Let me finish this point. I am sorry for keeping the House so long, but it is an important matter. I do not want any Deputy to drop into the trap—it is not a trap—but to drop into the fallacy, anyhow, of stating that that old Act has not been in operation. Deputy Alderman Byrne, I think, could tell the House that that Act has recently being availed of by the Dublin Corporation, on the advice of their legal adviser, to make compensation to a suspected carrier. Again, it is not a new innovation. Again, the law has already there. Once again, the law has actually been operative, and, please, do not accuse us of all these nasty things that you have suggested because we have introduced this principle into our new Bill.
The Parliamentary Secretary once again, as he has on many occasions during the discussion of this Bill, has tried to suggest that there is nothing different in the section now before the House from the section which he is repealing. There is, of course, a great difference.
Would the Deputy excuse me for one moment. We are not repealing Section 274 of the 1878 Act.
That is what I thought.
We are not repealing it, but it does not make any difference.
So far as that part of the Parliamentary Secretary's speech which dealt with getting after cases in their early stages, particulary tubercular cases, is concerned, there is complete agreement on all sides of the House. But the Parliamentary Secretary's speech has only emphasised the tremendously wide implications of this section and has only emphasised that the cost will be very great. He said that when we go out on a more intensive campaign of case-finding he believes that we will be surprised, amazed, at the magnitude of the problem, in other words, at the tremendous number of cases that will have to be dealt with, if the problem is to be dealt with effectively. That opens up again to our gaze the size of the financial obligation, not only under Section 34 but under Section 13. because if we are going to be surprised at the magnitude of the problem, and if we have to get those cases in the early stages, then the local authorities will have to embark upon the construction and the enlargement of institutions that will involve the expenditure of enormous sums of money.
May I say that the case finding refers to tuberculosis?
Yes, quite. The Parliamentary Secretary of course, knows more about it than I do but, so far as I know, our existing accommodation is totally inadequate to deal even with the problem as we know it at the moment. Is not that so?
That is right.
So that, when this measure is put into operation and when, as the Parliamentary Secretary said, in pursuance of what is set out in the Bill, a campaign of case finding, of getting after tuberculosis in its early stages, is initiated, we are going to find that we will require perhaps double, treble, quadruple the present accommodation for tuberculosis patients alone. I think that is quite possible. Remember, that in itself is going to put an enormous burden on local rates, followed by the tremendous load that will be put down by the operation of Section 34. I invited the Parliamentary Secretary to make a case, if a case could be made, as to why the financial obligations under Section 34 should not be met out of central funds. I concede that he at least attempted to make a case but I do not think he convinced anybody in the House because there was nothing that he said on that aspect of the matter that might not be said in relation to every section and every bit of machinery in this Bill. While not for one moment trying to counter what he said with regard to the effects of increased income-tax and corporation profits tax, and so on, on industry and consequentially on employment, while not disagreeing for a moment with that, let me say that rates may work in that way even to a greater extent than taxation. Industry may be struggling, industry may be just barely breaking in, barely able to pay its way, to pay its wages and something reasonable on the capital, but it does not pay taxes until such time as it gets over a certain line, whereas, whether it is making money or losing money, industry will have to pay rates. That is the essential difference. Let me try to disabuse the Parliamentary Secretary's mind when he seems to think that an increase of taxation is going to bear more heavily on the poor than an increase in rates. I do not agree with that at all. There is this to be said, and this of course applies both to rates and taxes, that so far as some of our biggest ratepayers and taxpayers are concerned, they can, in some measure, some of them in a large measure, pass on the increase to the ordinary consumer. But the ordinary consumer, whether as taxpayer or ratepayer, cannot pass it on to anybody else. So that, if you increase the rates, particularly, say, in the City of Dublin, the large ratepayers in O'Connell Street or Grafton Street may be able to unload that increase on to their consumers, and the customers will find that not only have they to pay the increase in their own rates, but the increase in the other man's rates as well.
Let us get this into our minds, that an increase of rates is a direct and very substantial increase in the cost of living. You may be creating another sort of vicious circle. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that as a result of the operation of sections of this Bill the rates in the City of Dublin have to be increased by 2/6 or 3/- in the £ in addition to the 2/6 that is threatened at the moment. Is not that going to have a very big bearing on the amount of nourishment which people on the poverty line can purchase for themselves and their families? If that is going to lead to still further under-nourishment, is that not only creating new cases to be dealt with under Section 34?
This is the result of the Government's turning down flatly, without any examination, the scheme of social insurance put up to them. No matter what may be said by the Parliamentary Secretary or anybody else, this is part of the Government's alternative scheme of insurance. The only difference, of course, is that, instead of being paid for out of the rates, under the scheme of social insurance the recipients would have themselves contributed directly to the fund. Whether this is paid for out of taxation or out of rates, they might contribute in that way more than they would contribute directly by way of contribution. I am one of those who appreciate the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of making anything in the nature of an accurate estimate. The difficulty of making an accurate estimate is not confined to the number of cases that may arise. There are other factors that enter into that. It would be very interesting if we could get from the Parliamentary Secretary what idea, if any, he has in his mind as to the standards of compensation that are to be paid because, of course, that will have a big effect on the cost which will fall on the local authorities.
