Committee on Finance. - Vote 63—Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Assistance. – Dáil Éireann (14th Dáil) – Thursday, 11 Dec 1952

Committee on Finance. - Vote 63—Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Assistance.

Minister for Social Welfare (Dr. Ryan)

I move:—

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £317,900 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in the course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1953, for Expenses in connection with Unemployment Insurance (including Contributions to the Unemployment Fund), and Unemployment Assistance (9 Edw. 7, c.7; 10 & 11 Geo. 5, c.30; 11 Geo. 5, c.1; 11 & 12 Geo. 5, c.15; 12 Geo. 5, c.7; No. 17 of 1923; Nos. 26 and 59 of 1924; No. 21 of 1926; No. 33 of 1930; Nos. 44 and 46 of 1933; No. 38 of 1935; No. 2 of 1938; No. 4 of 1940; No. 3 of 1941; No. 20 of 1943; No. 23 of 1945; No. 37 of 1946; No. 17 of 1948, and No. 11 of 1952).

I am submitting to-day two Supplementary Estimates for my Department for which it is necessary to obtain the approval of the Dáil before the Christmas Recess. They are for unemployment insurance and unemployment assistance and widows' and orphans' pensions.

Deputies will remember that I stated, when the Second Stage of the Social Welfare Act, 1952, was before this House, that the additional cost of this measure as it then stood to the Exchequer in the present financial year was estimated at £2,000,000. The Bill was subsequently amended in Committee to provide for increased weekly payments to recipients of old age and blind pensions, and to recipients of unemployment assistance. These increases were estimated to cost the Exchequer a further sum of £762,000 in the present year, making the total additional cost to the Exchequer in the present year of the Social Welfare Act, 1952, as passed by the Oireachtas, a sum of approximately £2,750,000.

The two Supplementary Estimates now before you provide for part of that sum to the extent of £929,100. The remainder will be provided in further Supplementary Estimates which will be submitted when the House reassembles in the New Year.

The bulk of the amount required under the Supplementary Estimate for unemployment insurance and unemployment assistance is in respect of the increased payments of unemployment assistance amounting to £274,250. This amount is required to meet the increased weekly rates of unemployment assistance which have been payable since the 25th June, 1952. These increased rates, along with a relaxation of the means test, have resulted in a substantial increase in expenditure over the amount originally provided.

Mr. Norton

Would the Minister mind taking the Supplementary Estimate for widows' and orphans' pensions first?

Dr. Ryan

I have no objection to both being discussed together.

An Ceann Comhairle

Very good.

Dr. Ryan

Under the Social Welfare Act, 1952, the cost of widows' and orphans' non-contributory pensions becomes a charge on the Exchequer from the 5th January, 1953, the appointed day under the Act, and provision for this cost, £450,000 in the present financial year, is made in the Supplementary Estimate now before you. The other item in this Estimate, £403,178, is the reimbursement by the Exchequer to the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Fund of the cost of increases provided by the Social Welfare Act, 1952, for both contributory and non-contributory pensions in respect of periods before the appointed day.

There is a saving against that of £241,978 in the payment from the Exchequer to the Widows' and Orphans' Pension Fund for the year 1952-53. This sum represents the proportion of the total original provision for the year (£1,027,000) proper to the period from the appointed day (5th January, 1953) to 31st March, 1953. The existing Exchequer grants to the present insurance funds will be replaced after the appointed day by a single contribution from the Exchequer to the new Social Insurance Fund.

I want in particular to bring out the three figures, the £450,000 which was the cost of the widows' non-contributory pensions which will from 5th January become a charge on the Exchequer; the £403,000 which covers the extra amount in pensions provided by the Act but, against that sum, there will be a saving of £250,000 on the original £1,000,000 which will not be payable by the Exchequer.

