Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Friday, 28 Mar 1947

Vol. 105 No. 4

Vote 66—Office of the Minister for Social Welfare (Resumed).

Mr. Browne

On the Adjournment last night I was dealing mainly with the means test as it is applied to widows' and orphans' pensions. There is one pressing need in connection with that scheme that, I think, should be reviewed. Take the case of a girl who gets married when she is 25. Her husband dies when she reaches the age of 30. Let us suppose that she has three children at the time, and that the youngest is under one year. That widow will be entitled to the full benefits of the pension, including the children's allowances. The problem that I see in her case arises when she reaches the age of 46. Her youngest child is then 16, with the result that she is deprived of the benefits of the widow's dependents' pension for nine years. In other words, she is debarred from receiving any pension from 46 to 55 years of age. I feel that there is a growing need for review. Great injustices take place. I know the number of cases is small, but, even so, the matter needs to be reviewed. I know a number of those widows. They have come to me to make representations on their behalf and they feel it a terrible hardship to be deprived for a period of nine years of assistance which they had been receiving over a period of 15 or 16 years. I think I have dealt fairly fully with the old age pension, the blind pension, and the widow's pension in connection with the means test.

There is a further point which I wish to raise. It is in connection with national health benefit. I speak subject to correction but it seems to me, from cases which are brought to my notice from time to time, that some review of that section is also necessary. I will quote a case. To get full benefit from national health it seems a person must have at least 104 stamps. I feel that the number of stamps required should be much lower than 104 because it may happen that a young boy or a young girl may become suddenly ill, and be ill for some time, after perhaps six months', 12 months' or 18 months' service as the case may be. If that young boy or young girl gets ill after affixing six months' stamps the fact that they do not get any benefit for the stamps they have already subscribed leaves them at a serious loss.

Another point which seems to me to need review is the case of, say, a boy or a girl who has the 104 stamps and who is qualified for full benefits. It may happen that that boy or girl may have to leave their service; they may have to give up whatever employment they were in and perhaps return to the family home for some reason or another and remain there for a year or a year and a half to assist in the home. After that period the boy or the girl returns to the service in which they were previously employed, yet a broken period of 12 months renders the stamps originally subscribed not valid. I feel that in that case the record card should be sufficient proof and that the stamps already subscribed should be always kept intact so as to justify them at any time in getting the full benefits of national health insurance.

These are the few things I wanted to say. I am perfectly satisfied that investigation officers in the appeal department do their work well, justly and fairly by every applicant whom they come up against. However, there are some obstacles in regard to the means test and they have no power under the law and as a result they have to disqualify some claims and the fact that they have to do so means, in many cases, an injustice to the applicant. I feel that the Minister will be going only half way in the whole scheme and that to go the full way he will have to take in the whole question of review and unless he does that, along with the increased allowances, I feel that he will not be doing what is necessary to meet the needs of the people for those benefits.

Mr. Sheldon

With regard to the generality of the services that come under the Minister's jurisdiction, I think that the chief trouble at the moment is that we are in a transition period and that it is very difficult for Deputies to grasp fully just precisely how these matters stand. Most of the difficulties which have been referred to in the House will disappear when the comprehensive scheme which the Minister has indicated he intends to introduce is introduced.

There is only one point to which I would like to draw the Minister's attention. It is in regard to old age pensions. It is where a pensions officer appeals against a decision of the local committee and the applicant is served with, I think, a 14 days' notice of appeal. I find that very many of the applicants and, I am afraid, very many members of the pensions committee do not fully understand that the applicant must appeal within 14 days.

People come to me a month or two months afterwards with these forms and ask me to do something about it. Of course, nothing can be done at that stage. The Minister has given his decision and even he, then, has no power to do anything. The only thing the applicant can do is to re-apply to the committee and begin the whole process all over again. I think the Department might draw the attention of the local committees to this matter and ensure that they advise the applicant properly. I have found members of local committees who do not understand this point at all. I am not a member of a local committee, so I escape any personal reflection on the matter. But I have on the local authority attempted to draw attention to this fact and I am afraid I found the members of the local authority did not quite appreciate the point. I do think there is a serious hardship there and that many people are debarred, for some months at any rate, from the benefits they should get under the Old Age Pensions Acts.