The only objection that I saw raised to the scheme of insurance prepared and published by the Bishop of Clonfert was that he did not give any idea of the cost, that he had not gone into the costings. That can be applied with greater force to this section, with much greater force. There are other objections which could be advanced. I do not want unduly to prolong this, but the Parliamentary Secretary has used one phrase which increased my fears still further. He said it was more attractive to him to go to the rates than to go to the Central Fund.
As a social policy.
That it was a more attractive social policy. If that is the Parliamentary Secretary's conception of a social policy and how a social policy should be financed, then it is only adding still further to our fears of what he has in store for us in future. However, it is only as we move along with this Bill, it is only as we get a little more information from stage to stage, that what is really in this Bill becomes more clear to some of us, and, I think, is becoming apparent for the first time not only to a lot of people outside, but to a lot of Deputies. Many Deputies, and indeed a great number of people and some of the newspapers, could not understand why Fine Gael raised any opposition to the Second Reading of this Bill. Now that some of the features of the Bill are becoming more clear, perhaps they have a clearer idea of why we refused to allow this Bill a smooth and rapid passage through the House.
I think this section more than any other section perhaps demonstrates the absolute need for a complete and very searching examination of this Bill. When we are faced with a statement from the Parliamentary Secretary that he cannot measure the size of the problem that will come to be dealt with by this section, that he cannot measure within any limit the size of the financial provision which will have to be made by a local authority, then I think the House ought to be very slow indeed to pass a section that will place upon a local authority a burden which, I think, most local authorities will be unable to bear.
Again, the Parliamentary Secretary talked about the obligations that were already on local authorities and the provisions that they could make; about there being no stigma attached to being on the rates; that he did not believe any official of a local authority ever felt there was any stigma in accepting his salary. All I can say about that is that we can go back to the time of the old boards of guardians when there was a great difference between a doctor getting his monthly salary cheque in an envelope and the people lining up in a queue outside the door of the outdoor relief officer, as he was called, before the public gaze waiting for home assistance. I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary, and I am glad to be able to say it, that a lot of the old antipathy to public institutions and hospitals run and financed by local authorities has died out. Personally, I should like to see it completely wiped out. People go into local hospitals and institutions much more readily than they did in the old days. That is all to the good. But there is no use in saying that there is not in the minds of the people, rightly or wrongly, a belief—it is a belief held generally all over this country—that there is a certain stigma in having to go on the rates in the sense of having to look for home assistance.
Then, again, we must remember that, when the Parliamentary Secretary talks in this regard, about a local authority, he is not talking about a corporation or a county council, but about a county manager. In relation to the sort of obligation which is here placed on the local authority, the members of the local authority have no powers good, bad or indifferent. It is a function completely reserved to the manager. The only persons who can determine any question under Section 34 are the county manager and the Minister.
The Parliamentary Secretary referred a few moments ago to a campaign of case-finding at a very early date. I want to know what his intention is if he finds a number of cases which require treatment. In the City of Dublin, we have a waiting list of 40 men and 42 women for sanatorium treatment. Between men, women and children waiting to get into such places as Peamount, Newcastle, Cappagh and Crooksling, there are upwards of 500. Before he engages in case-finding, will he deal with the cases immediately before him and provide temporary accommodation for those who are awaiting sanatorium treatment? This provides me with an opportunity to remind him that there are from 500 to 600 persons in Dublin waiting for sanatorium treatment. I remind him of that in the hope that he will provide a temporary building to deal with those cases.
Major de Valera
Is not that a matter for the corporation?
No; it is a matter for the Government.
Major de Valera
What is the corporation doing?
The corporation sanatorium is overcrowded. We were waiting for the Minister's sanction to go on with other buildings and, when we got his sanction, we had no materials. I am glad that Deputy de Valera gave me an opportunity of saying that what I want the Minister to do is to buy some mansions or big buildings and give those 82 persons who are on our waiting list an opportunity of getting treatment before he commences his case-finding campaign. There is plenty of money in the Hospitals' Fund to buy some of the mansions now available, convert them into temporary accommodation and give people a chance to live.
Major de Valera
What are the proposals of the corporation?
Are we to let them die? I suggest that you should buy up some of those mansions, convert them and give these people an opportunity of getting treatment.
We have spent a considerable time on this section. The House and the Parliamentary Secretary are beginning to realise that it is a very important section. We have got this result from the discussion: it is admitted that the section is too loosely drafted and too widely drawn and that it will have to be redrafted. That is something gained. I was not convinced by the contribution of the Parliamentary Secretary to the economic aspect of the question. I put one question to the Parliamentary Secretary and he did not attempt to answer it. Why have we completely departed from the method of financing public health services? Why have we decided to discontinue the recoupment of local authorities to the extent of 50 per cent. for expenditure on public health services? Before we finally dispose of this section, I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will answer that question.