Mr. Norton

I do not think these Supplementary Estimates call for comment inasmuch as they are the natural development of the legislation passed by the House earlier this year. There is one matter, however, to which I would like to direct the Minister's attention in relation to widows' and orphans' pensions. It has come to my knowledge, and I am sure to the notice of other Deputies as well, that in consequence of the increases which have been granted, especially to widows and orphans in respect of non-contributory pensions, local authorities have proceeded to reduce the amount of home assistance payable to such recipients. I have come across cases where, for example, persons in receipt of widows' and orphans' pensions had from the local authority amounts varying from 8/- to 10/- per week. In consequence of the increase in the amount of the non-contributory pension granted under recent legislation the local authority has cut in and in many cases halved the amount of home assistance or reduced it to not more than 25 per cent. in a number of cases.

It was the clear intention of the House when enacting the legislation governing this matter that whatever increased benefits were to be paid should go to the widows and the orphans in recognition of the fact that the previous allowances were inadequate, and that these deserving people were entitled to a higher rate of pension, especially in view of the substantial increase in prices under the last Budget. It is most unfair that any local authority should utilise such an increase in pensions by this House for the purpose of saving expenditure on home assistance, particularly in view of the fact that even the increased allowances could not be said to be adequate having regard to present price levels.

I know the Minister is not responsible for the administration of home assistance. I know that is a function vested in the local authority under the Public Assistance Act, 1939, not merely in individual cases but generally as well. It is not unknown, however, for the Minister to give a direction to local authorities as to what he thinks might in equity be done, and I would ask him to look into the matter with a view to telling local authorities that they ought not to use the modest increases in pensions as a justification for slashing home assistance and inflicting thereby a consequentially heavy burden on those who necessarily must rely on home assistance in order to supplement the inadequate pensions payable to widows and orphans.

Mr. O'Higgins

In so far as the Supplementary Estimate moved by the Minister is necessary to carry out the agreed declared policy already embodied in legislation, there can, of course be no objection to it. I join with Deputy Norton, however, in the point he has raised in relation to widows' and orphans' pensions. That has been a serious matter over the last eight months, and I think the same remarks can be made with regard to the effect of increased unemployment insurance benefit and unemployment assistance.

When these increased payments were before the House it was the declared policy of the Minister that they were intended in some way to alleviate the serious burden imposed on their recipients as a result of the last Budget. They were intended, as the Minister told the House and the country, to offset increases in food costs. In the administration of these increased benefits in the last eight or nine months we find that there has been a consequential reduction in home assistance and, if I might refer to it in passing, in the payments made by the Minister for Defence by way of special allowances under the Military Service Pensions Acts. That has had a very unfortunate result because it has meant that the recipients of these benefits have not only exactly the same amount of money as they had before the increases were authorised by this House but with the same amount of money they have had to face the Budget increases in the price of food. Accordingly, very real hardship has been caused to them. I appeal to the Minister to consider this problem. He should in the near future endeavour to alleviate the hardship caused to these people in so far as that is possible within the resources of the State.

Captain Cowan

I, too, support the suggestion made by Deputy Norton. When the increases came into effect we found that, in Dublin, this reduction was being made by home assistance authorities. I do not know what decision in a general way the board of assistance in Dublin took in regard to it but I know that, in regard to the individual cases to which I found it necessary to draw attention, the amount of the deductions was refunded. That happened as far as Dublin was concerned. Whether it was general in application I do not know.

From information which I have received. I understand that other home assistance authorities throughout the country have been acting in the way mentioned by Deputy Norton and Deputy O'Higgins. This House was anxious, when we approved of the increases, to bring some measure of happiness into those homes. It certainly was a cruel thing for the home assistance authorities to come along and reduce the amounts they were paying and so deprive those people of the increase that the law of this land permitted to them.

While home assistance authorities are, to a large extent, self-governing and run their own organisations, I think the Minister might indicate to them generally — perhaps it has already been done by the Minister but it may have been overlooked—that there should be a more generous interpretation of their responsibility under those Acts. There has been too much of what I might term cheese-paring. That cheese-paring has undoubtedly inflicted severe hardships on a section of the community that is not fitted to bear those hardships. I urge the Minister to ensure, in so far as he can, that there is a more generous and a more liberal interpretation of the regulations by the home assistance authorities and their officers.