One aspect of the Department's functions to which I wish to refer is the supply of children's footwear. To my mind, this scheme suffers from very serious defects. I drew attention to this in a memorandum which I forwarded to the then Parliamentary Secretary when it was first introduced. Certain difficulties were pointed out to me, the chief being that the scheme apparently was the result of a consultation with the manufacturers and that this was the scheme which they felt would be best. To my mind, it suffers from the serious defect that the supply of vouchers in any area is in no way related to the supply of footwear. The local authority issues vouchers to necessitous persons and the local footwear trade supply the footwear.

There is no relation whatever between the two items. The result is that, in one district, the supply of vouchers greatly exceeds the amount of footwear available and vice versa. This, probably, does not arise in the cities and larger towns, where it is easier for people to go from one area to another in search of footwear, but, in the country, it leads to great hardships. I know people who spend in bus and train fares in their search for footwear far more than the vouchers are worth. On the other hand, in the early stages, merchants were left with footwear on their shelves and that left them reluctant to engage in that business in the following year. There is no profit for a merchant in it and that was a sufficient deterrent without machinery difficulties. From the point of view of those who are supposed to benefit, I should like the Minister to take note of this matter. As I have said, those people may spend on bus and train fares more than the value of the voucher. I know of cases where, in order to get anything in return for the voucher, the holders had to send to other counties. This has entailed more work on the part of the local authority in putting the voucher-holder in touch with a merchant in some other county. That did not always give very good results to the person looking for the footwear because he or she might often get the wrong size. In some cases, the voucher was lost. The unfortunate person holding the voucher might not be able to get any footwear until the voucher was out of date. It might be renewed by the local authority for a period but, when footwear was forthcoming, the voucher might be lost.

There is a further difficulty from the point of view of the trade. In the trade, this is called C.P. footwear. So far as my information goes, it has to be ordered in what the trade call a range. That is to say, a certain number of pairs have to be taken in a range of sizes, according to the trade method of manufacturing. That leads to confusion, because a shop might have the footwear but might not have the size required because the range of sizes upon which the trade decides has nothing to do with the sizes for which the vouchers are actually wanted. The result is that the merchant gets a number of sizes which do not come into demand and are left on his shelves. He is, therefore, reluctant to embark on further effort in that direction. I have reliable information that there are shops which make no attempt to obtain vouchers in return for these C.P. shoes. Of course, that is done illegally. I do not see how it can be checked, because the Department have no control over it. The local Gardaí might have a check upon it but, in a country district, that is extremely difficult. There is clear evidence that retailers whose consciences are sufficiently elastic find no difficulty in taking very large quantities of this C.P. footwear for which they never see a voucher. That could be very easily overcome, in my opinion. The manufacturing side of the industry may not approve of what I propose to suggest, but after all, the recipients of the footwear are of more importance than manufacturer, retailer or anybody else. I shall put the remedy I suggest very briefly but I should like to send the Minister a more complete memorandum regarding it.

The first essential in the remedy is that there should be an earlier issue of the vouchers. To have the vouchers coming out in December and January for footwear for children in the country districts for winter, when they need it most, is ridiculous. These vouchers should be out by September at the latest. I see no insuperable difficulty in having them out in July or August. When the vouchers are issued to the persons for whom they are intended, the simplest method would be for those persons to deposit the vouchers with their local retailer and order the sizes they require. The vouchers should carry counterfoils which would be collected every month and sent to the Department. The footwear could then be sent to the retailer. Various trading difficulties would crop up under this plan but I do not think that they would be insuperable. Manufacturers and wholesalers would be reluctant to have things done in this way because it would interfere with their quota system. They might find that a rival manufacturer or wholesaler would be requested by the Department to send footwear to some of their customers and there would, accordingly, be confusion. That could be got over by the retailer informing the Department of the manufacturers and wholesalers with whom he normally does business. It would not be beyond the wit of the Department to see that the footwear came from that source to the retailer. This would mean that the Department would have absolute control. There would be no question of footwear being sold without vouchers. The waste caused through wrong sizes accumulating in various districts would be avoided. The whole business would be more under the Department's control and there would be far more efficiency.