The local authority were never recouped in respect of maintenance charges for dependents.
This is the same as the tuberculosis service.
The local authorities were never recouped in respect of payments to dependents.
Were there any payments to dependents?
If there was any payment, it was under the public assistance code.
And we are going to place it under the public health code?
Without the stigma of public assistance.
It will be a statutory right.
The Parliamentary Secretary told us that the increase in cost might not be so substantial, that there was a certain amount of provision for reasonable maintenance by the local authorities at present. I am not so sure that provision is made for reasonable maintenance in all cases. I doubt whether reasonable maintenance was provided under the Home Assistance Acts. I think that the provision there was against destitution, rather than for reasonable maintenance. I do not think that the Parliamentary Secretary would suggest that the few shillings provided by home assistance for families is reasonable. It is merely a provision against destitution. There is considerable difference between such provision and what is envisaged in this Bill. We have got some idea from the Parliamentary Secretary as to what the cost is likely to be. He suggested that a rate of 6d. in the £ would possibly cover it. That would amount to £300,000 for the whole country—a substantial burden to place on the rates. The Parliamentary Secretary said that it would be better to put that on the rates than on an essential commodity such as tea or sugar. I do not think that any Deputy suggested that there should be a tax on an essential commodity. The Parliamentary Secretary appears to overlook the fact that he is placing a tax on a very essential commodity—the land. That is one reason why I have a very strong objection to the proposal. In the last analysis, that is bound to have repercussions and may result in further unemployment. In dealing with this whole matter, the Parliamentary Secretary did not convince me——
I did not hope to convince the Deputy.
I wonder if he has convinced himself, because he let the cat out of the bag. He said that, if the Minister for Finance were prepared to meet all the demands by the Parliamentary Secretary, he would have a much bigger problem in preparing his coming Budget. Having failed to get his demands from the Minister for Finance, the Parliamentary Secretary decided that the burden should be placed on the ratepayers.
There are other demands than this.
The Parliamentary Secretary should consider the continuance of the present policy—dividing the burden. If he would meet us to that extent, it would not be so bad.
The Parliamentary Secretary spoke at length on a number of topics. Many of them had nothing to do with the problem we are discussing. He talked about loose thinking in the earlier portion of his speech, which was more suited to a crossroads than to the House, because we are trying to get at the facts, so that we may feel that we have taken decisions after reasonable consideration of the facts. The next part of his speech dealt with the necessity for getting rid of tuberculosis. During Deputy Byrne's speech, there was a regular barrage of interruption, presumably to cover up the fact——
Because he was playing to the gallery, as he always is.
——to cover up the fact that the progressive proposals from Dublin Corporation and Peamount to deal with the housing and treatment of tuberculosis——
Does the Sanatorium Act not deal with that?
The Parliamentary Secretary has urged that people suffering from tuberculosis should be taken away from their normal work and treated properly. That is a change from the time when in part of Peamount Sanatorium a kind of Papworth scheme was carried on, where persons suffering from tuberculosis were able to work at their trades and earn a living. The Parliamentary Secretary shut that down because it was alleged that it was not paying. At that time, the Federation of Irish Industries undertook to provide the necessary £200 or £250 per annum to cover the loss that had arisen but the Parliamentary Secretary would not think of losing money on that excellent institution and he shut it down. Now people are going to be forced to go into these institutions and I hope that in some of these institutions at least some kind of scheme will be operated whereby those detained there will be able to work at their trades and earn their living while so detained. These things as I say are a welcome change.
After a good deal of pressure, the Parliamentary Secretary has lifted the veil on the question of the possible cost, at any rate by implication. It was necessary for a Minister to come in here when the Money Resolution was being moved to cover the comparatively small amount of administrative expenses required under this Act. The amount may be large enough when the Act comes to be operated but, as compared with the total cost put on the rates, it will be small. The Minister for Lands had to come in to move the Money Resolution. Again the Financial Motion, under which certain charges are imposed on food-makers, had to be moved by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. Now the veil, as I said, has been lifted a little by the Parliamentary Secretary who has asked us to assume that the cost of this provision will be 6d. in the £ or approximately £300,000. From such calculations as I have been able to make, I imagine that the cost will be about £300,000, without touching on the tuberculosis cases at all. The Minister quoted earlier an estimated cost of £50,000 under this Bill in connection with the provisions dealing with the mother and child—that is 50 per cent. of the total cost. Anybody who has given any thought to that matter believes that the figure will not be as low as that, that it will be substantially more. We get the Parliamentary Secretary suggesting a figure of £300,000 as a basis for the cost of this scheme. I repeat that I estimate that the scheme will cost that amount without taking into consideration tuberculosis cases.