Mr. McGrath

When the Social Welfare Bill was passing through this House I drew attention to the fact that rents under the differential rents scheme would probably be increased by the assessment of benefits received under that Bill. I was told that that was a matter for the local authority. I put down a question to the Minister for Local Government on the same matter asking that the increased benefits under that Social Welfare Bill should not be assessed as means in calculating differential rents and the Minister for Local Government told me that it was a matter for the local authority. I raised the matter with the local authority. Of course, the local authority is the manager. My arguments did not bear any weight with him.

There is also the case of people drawing tuberculosis benefits. When the national health was increased the benefits were abated to such an extent that they were actually lower than they were before they got the last increase. The Minister should draw these matters to the attention of local authorities. I know that the local authorities have the doing of these matters but certainly home assistance, tuberculosis benefits, differential rents and other matters should not be affected in such a way as to leave the recipient without a substantial share of the increases awarded under the Bill. I hope that now, that the Minister's attention has been drawn to these matters, he will deal with them.

Mr. Byrne

I join in the appeal made by Deputy Norton to the Minister that, when he is replying, he will say that he will recommend local authorities and boards of assistance not to take into consideration the increases which the people got through the various Acts and not to avail of these increases as an opportunity to reduce the benefits which they received from the boards of assistance. It has happened in Dublin. I want to be fair to the officers in Dublin City. When their attention was drawn to the fact that it was undesirable and unfair that, because of the increased benefits, they should reduce the allowances in any way, they restored them. I understand that the officers will go into the matter if anybody feels that he has a grievance.

I join with Deputy McGrath in drawing attention to the matter of the tuberculosis domiciliary benefits, that is, the treatment of people at home for which the local authority and the Government go 50-50 in the expenses. When the national health benefits were increased, the Corporation and the local authority reduced the benefits to those people.

It is not right or fair that, when increases are given by the Minister under one Act, a local authority or Government Department should benefit by reducing some other benefit which these people receive so as to bring the figure down to a certain level. I appeal to the Minister to make it clear that it is not his desire that advantage should be taken to reduce the benefits to people because of increases given by him in his Department.

Mr. Davern

Those Deputies who have drawn the Minister's attention to the fact that local authorities have unquestionably reduced the home assistance because of the benefits which the Social Welfare Bill of 1952 conferred on some recipients deserve to be complimented.

It seems very strange to me that when county managers and local authorities start to economise they begin, in the first instance, to economise on the unfortunate poor of this country—and nobody can be poorer than those who are in receipt of home assistance. My recollection is that the Minister made it very clear in a previous announcement that it was not his desire that there should be any such reduction in home assistance. Notwithstanding that announcement, I agree with other Deputies who have spoken that reductions of a substantial nature have been made. If the Minister has not already full powers in this connection, I hope he will ask the House to give him powers to prevent local authorities from economising at the expense of the poorest people in this country.

Mr. O'Leary

Hear, hear!

Mr. Hickey

To substantiate what has been said, I want to say that I think we do not realise sufficiently what those people have to contend with. Unemployment assistance for a man in Cork City as well as in Dublin is 18/- a week. He receives 10/- for his wife and 5/- for each of the first two children. That makes a total of 38/- per week.

Now let us analyse what that means. It means 9/6 per week per person. Dividing that by seven days a week, it gives you 1/4 per day. These people are entitled to three square meals per day for seven days of the week, but that means that they have only 5d. per meal for these three meals. I am emphasising this matter because I am satisfied that if people gave it any thought they would not tolerate it for a moment. That, as I say, means 5d. per meal for three meals for four persons.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy realises that these are statutory provisions.