If the Department do not wish to go so deeply into the business, I see no difficulty in having the voucher sent not to the Department but direct to the wholesaler or manufacturer, but I think that some link such as that should be established so that there would be no question of this footwear being issued to retailers except in so far as it will meet vouchers which the retailer has in hands. Some delay would, of course, take place. There would be a delay of some weeks from the time the voucher would be handed to the retailer until he would have the footwear to give to the applicant. But those delays occur even under the present scheme. Vouchers are issued so late in the year that, even at present, there is shocking delay. I think that the difficulties could be got over simply in the way I suggest, there would be better control and no waste of material. As regards waste, I have seen sizes made under this C.P. footwear scheme which were too small to fit any child going to school. In my area—County Donegal —vouchers are issued only to children of school-going age. The smaller sizes cannot be sold against a voucher, because no voucher is issued for sizes so small. That is waste and the trader is not too pleased about it. In fact, it does not satisfy anybody. These difficulties could be got over by a more rational scheme. I suggested something on these lines three years ago but nothing happened. The manufacturers do not like it because it would upset the quota system. One of the difficulties is that the merchant is reluctant to hold C.P. footwear because it is on quota.

That is supposed to be a difficulty from the supply point of view—that it is put on quota because it would upset the manufacturers. I would not be a great deal disturbed about upsetting the manufacturers. The difficulty could be easily overcome, compared with the difficulties that now arise when the unfortunate people should be getting boots, and it should not weigh with the Department at all. I think the Department was codded by the manufacturers —that has been known to happen before.

It is difficult to go into the exact details of a scheme like this, but I am prepared to elaborate it and send it to the Minister. I want to draw attention to it here, because I find frequently that, when Departments are advised privately of a matter like this, the results are not quite as certain as they may be when it is raised in a public way. It is also only fair that people generally should understand the difficulties that have arisen. The present schemes lead to a considerable amount of misunderstanding in country districts and sometimes the public do not quite appreciate at what level the difficulties creep in.

On the general question, I repeat that it seems to be too difficult to see the wood for the trees and nothing very constructive can be done until the Minister introduces his comprehensive scheme.

Mr. M. O'Sullivan

On this occasion, I suggest that Deputies are somewhat at a disadvantage in dealing with the Vote before the House, since we have not had that complete picture which was envisaged in the Minister's statement here on the 11th February on the Vote for Social Services. He raised the hope that, by the time the House would come to adjourn for Easter, he would be in a position to let us have a comprehensive statement. I am not so sure whether the statement he has made on the introduction of this particular Estimate is the type of statement he had in mind on the 11th February, but I prefer to think not, that the position still remains that he has not had time to deal with the question as he thought he would when he was speaking a month ago.

It seems that discussion of this Estimate would of necessity have to be related to the particulars before the House and to pointing out any weakness there might be in the existing system, with the hope that the Minister might take note of it and remedy it when introducing the comprehensive scheme. I do not propose to go into the question in detail but to make very briefly what I hope will be an objective contribution on this particular question.

Whilst giving the Minister every credit personally for good intentions, I suggest that ultimately his efforts will fall short of complete success because his approach to the social services code is fundamentally unsound. I got that approach so recently as the discussion on social welfare here, when he stated, as reported in column 790 of the Official Debates for the 11th February:

"We should keep this in mind, that these social welfare schemes—old age pensions, widows' and orphans' pensions, national health insurance and so on—were never designed to put people in as good a state financially as they would be in if they were working. They were brought in, piecemeal, if you like, one by one, to help these people and at least we can say that the widow who now has a pension, be it ever so small, is better off than the widow who, some years ago, had no pension, and that the person getting sickness benefit now, even though it is small, is better off than the person who is not entitled to that benefit because he is not insured under the scheme or for some other reason."

If I recollect rightly, the Minister elaborated on that in a statement to a gathering outside, wherein he included the question of those who would be unemployed as well. His point of view, as publicly expressed, was that all such people should be in a position to make a contribution of their own to the State contribution, to tide them over their unemployment, illness and so on.