The Parliamentary Secretary says that it is an attractive social policy to base this expenditure on the rates. We have had criticism, both as to the basis upon which rates are raised and the areas in respect of which rates are raised, from the Minister for Local Government and yet the Parliamentary Secretary passes over that consideration entirely. He says that social policy in order to be attractive—I do not know from what point of view— has to be based on the rates. Very good. As I say, we are in the peculiar position that no Minister has appeared to argue that matter. That is reducing Parliamentary procedure, from the point of view of finance, to a nullity. The Parliamentary Secretary has spoken a lot about the stigma that does not exist in relation to the assistance people receive from rates. I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary what the procedure is going to be locally in carrying out an examination of the social and economic position of a person whose family will be entitled to assistance from the local authority under this section. What officer is going to carry out an examination of the condition of the family or is going to report on the type and the amount of assistance that the family or the person's dependents are to receive?
The tuberculosis medical officer.
So the tuberculosis medical officer on the one hand is to be the assessor of a person's requirements for maintenance and on the other hand the assessor of his income. The tuberculosis medical officer, who will be the person having the medical care and the responsibility for medical examination of a patient, as well as examining his organs and his health generally, will also have to examine his purse. An attractive social policy! Before we leave this section that is a matter that should be developed. I wonder if the Parliamentary Secretary is entirely correct when he says that the tuberculosis medical officer is to estimate a person's means and, by doing so, will be the person to make a recommendation to the county manager as to how much a family or the person himself should get? The general question of social insurance was also raised.
I do not see how that arises.
In dealing with this measure——
In dealing with this amendment.
This is one of the sections which, by its financial provisions, is cutting the ground from under any reasonable proposals for having a systematic scheme of social insurance set up in the country. The more you take groups of people out of a social insurance scheme and deal with them through the rates or through taxation, the more you are restricting the grounds that can be covered by a social insurance scheme and the more effectively you are preventing anything like an insurance scheme, on the necessarily broad basis that such a scheme should possess, from being brought about. The Bill proposes to take the mother and the child up to 16 completely away from any touch with a normal social insurance scheme. They are going to be provided for, partly out of the rates and partly out of the taxes. Here you are taking people afflicted with infectious disease and having provided for their detention, their maintenance and their treatment in institutions, you are providing in this section for the maintenance of their dependents. That should be a necessary part of a comprehensive social insurance scheme and I say, by making these provisions, you are utterly preventing the creating of a proper social insurance scheme.
Take the Parliamentary Secretary's proposals in this measure, that a bread-winner will get sufficient payment to maintain his family if he is taken away with tuberculosis or any other infectious disease, and then consider the position of a bread-winner under the national health insurance scheme who, during illness, gets 15/- a week to maintain his family. Let us assume that we would desire, as I think we naturally would, to secure for the dependents of a person who was attacked by a non-infectious disease and thereby prevented from providing for his family, the same standard of living as we are now asking the rates to secure for the dependents of a person suffering from tuberculosis, and what do we find? That the person not under the national health insurance scheme is going to be granted more than the 15/- a week.
This is not national health insurance.
It is cutting across it.
Possibly, but it might cut across a lot of matters not open to debate on this section.
We are dealing here with the class of people who may suffer by reason of the fact that the bread-winner has become affected by an infectious disease. In our discussions on that, we surely cannot shut our eyes completely to the dependents of a person, suffering from a disease which is not infectious, who are finding it very hard to maintain themselves.
In view of the fact that the section deals with infectious diseases, I do not see how the position of people, not so suffering, is relevant.
The section deals with the taking of money in the form of rates from the pockets of the people. That is done through the operation of the rate-collecting machine. The money so collected is applied to maintain the dependents of those suffering from infectious diseases. The more money that is taken in the form of rates the less there will be to get from the people under an insurance scheme to enable them to maintain their dependents when a member of a family is suffering from a non-infectious disease. As Deputy Costello said this morning, you are driving and driving and driving the position of this country into a purely socialistic State, so that the dependents of a person suffering from an infectious disease have to look to the county manager and the Minister to make provision for them under this section. At the same time you do nothing, by way of a financial scheme, to provide that the family of a person suffering from a disease which is not infectious will be able to maintain themselves.
That does not come under this section.
The effect of the section is to do that. I do not think that we should pass the section without adverting to that matter, and, therefore, I want to ask the Parliamentary Secretary for further information on two points: (1) what is the process by which the Department is going to investigate the financial condition of people to whom this section will apply; (2) while making this type of provision for families of persons suffering from infectious diseases, does he propose to do anything to assist the families of people suffering from ordinary sickness?
The Parliamentary Secretary would not be in order in discussing measures for the relief of such people.
I want to submit to the Chair that this section is part of a substitute scheme of social insurance which is being planned and submitted to the House by the Government. I also submit that the amount of money to be paid by a local authority under this section will be determined to some, if not to a large, extent, by the amount paid out by the National Health Insurance Societies perhaps to the same person, and that the two things are closely connected.