Mr. Hickey

I do, Sir. Some allowance has also to be made for rent, for fire and for light. What is there left for food when all these necessaries are provided for? The same remarks apply to unemployment insurance recipients where the allowance is only 12/2 per week. How is it that we draw the line between the unemployed man who is in receipt of unemployment assistance and the man who is drawing benefit on stamps? Does it not mean that we are punishing a man for being unemployed? The longer he is unemployed the more we are inclined to punish him, although he has no control whatever over the conditions of his unemployment. Why again should a widow whose husband dies while he is not in benefit have less by 6/- per week than a widow whose husband was in benefit at the time he died?

An Ceann Comhairle

Can the Minister by an administrative act raise that amount? This is a statutory amount and the Minister cannot by administrative act alter it.

Mr. Hickey

The time has arrived when the Minister or somebody else in authority must face up to these anomalies and change them. I am quite satisfied that members of local authorities are as sympathetic as anybody else in these matters, but the fact is that they have no say in these matters. The city manager or the county manager dictates policy to them. It is for the Minister to issue an instruction that county managers and city managers should pay more heed to the suggestions of members of local authorities who are elected by the people. In the case of income-tax there is an allowance of £60 for each child.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am afraid the Deputy is travelling away from the matter under discussion.

Mr. Hickey

I accept your ruling but I say that the conditions under which the recipients of unemployment assistance and unemployment insurance have to exist are disgraceful and the time has arrived when every member of the House should consider the matter more realistically than they have been in the habit of doing for some years past.

Mr. Rooney

I want to put one question to the Minister regarding this matter. The Social Welfare Bill carried through last year provided for what we are discussing here to-night. In the meantime, we had the Budget. As a result of that, old age pensioners got an allowance of 1/6 per week in addition to their pension. I should like to know from the Minister whether, in addition to the adjusted amount which will be payable to widows next month, will he also give them that token in regard to the cost of living of 1/6 per week?

Mr. O'Leary

I, like a number of other Deputies, am a member of a local authority living in a community of poor people. Some people to-day find it very difficult to exist notwithstanding the increased benefits about which we hear so much. Some people actually lost by the Social Welfare Act and some of them have had to have their allowances subsidised by home assistance. We are told that is a matter for the county managers. I think that where people go to the county manager or to the home assistance officer and try to get a subsidy for a man who is on his second period of national health insurance, the Minister should see that that is granted.

He said in introducing the scheme that he would not interfere with any allowance the local authorities were giving to these people. To-day, in my constituency alone, there are 4,400 people who will not be allowed free boots. Is that not a nice state of affairs after all we hear about our great social welfare schemes? The people are getting less this year in vouchers for boots from the local authorities than heretofore. These are matters with which local authorities are confronted every day in the week but when we try to make representations, we are told that it is a matter for the county manager. I would ask the Minister to give instructions to these officials to carry out the wishes of the local authorities as far as possible.

Dr. Ryan

The principal point that was raised was that when increased benefits were given to widows and others, such as people in receipt of unemployment assistance, the local authority took advantage of that to cut down home assistance. As Deputy Norton pointed out, I have no power to interfere with the local authority either generally or in any particular case in regard to home assistance. The 1939 Act was specific on that point and the House that was here at the time made sure that the Minister would not interfere in the case of home assistance. Deputy Norton admitted that but he said that, in spite of it, Minisers had from time to time given a directive, or if you like advice, to local authorities. I agree with the Deputy that that is true. I did make my views known to the county managers when this Act went through, that whatever extra benefits were given to widows, home assistance recipients or old age pensioners that they should have that extra benefit.

The county managers in their reply to that stated that they were taking note of the circular, but it is impossible to find out whether they have carried out that advice to the letter or not. Again, as Deputies know, home assistance is granted entirely on grounds of need. If the officer who goes around reports to the county manager that on account of getting a little more in the way of pension the need is not so great, then I think as the law stands, harsh though it may seem, the county manager is bound to take note of that and in some cases to give less than was given before. I know that some county managers can interpret the law very strictly and, perhaps, some of them very liberally. You may have a different interpretation from various county managers. As far as the law goes, I think that a county manager who is of a scrupulous type might hold that he was not permitted by law to give as much as before.