The Minister seems to be making a wrong approach and to be completely misunderstanding that large range of the community in the low income grades. Obviously, they could not of their volition supplement, at a time when they were old or become sick, any income the State may provide for them. The weakness of the present Government lies in the fact that for years they have substituted expedients and palliatives for genuine social services, to the extent that they have disregarded the dignity of the individual. That is exemplified in the system of food vouchers and fuel vouchers.

Surely the Minister is aware that, in every progressive country, there are standard social services centring very largely around the question of care of the aged, the sick, the infirm, the blind and the widow and orphan. The care and provision that is made for these people is not on the basis of keeping body and soul together, but on the clear and distinct understanding that, when they reach that stage, they will enjoy a reasonable measure of comfort, accompanied by that spirit of independence which is at no time more desired than it is under such circumstances. Schemes of that kind are financed out of the pool of a high standard of productivity, based on full employment and good wages. It is elementary that the larger the pool the greater the benefits. Hence it is that countries which have been quoted in this House as having completely eliminated unemployment are in a position to give standards of old age pensions and other benefits of that kind which, apparently, the Minister cannot even dream of. The Minister's own mind is exemplified in recent statements. He seems to think he should move along in piecemeal fashion and he seems to be perturbed at what the cost may be. He indicated his mind on that when he said, further, in the same debate:

"There are 150,000 old age pensioners and to give every old age pensioner an extra half-crown would cost almost £1,000,000. We have not got a whole lot of millions to spare."

Members on these benches are poles apart from the concept of social services as administered or contemplated by the present Government. In progressive countries, as I have indicated, they are in a position to give this high standard of benefits because of their position in regard to unemployment. Here, conversely, the position is, and it naturally will remain to be the position, that the Minister has to draw on a limited pool, a pool which suffers by reason of the fact that 70,000 of our people are constantly unemployed. Unemployment here may be scheduled as an endemic disease. Not alone have you that 70,000, but there are 20,000 others, as indicated by the census returns, constantly being forced to leave the country because of their inability to get the employment to which they are entitled.

Finally, in the category from which the Minister will naturally suffer, is that large section of individuals, an exceedingly important section, such as agricultural labourers, road workers, forestry workers and others who are forced down to a pretty low level in the matter of wage earning. You cannot take out of the pool more than you put into it, and while you have the position that you are not sustaining that pool in the form in which it is being sustained elsewhere, inevitably, no matter what are the intentions of the Government or the Minister, it is obvious that the standard of social services will not be on the scale we, as a country claiming to be progressive, should be in a position to be credited with.

There is an aspect of this position I would like particularly to stress. There is confused and muddled thinking in regard to the finances of local authorities. I have some local knowledge of this matter and I say that the policy of the Government, in so far as it relates to unemployment and low wages in the categories to which I have referred, is having disastrous results on the finances of the local authorities. It may interest Deputies to know that out of the present rate of the Dublin Corporation, which is a figure which has agitated the minds of the citizens because it discloses an upward tendency, no less than 7/- in the £ has, of necessity, to be provided for avoidable poverty.

I should like, if I could, to emphasise that for the benefit of business people who are credited with being intelligent but who merely accept the abstract figure of the rates and are prepared immediately to assail the individuals who introduced that rate, just as if those people had not to bear the impost themselves, instead of getting down to the root of the trouble. Businessmen who are called upon to maintain these high rates should examine the cause. I am giving them the cause, that that large sum has to be provided for that avoidable poverty. The whole position could be altered completely if we had a radical approach to the question of unemployment. I shall address myself to where I think the fundamental cause of the trouble in connection with social services lies. It is due to the fact that we are allowing unemployment to remain as a constant factor and we are not doing what I suggest is necessary to alter such an undesirable situation.

I submit that any individual, and particularly members of the Minister's Party, who foolishly believe that the Minister can work miracles in the matter of social services, should realise that before many years have passed they will be sadly disappointed unless we alter our economic course. It is about time we set down here a minimum standard, a standard which can be maintained in accordance with the activities of our people and our methods of administration.