If this is part of a scheme of social insurance, I presume the other parts of it will come before the House for consideration. The practice on a section has been to deal with the section and not with matters that might have been in order on the Second Reading of the Bill, This section deals deliberately with the maintenance of persons suffering from infectious diseases.
The House is labouring under the disadvantage that the Government's scheme has not been presented to it as a whole, but in bits and scraps.
We will deal with the bit that we have.
Major de Valera
Arising out of the remarks of previous speakers, I think that on this and on every section of this Bill we have got to face up squarely to this very simple fact, that if you want social services you will have to pay for them. With all the talk, there is the danger that that very simple fact may be forgotten. Everybody will sympathise with the solicitude of Deputy Byrne and others for the dependents of those mentioned. Nobody will sympathise more with them than the people on this side of the House. The efforts of the Parliamentary Secretary in this and in other Bills, which cater for the public health and for the treatment of infectious diseases, testify to that. The money required for all these purposes has to be found somehow. There are only three ways in which it can be got: (1) central taxation; (2) by getting it out of the rates, and (3) by means of contributions. Social insurance has been mentioned, but no matter what scheme you adopt the money will have to be got. The reason why I refer to that is this: that it seems to me that when, from the far side of the House one Deputy attacks the Parliamentary Secretary because he is not doing enough in the matter of the provision of money, another Deputy, on the same side, because he feels that the attack is being pressed too much, gets up and says to the Parliamentary Secretary that he is spending too much money.
I want to say to the Deputies opposite that they cannot have it both ways. They should be honest on this question. The question of public health is a serious one and should not be utilised merely for the purpose of scoring points like that. Let us face the facts squarely and honestly, and let us not mislead the country either. To a certain extent, the responsibility is on us here to give a lead to the country on these social problems. Let us be honest with the country and tell the people that it is desirable to have these services, but that if we are to have them they will have to be paid for. That is the fact. We will do more good if we realise that and then sit down quietly to solve a practical problem.
It may be argued that in this particular case an increase in rates is being caused. The question is: are the services worth it? Is it desirable to have these provisions for dealing with public health? During all the opposition to this Bill, I do not think any member of the Opposition has said: "No, we do not want these provisions", and I think that if Deputies look over the speeches made on Second Reading and during this Committee Stage they will find that everybody wants these provisions. The question is how to pay for them. The net question then is: if you are going to have the services, where is the money to be found? If you are going to find it by central taxation, what does it mean? It means a tax on something, and if you propose to bring in the money required in that way, it means a tax on some common commodity, such as tea or sugar. If you tax tea and sugar and the necessaries of life, you are going to take, primarily, from the least well-off members of the community.
If, after consideration, you reject the suggestion that the money should be found by central taxation, the next source is local taxation, but the money will have to be found, and if you do not want to get it in either of these ways, the only other way is by a contributory scheme. If you want a contributory scheme by all means say so, but again let us be honest about it. If you propose to have a contributory scheme of social services, let the people know that what it will mean is that they will contribute so much per week, per month or whatever period is fixed, as an insurance policy, so to speak, and that they will not get it for nothing. Let us be honest and tell them. There is the net point. By all means, let us discuss it and see which is the best way of doing it.
Which do you recommend?
Major de Valera
But it will have to be done. I should like very much to know which method you recommend, because one speaker from the opposite side wants one and another wants the other, and the last speaker started off by urging one method and then turned over to the other.
The last speaker was apparently not here for the greater part of the discussion which took place on this aspect of the measure. We have made it clear right through this debate that we are opposed to this measure because it throws the cost on to the ratepayer and because we have definite indications that a policy has been determined by the Government to throw the cost of all future social services on to the ratepayer. As late as to-day, the Parliamentary Secretary admitted that there should be some limit to what the taxpayer should be expected to pay and he admitted, in particular, that there should be some limit to rates. He also admitted, however, that he had to turn to the ratepayers for the money required under this measure, as he had no hope of inducing the Minister for Finance to find the money.
The Parliamentary Secretary did not say that.
He said that if he were to go to the Minister for Finance to get the money from him, the Minister for Finance would have far bigger problems.
No. I said that if I had to go to the Minister for Finance to finance all my proposals, the Minister for Finance would have a difficult problem.
And you would have to tell him how much they would cost. You need not tell the ratepayers.
It is clear from the last Budget statement of the former Minister for Finance that he was satisfied last year that we had reached saturation point in central taxation, and, not only that but that, with the termination of the emergency, industry, agriculture and the general taxpayer should get immediate relief. On 6th March last, the Government organ published a leading article on rates, the tone of which was that the only people who croak about the payment of rates were the substantial ratepayers, that one never heard any croak or complaint from the small ratepayer, or from the poor, who of course pay no rates. That editorial went on to say that if social services were to be made available, they would have to be paid for, and they could see no objection to these services being paid for out of rates, and they left it to be inferred pretty definitely that there was no limit to the extent to which we might go in local taxation, provided there was a demand for the social services.