We have three Deputies who are members of local bodies on the benches opposite. I am quite sure that if they were to vote more money to the county manager that he would distribute it in the way of home assistance, because in that case he would have got a directive, as it were, from the local authority to spend a certain amount of money—more money than he had spent before. I think that any county manager would be capable of spending that money in the best possible way.

As regards the question of special allowances, which was raised by Deputy Hickey and others, I know that there has been a certain amount of complaint. The Social Welfare Act is now almost six months in operation. When I got these complaints in the first month or two, I naturally came to the conclusion that the administration of the service was not running as smoothly as it would later, and felt that in the course of time these things would be made right. In all cases, I should say, I communicated with the Minister for Defence and asked him to look into his part of this while I looked into my end of it. We tried to get things made right in that way. I must admit, however, that these complaints have been persistent, even though, as I say, the Act has been almost six months in operation.

Some time ago I came to the conclusion that there are some defects in the system, and that it will be impossible to get smooth running until we get rid of these defects. I spoke to the Minister for Defence about it and he agrees with me. We are having the matter examined, and are hoping to be able to remove whatever barriers there may be so as to have the declared intention of the Legislature carried out as far as the recipients of military pensions, wounds pensions or other special allowances are concerned.

Deputy Hickey spoke of the low rates of unemployment assistance. Deputy Byrne also complained of low rates in some of these cases and Deputy Rooney complained that widows had got no benefit for the extra taxation. I want to remind Deputy Hickey, Deputy Byrne, and Deputy Rooney that these things are all paid out of taxation, and so I do not think that these Deputies are very sincere in their concern for the old age pensioners or the recipients of unemployment assistance or the widows when we see the reluctance with which they vote us money to pay them. They will have to admit that when we brought in the Budget to pay for all these benefits they fought every line of it.

Mr Hickey

Not on that.

Dr. Ryan

Of course you did.

Mr. O'Leary

That is not so.

Dr. Ryan

That is what Deputy O'Leary, Deputy Hickey and Deputy Alfred Byrne did. If they had succeeded, the old age pensioners would not have got anything, because they did prevent us getting the money.

Mr. O'Leary

That is not true.

Dr. Ryan

Did you not vote against it? All those Deputies voted against the income-tax relief for the lower paid people when we made it fairly stiff for those in the higher income groups. They all voted against that proposition, and tried to save the rich from paying the income-tax which we proposed. We were taking the income-tax off the rich people in order to give more to the widows and the old age pensioners and they voted against it.

Mr. Rooney

You voted against the increase in 1950.

Dr. Ryan

What increase? I did not vote against an increase in pensions. I voted for an amendment to the Bill in 1950—an amendment based on the Bill that I had brought in myself. That is all Deputy Rooney knows about it. Deputy Rooney knows that, with the help of Deputy O'Leary and Deputy Alfred Byrne in the Division Lobby, they deprived us of the money to increase the old age pensions and the widows' pensions.

Mr. Hickey

Do not be making a Party matter of it.

Dr. Ryan

Deputy Hickey wants us to give more to the old age pensioners, but he will not let us get the money to do it. That is the sort of Party matter that the Labour Party want. These Deputies go down to their constituencies and say to the old age pensioners and to the widows that they are not getting enough, and at the same time say: "We will give those fellows no money to do this." That is what it comes to, and that is what has left the Labour Party where it is.

Mr. O'Leary

Not at all. You are able to twist everything.

Mr. Hickey

I would expect better from you.

Dr. Ryan

I am giving those Deputies a little bit of advice. I think they have a soft corner in their hearts sometimes, and maybe Deputy Hickey, Deputy O'Leary and Deputy Alfred Byrne would like to see the old age pensioners getting more. It is not enough for them to say that. They must give us the money to do it. What they have been doing is playing the big fellows—the popular men in the country, telling the people what they are going to get for them, but then when we come along to get money they will not give it to us. They tell us that we are taxing the poor man's pint. Have we not been hearing that for the last four years?

(Interruptions.)

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Thursday, 11 Dec 1952