Until that is done, I am sorry to say that while, very naturally, recipients of benefits will welcome the improved conditions, because every little helps, eventually the position for them, unless we take the steps I have indicated, will be such that they will not get that share of the nation's wealth to which they are entitled.

Mr. McCarthy

The vexed question of the means test was raised by Deputy Browne and I should like to clarity that position as I understand it. I may be wrong and, if I am, I am open to correction. The normal full old age pension is 10/- a week and, with the 2/6 a week that will be now added, I take it that the qualifying margin of the means test will be raised by about one-fourth. The railways company up to recently paid some of their employees 16/- a week, but when these individuals reached 70 years that amount was cut down to 6/-, so that they would qualify for the full old age pension. Assuming that everybody who gets a pension, no matter how small, will have an extra 2/6, I take it that the lower basis of 6/- will now be raised by approximately one-fourth— that is, to 7/6 instead of the former 6/-

That is only a small point, but I am interested in the matter as a member of an old age pensions committee. I shall be very interested from this day forward in the manner in which new applicants for pensions will be treated. I take it that similar conditions apply to widows' pensions, blind pensions and others who come under the pension code. I hope the non-contributory widows' pensions will be wiped out completely and that all these people will be put on the one basis. Their pensions at the moment are really miserable and nobody could exist on them. Now that a comprehensive scheme is coming, it would be well to revise the present arrangement and put them all on the same basis.

I must agree to some extent with Deputy O'Sullivan with reference to some of the points he has put before the House. So far as the whole scheme of social services is concerned, what appeals to me is that the family is still regarded as the foundation. We know what Irish parents—and they are noted for it—suffer for their children. They spend most of their lives making every provision possible for their children and we must not come to the position where these children, when they reach a certain age, will say to their parents, "Now we are finished with them and the State will look after them." That would be a wrong idea to prevail in this or in any other country. The family link which is so important in life, from the religious, social and every other point of view, should still be preserved by letting the young men and women of this country know, when they are growing up and coming to an age that they will have to look after themselves, that they still have some responsibilities to the parents who reared them.

Deputy O'Sullivan's point that in some walks of life wages are so low that it is very hard for these sons and daughters to do anything very tangible in that regard, is a point that I am sure the Government will consider when dealing with social problems and the scheme which it is intended to bring in in the near future. That scheme, I am sure, will be generally welcomed, offering as it does the possibility of more employment and an increased productivity in agriculture and industry in general. I hope that the low standard of wages paid in the main industry of the country, agriculture, will by some means be raised to a higher level because it has certainly not reached a good standard at the moment. I just wish to get clarified the point which I have raised about the means test as applied to cases between this date and the coming into force of the more comprehensive contributory scheme.

I have only just to add that everybody welcomes what is being done as an approach to the main problem. It is a step in the right direction and, when the day comes to deal with the major problem, I hope that the country will be more solidly on its feet, and that the present difficult position in this country and in the world in general will have passed. I hope that the young men and women of the rural and urban districts can then look forward with confidence to a future when the ideals of the past will be realised by giving them a better outlook on life and ensuring that their toil will be adequately rewarded.

Mr. Byrne

I congratulate the Minister on the introduction of this social welfare scheme. I think it is a step in the right direction—shall I say, only a step—and that I hope that at a very early date he will be able to go much further. It may be remembered that a few years ago when the subsidised footwear scheme was going through this House, I appealed to the Government to apply the same idea to clothing of the poorer children. In various areas of this city one will see bare-footed, almost naked children. Only last night when passing through O'Connell Street, I saw three little boys about six years old who were barefooted looking into a brightly lighted window. In one case the youngster had a small little trousers which barely covered his nakedness. He looked a most likely victim of tuberculosis because, if he remains in that state for any length of time, he will probably be an applicant for entrance to one of our sanatoria. I think that if the Government were to bring in a scheme whereby they could subsidise the clothing of children of an unemployed father, or a father who is suffering from tuberculosis who is not earning anything, it would have a very good effect. I would go so far as to say that the parent might be allowed to pay for that clothing by a small contribution of say 1/- per week out of the allowance he is getting by way of national health insurance or unemployment assistance.