That is the point on which I challenge the policy as adumbrated in that article, and also as set out here to-day. It is clear to anybody who takes the trouble to read the present signs that the Government have decided on two things—that they cannot squeeze any more milk out of the milch cow through central taxation and that they have to look for the money for these new measures to the ratepayer. We see that in our local authority in Dún Laoghaire. For the past four years, our assistant city and county manager has been peacefully inoculating us with the view that we will have to face a rate of anything from 25/- to 30/- in the £, and even higher, if our schemes of housing and our contemplated schemes of social services are to be met from local funds.
I want to put it to the Parliamentary Secretary, and particularly to the last speaker, that there is a limit, a reasonable limit, to be set to a ratepayer's liability. Does he contemplate with equanimity an average rate of 30/- in the £, or £2 in the £, and does he consider that, if we get to that position, the average ratepayer will be able to find the increased rates? I have never made any calculation, but I venture to suggest that it is the middle-class and lower middle-class, the salaried and fixed income official, who bear the greater burden of rates. I venture to suggest it is that particular taxpayer who is finding it most difficult to carry on and whose back will be broken with the increased burden. Because of that, I strongly oppose any effort to impose greater burdens on the ratepayers.
The Parliamentary Secretary and others who spoke from the opposite benches appear to think they can go on bleeding the ratepayers to any extent. We have had other measures introduced here and I have no doubt that for their carrying through financially the same idea will be used. The individual ratepayer, particularly the lower middle-class man, is unable to meet his commitment at present. In referring to the poor and offering lip service to the poor, the Parliamentary Secretary should not forget the new poor—the poor who are ashamed to complain of their straitened circumstances. The lower middle-class man is finding it difficult to make ends meet. He is faced this year with no reduction in central taxation and a definite increase in the rates. When this and the other measures are added, he can look forward to the next five years of increasing taxation, as measure after measure of this kind is introduced. I want to say firmly on this point that somewhere a limit must be drawn. What that limit is I cannot say, but the financial statisticians ought to be able to fix it. After that, I see no way out except in the third course suggested by Deputy de Valera. If it is desired to remove from the social services any stigma, or suggestion of stigma, of poor relief, the proper method of financing them is the contributory system. We have got into the position that everybody in difficulty is coming to the State for relief, whether he is an industrialist, an agriculturist or a worker. We have reached such a level of taxation for social services now that we should say it is about time the beneficiaries contributed a little towards those services. If that were done they would feel they were getting something towards which they themselves had contributed and that they were effecting for themselves and their dependents a social insurance. That would be a much better way of approaching this problem than the way attempted in this measure.
As has been indicated here, this is but a part of what one might call social services legislation. There will be other measures to come. The whole system of social services should be considered once and for all. An investigation should be made, as has been made elsewhere, to see to what extent the beneficiaries could be asked reasonably to contribute to such a scheme. In many counties, the taxation has reached such a level that to impose any further taxation would be to handicap industry and agriculture to such an extent as to make it impossible for them to compete with rivals from outside. That indication was stressed in the last Budget and is becoming more firmly stamped on my mind as I read every one of these measures.
We have no idea as to what this Bill will cost—none whatever. We are completely in the dark. There are other measures which have just been passed and their effect is problematical also in the matter of finance. For that reason, I strongly suggest the time has been reached when we should get down to bedrock and take a firm decision as to how far we intend to go in social services, having regard to the capacity of the country to bear the cost and then we should determine to what extent those services should be on a contributory basis. The point made by Deputy Hughes is worthy of consideration, that if the local authority is to be saddled with this expenditure, the State should contribute by way of grant towards that expenditure.
There is just one small point I mentioned before and I still cannot see any explanation in regard to it. I had not time to look up this definition of "joint district". In sub-section (8) of Section 29, the maintenance and treatment of persons are charged to the county authority of the joint district or county borough in which the person is detained, and in this Section 34, the charge is made upon the county authority of the county or county borough. I am not clear as to the distinction there and I would like to know what it means.
I will look into it, and if there is anything in it I will deal with it.
Deputy de Valera asked us to get down to the simple fact that any scheme such as is envisaged in this section must be paid for. That simple fact has been accepted by all sections of the House from the very inception of the discussion. No one has attempted to deny that the services provided here must be paid for. The big question at issue is whether they should be paid for by the central authority or by the rates, or whether there should be some kind of division, as was suggested by Deputy Allen, in which, both would contribute equally. I admit it is a difficult question to decide, as it has never been clearly defined what services should be maintained by local authorities and what should be financed by the central authority. As no general principle has ever been clearly laid down, we have had a progressive policy of the stronger—the central authority—passing the burden on to the weaker. There is no doubt that the local authority is the weaker, so far as legislation is concerned, as they have no say in the framing of legislation.
Deputy de Valera says: "Let us be honest." I hope he is making that eloquent appeal to his own Party. As far as we on this side of the House are concerned, we have faced this question honestly from the very first. This section is not an honest section. It sets out certain financial benefits which are to be conferred on certain sections of the community, but does not set out who is to bear the cost or what the cost will be. No attempt has been made to estimate the cost. If the House is to accept the appeal made by Deputy de Valera, I think that appeal should be addressed specially to the Parliamentary Secretary. Let him make this an honest section; let him make clear what it will cost, and let him define in an equitable manner how the cost is to be borne.
There is a bigger issue raised here than the issue as to whether rates are more equitable than taxes; there is the issue of whether burdens should be passed on to local authorities which are not really local burdens. Local authorities, were designed at first to deal with local matters. Public health generally is a national problem. The problem of eradicating infectious disease is a national problem and the method provided in this section for the eradication of infectious disease is a national matter and should be dealt with in a national way and financed in a national way. We have the alternative, and that is to introduce a national insurance scheme of a contributory nature. That is a bigger matter. Pending the introduction of such a scheme, the least we should be prepared to do is to go 50-50 with the local authorities in the financing of this section.
Major de Valera
With regard to the necessity for this section, it seems perfectly clear who will make the provision. If the last Deputy means that the section should contain a budget provision, that is manifestly impossible. It would be a matter for Providence what the actual outlay under such a section would be. Nobody can tell the actual numbers who will be involved, so I do not see, on the face of the section, anything particularly dishonest about it.
Reverting to Deputy Coogan's very fair answer to me, I am quite satisfied with his attitude on the matter, as far as he has gone. I gather now that he was talking for himself, and that his attitude is that he opposes this because it is a burden on the rates. I asked the supplementary question: "Are you going to put the burden on central taxation?" and I did not get a direct answer to that, but, by implication, I got the answer that he was in favour of a contributory scheme. I admit frankly there is a lot to be said for a contributory scheme. Take the position of the rates in Dublin. I agree they have soared to an extent that calls for a certain amount of consideration, to say the least of it.
The question to which I want an answer is: "Are we to have these provisions or not?" You cannot have it both ways. There are certain provisions to be made for maintenance under Section 34. If you are going to make them, they have to be paid for. Is it the suggestion of the Opposition that we do not make them? If they are to be made, what other practical way can be suggested for meeting the outlay involved? I do not think Deputies will come forward with the suggestion to increase central taxation, so I think we can forget that.
I then asked, with regard to contributions, is a matter of this nature a suitable one for a contributory scheme? Look at it this way. There are certain things in the nature of insurance risks liable to occur to every individual, looking at it from the individual's point of view, that are manifestly subjects for insurance. For instance, there is the risk of a man losing his employment through being ill—being out of work temporarily through being ill. That is an individual risk which is most properly covered by an insurance provision. That is catered for by national health insurance. Risks of that nature, that I would classify as individual rather than as affecting the community as a whole, are, I concede, matters for insurance. But is a provision like this which is made necessary, not so much by a consideration of the individual but primarily by consideration of the group of individuals who make up the community, a fit subject for what I might call individual insurance?
My opinion is, with regard to Section 34, that you have there a provision designed for the protection of the community as a whole, and, therefore, I suggest in that particular case, to meet a provision of this nature, the expense should be borne by the community rather than through a contributory insurance scheme. I think that would be the more natural way of doing it. In other words, the provision is for the community rather than for the individual. The necessity for the treatment of these people is fundamentally a matter for the community, and not primarily for the benefit of the individual. Therefore, I think the charge should rather go on the community as against something like individual insurance.
I suggest it is appropriate in this case that the Parliamentary Secretary should make the provision that he has mentioned. I admit, of course, central as against local taxation is an open question. That question involves the passing on of the cost in another way which might not be acceptable to every part of the House. The Deputy is not here, and I would be sorry if I have taken him up wrongly, but there appears to me to be the suggestion that if you get the State to bear the cost, the cost is borne, so to speak, and that is that. But, passing a thing on to central taxation does not, in a sense, change the fact that the money has to be raised from the community. In a case of public health, which is affecting the whole community, every portion of it and every local authority in it, it is only one of two ways of making a levy on the same people for the cost. I think Deputies will admit that. Name any arbitrary sum you like that has to be raised. Each portion raises its own amount locally, or the central machinery raises it over the whole lot. In the end, working down to individuals, the cost will be borne just the same, so I do not see any particular advantage in passing it on to the Central Fund.
I think in this particular matter, since it is a question of the community rather than the individual, it should be a community charge rather than come under the heading of an insurance scheme. Deputy Coogan gave very fair answers. If we could deal always with matters in that way, in such a frank way, it would help us a lot. While I sympathise with a lot of the points of view expressed by Deputies, and while I see very attractive features in the contributory scheme mentioned, I think it boils down to this point. Here are provisions for the public health, in particular under this section, for the maintenance of persons suffering from infectious disease, the maintenance being rendered necessary by protective provisions for the community. These moneys have to be found, if you are to have these provisions. The important point is, are the provisions too expensive, in which case you say they are not worth it. If that is the Opposition attitude, then I take it they do not want the provisions. If, on the other hand, they want the provisions, then I am afraid the fact must be faced up to that those provisions will have to be paid for.