However the scheme is managed, the children should not be allowed to go around half-naked. That condition of affairs does not apply merely to Dublin. I read in the papers about a fortnight ago that the Bishop of Galway, at a meeting of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, made a special reference to bare-footed and ill-clothed children in the City of Galway. I cannot repeat his words but they were to the effect that things were not all right in a country which allowed conditions to exist as he saw them. I appeal to the Minister that some scheme should be set on foot to provide out of the various funds, such as the National Health Insurance Fund, or unemployment assistance funds, clothing for children on the same lines as the footwear scheme.

The Minister has commenced his administration of the new effice exceptionally well and I hope he will be able to go further. I have here a letter from the National Council of the Blind of Ireland and I should like to read one paragraph from it as follows:

"I am sure you will agree that these allowances given to meet the expenses of blindness should not be assessed as income when that blind person reaches 70 and has to apply for an old age pension."

Those in charge of the voluntary organisations of the blind in Ireland appeal strongly to the Minister to see that any moneys coming from any source whatsover to help people to overcome the disability of blindness should not be assessed as means when they come to apply for the old age pension. Another paragraph in the letter says:

"Our home teachers may teach a man, for instance, how to make simple rush baskets or a woman how to knit and they are proud when a saleable article has been achieved— proud of the pupil's skill, despite the handicap, and still more proud of the pupil's reawakened interest in life.

Yet, when a few shillings have been earned so commendably, the shadow of the means test looms up at once. Pension officers are sympathetic—we have found them so—but the law is the law and if a single blind person is in receipt of 6/- from a local authority, even 1/- per week earned regularly will leave him liable for reduction in pension. We hesitate to encourage pupils to increase their output."

I ask the Minister—I know where his sympathy lies—to do anything he can to assist the people engaged in helping the blind to overcome their difficulties, and, in some cases, their depression, and to agree that, if a blind person makes a basket or knits a pair of stockings, thereby earning 1/- or 2/-, the means test will not operate.

Looking over this social welfare scheme, I notice that, in paragraph 4, relating to supplementary old age and blind pensions, it is stated that "the Minister shall cause allowances in money to be paid in accordance with the Order" and that a person having attained the age of 70 years is entitled to a pension under the Old Age Pensions Acts, 1908 to 1938. Paragraph 10, on page 4, relates to the exclusion of these supplements in ascertaining means and says: "In calculating the means of a person for the purposes of the Old Age Pensions Act, 1908 to 1938" and so on. It does not speak of blind persons and whether it is an omission or not, I do not know. These Old Age Pensions Acts are the Acts which provide for blind persons and I should like to know if there is any reason for leaving the words "blind persons" out of the paragraph.

Some years ago, in reply to a point made by ex-Deputy Hickey of Cork, the then Minister for Local Government said that allowances not of a statutory type were to be taken into consideration when assessing means. I want the Minister to ask himself why, if a son or daughter goes away and sends a few shillings as a present to an aged person, those few shillings should be taken into consideration when assessing means. Why is it that when an employer, say, in a big firm in Grafton Street gives a former employee—a storeman or charwoman—a voluntary allowance of 5/-, 10/-, 15/- or maybe a little more, if that allowance brings the income of the former employee up to 16/- a week, the amount of the voluntary allowance is taken into consideration and the old age pension reduced accordingly? There is no inducement to private employers to make any allowance to a former employee on reaching 70 years of age, if he knows that the Government will take advantage of it. I ask the Minister to agree that these voluntary gifts will not be taken into consideration when assessing means.

With regard to national health insurance, I am tempted to ask the Minister to provide that tubercular victims in sanatoria will get an allowance towards payment of rent, or will get a moratorium in the matter of the payment of rent. While these unfortunate people are in the sanatoria, they know that their rent is mounting up, and, on more than one occasion, while the bread-winner was in the sanatorium, notice to quit has been served on his wife and family. I strongly appeal to the Minister to do something to protect these victims of tuberculosis who go into sanatoria against eviction or the threat of eviction because of non-payment of rent.