At the end of the eleventh weary day of this debate, may I thank the Deputy for his refreshing contribution? It shows the advantage of coming in at the eleventh hour of a long and weary subject like this, with a fresh mind. Despite a feeling of weariness, due perhaps to the atmosphere of Leinster House, may I thank the Deputy for bringing me back to what occurred many years ago. His approach to this matter was simple, and his exceedingly simple solution must have been as refreshing to the Parliamentary Secretary as it was to me. The Deputy gave us a nice little lecture on elementary finance. It was, briefly, that a scheme of national health insurance was not one for the community but for the individual. The Deputy was at pains to find out where we stand. As he went on, I began, for the first time, to understand the irritation that the Parliamentary Secretary has shown from time to time during this long debate, when someone who had not been listening came in and asked a question.
Major de Valera
The Deputy has done a service. Has he not?
I tried as honestly as I could to understand what the Deputy has done. The fact is that, dense and all as the Opposition may appear to be——
Major de Valera
Not at all. Rather too clever.
—they realise that services have to be paid for. I hope the Deputy is clear on that; that services cannot be got for nothing. We learned that lesson a long time ago. It took a considerable number of years to teach that lesson to the Party to which the Deputy now belongs. Eventually it was taught. The Deputy also falls into the old error of trying to convey to the House, and through it to the country, that the only alternative to what is set out in the section is to tax tea and sugar. That runs off me like water off a duck, because I never yet heard of a proposal in this House, either during the term of the previous Government or the present Government, that was not met with the reply: "Tax tea and sugar."
Major de Valera
That was only made as an example in regard to central taxation.
Every person who is opposed to certain things always passes it on to tea and sugar.
What about beer?
It is a question in this section of putting it on every house, every room and every flat.
Major de Valera
I quite realise that, yes.
I am not admitting that if this is to be borne by the Central Fund, a tax should go on tea and sugar. May I remind Deputies that we are to have a saving of £4,000,000 on the Army this year? I should like to know what has become of that. We have been presented with a Book of Estimates which shows that we are looking for £600,000 more than were looked for at this time 12 months ago.
Major de Valera
Then, I take it the Deputy is advocating making it a central charge.
That will be a Budget speech.
I am in entire agreement that the provision made here is necessary, but I am advocating, as between putting this on the rates and on the Central Fund, that local authorities will not be in a position to question it, because it will be operated solely by the county manager, and that it should be kept on the Central Fund on which it could be questioned. The Parliamentary Secretary, the Minister or the Minister for Finance would then have to come to this House estimating what it was going to cost. The Parliamentary Secretary stated, and I agreed with him that it is impossible to give an estimate. I am objecting to placing the charge upon the local authorities. When I say "local authorities" I mean the locally elected councils as distinct from the county managers. I object to placing upon them a burden which we cannot measure, which the Parliamentary Secretary cannot measure and which this House should not be asked to agree to. Let me remind Deputies that the commitment under this section does not limit the additional expenditure that will fall on local authorities. The more this section secures compliance by the people, the more the local authorities will have to provide additional institutional accommodation, equipment and maintenance. The Deputy will appreciate that there is a difference, apart from the question of cost, between having it paid by the central or by the local authorities. If paid by the central authority, we could measure and criticise it to decide whether it was sufficient or insufficient. We could decide whether the Government should be given the necessary money to meet the commitment out of additional taxation, or whether the Government should be compelled to retrench in some other direction to meet this necessary service. We have none of these opportunities as the section stands. That is the position as far as we are concerned. There is no difference on any side of the House as to the desirability of this scheme, not only from the point of view of seeing that patients and their dependents would be supported but, as the Parliamentary Secretary very properly said, to induce persons to submit themselves for treatment, at the earliest possible stage of the disease, so that it could be effectively dealt with. That is the position. I hope I have succeeded in making our position clear on it.
Major de Valera
Certainly.
There is one point I should mention concerning the suggestion that there would be no difference between imposing this charge on the Central Fund or on local taxation. That depends entirely on what you select for central taxation, whether it is a direct tax by way of income-tax or an indirect tax. In the case of an indirect tax, it will depend whether you put the tax on necessaries, such as tea and sugar and other food commodities, or on luxuries. If you put a tax on luxuries, you can escape that tax by giving up luxuries. In the case of the rate, there is no escape. In the case of income-tax, there is no escape. There is a definite escape if a tax is placed on luxury commodities, such as beer, whiskey and tobacco. That is the fallacy in the argument and I think it is important to direct attention to it. You need not pay the tax, if it is an indirect tax, but you have to pay through the nose if it is location taxation.
Major de Valera
Agreed, but the money will have to be found. I did not say there was any difference.
Question—"That Section 34, as amended, stand"—put and declared carried.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 2 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 9th April.