Every Thursday, one reads in the papers that 10,000 people were relieved that week by the board of assistance at a cost of £4,000. That relates to people who are up to 70 years of age. The allowance which a person of 60, 65 or 70 years, whom nobody wants to employ, receives to enable him to exist is less than 9/- a week, and I suggest there ought to be a standard allowance related to the actual amount on which a person can exist, when he has no other means. That miserable amount is much too small for a person of 60 or 70 years of age. I appeal to the Minister to find out how these people live and why it is not possible to give them an adequate allowance. Let the Government, some social welfare society, dietitians or doctors decide the minimum amount on which a person can exist and let these people then get at least that minimum. They should not get these little doles that last only a day or two so that for the rest of the week they have to depend on what they can get wherever they can get it.

I ask the Minister to modify the application of the means test in respect of the supplements that he has mentioned under the social welfare scheme and to see that it is not so rigorously enforced. The law is the law, as one person wrote to me. The investigation officers are sympathetic but sometimes one or two of them can go a little too far in investigating the means of an applicant. Recently, on the old age pensions committee, we had the case of an old lady who lives in a three-room cottage. She had one bedroom to let for which she was getting 5/- or 6/- a week, to help her to pay the rent. That 5/- or 6/- was deducted from her pension. The worst feature of it is that when the room is vacant, although available for letting, the income from it is still assessed at 5/-. That is all wrong and I believe the Minister will remedy it.

If an old age pensioner has £100 put by for a rainy day or to provide for burial expenses, the income on that is assessed at 5 per cent., although no investment would yield 5 per cent. at the present time. Surely the Minister will see that that ridiculous regulation is waived. When the Act of Parliament was originally passed it was possible to get 5 per cent., but it is not possible now and has not been possible for very many years. I would ask the Minister to remove that regulation.

Within the last fortnight the case of an elderly lady in receipt of a few shillings a week under the blind pensions scheme came to my notice. I do not think the Government is to blame in this matter and I told the other authority concerned that they were wrong. I have confidence that the Minister and the heads of his Department will see that the matter is cleared up. I draw attention to it because on page 2 of the Social Welfare Schemes (Cash Supplements) Order, 1947, in paragraph (3) of article 5, it is stated: "the expression `excluded person' means a person who is resident and maintained in an institution supported by one or more than one local authority." I would ask the heads of the Department to regard this carefully.

Within the last fortnight, a woman who was drawing a pension was knocked down, or collapsed in the street, and was brought to hospital, where she was detained for two weeks. She was in receipt of 6/- or 8/- a week from a local authority. She pays the rent of her little room—3/- or 4/- a week—in one of the working-class quarters in the City of Dublin out of that allowance. The rent accumulated for the two weeks she was in hospital. When she applied to the authority for her pension, they relied on the phrase in the Order "resident and maintained in an institution". They stopped 4/-a week for the two weeks she was in hospital, which means that her rent is 8/- in arrears and, whether she will pay it at 3d. or 6d. a week, I do not know. When a person is in hospital for surgical or medical attention for a few weeks, there ought to be exemption and I suggest that after the words "resident and maintained in an institution" the words "except for medical or surgical treatment" should be inserted.

There is some alarm caused by paragraph (3) of article 8, on page 4. I was at the blind pensions committee yesterday morning in South William Street, where we pay about 500 women and 500 men on Friday. All these blind pensioners have a food voucher which, I understand, is value for 4/-, in addition to their small allowance. I hope it does not mean that this has any application to—

"Where a person to whom this article applies and who is ordinarily resident in a scheduled area receives food vouchers in respect of any week beginning on or after the 4th April, 1947, the value of the food vouchers (calculated at the rate of 2/6 for each set of three vouchers for milk, butter and bread) shall be deducted from any supplements payable to such person."

Does that mean that you are taking a 4/- voucher from those people and giving them 2/6 instead? I hope that is not intended. It will be a matter for the corporation, but at the same time I think it well to mention it here. Yesterday some people showed me their blue book with a 4/- voucher. I appeal to the Minister to see that no loss will be sustained by them by giving them 2/6 and taking a 4/-voucher from them. I feel that the Minister will be sympathetic in dealing with this matter and I congratulate him on the first step that he has taken on social welfare matters.

Progress reported: the Committee to sit again to-day.