I have been struck by one peculiar aspect of the activities of this Parliament and, pondering over the remarks the Minister made on this motion, that peculiar aspect of the activities of the Dáil was again borne in on my mind. How is it that we seem to be able to pass through this House with great expedition legislation favourably affecting the incomes of certain grades in what might be described as the public service and that we inevitably have interminable delays in relation to legislation which may be designed to improve the living standards of large numbers of other public servants?
I recall that quite recently we had placed before us a piece of legislation which provided for the improvement of the salaries of district justices and High Court judges and it went through this House in record time. But, in regard to this question which is under consideration now and which affects many thousands of road workers, it is quite clear from what the Minister says that it will be a very considerable time before legislation is put through this House that will do anything for them.
Is that a proper state of affairs? Is that a correct interpretation of the glorious ideal laid down in the Proclamation of 1916, that all the children of the nation were to be cherished equally? We seem to be cherishing some of the children of the nation more favourably than we do others. It is a wrong thing, and I think it should be condemned. We think that it is far more important that the pension rights of men who have worked with their hands for 20, 30 and 40 years for county councils should be secured and improved than that we should concern ourselves with the interests of a small group of people who are fairly well off at the moment in relation to the rest of the community. That does not seem to be the principle on which the House operates, and it is a bad thing for the country.
In concluding my comments on this motion of ours, I press the Minister to have this matter of the amendment of the Superannuation Act of 1948 put through with all energy and with all speed. I was not a member of the House when the Act was passed, but I recall, and it has been brought to my mind by other members of my Party who were in the House at the time, that the Act of 1948 was put through this House at a time when it was known that the Dáil was about to be dissolved in preparation for a general election. It was put through this House without that consideration which it might have received if there was not the election tension at that time. For that reason, I do not think that it represented the fully-considered views of the House when it finally became enacted. That fact is reflected in the countless complaints which are being received by members of the House in regard to the operation of the Act, by trade union representatives of the workers concerned and by the Minister and his Department.
I want to refer to one consequence which has flown from the Act as it stands. I understand that in the City of Waterford there was a strike some two or three years ago. It was not of very long duration, but the result of the strike has been that, under the terms of the present Act, a number of tradesmen who participated in the strike have lost their pension rights entirely and, before their pension rights can be restored, an amending Bill or a special Bill must be introduced and put through this House. I have no doubt that when proposals for such a Bill are formulated it will take a much longer time for that Bill to appear on the Order Paper and go through the House than it took to increase the salaries of district justices and High Court judges.
I want to refer particularly to the undesirability of this archaic regulation. I think it is the relic of a period when strike action by workers was regarded by those in authority as something immoral, something that should not be countenanced in any circumstances, and that we should remove as far as we can from the regulations affecting workers in this country any suggestion that their right to cease work was held in question. It is a fundamental right which has been admitted in every democratic country in the world that workers should have the right to cease work if and when they feel they have a grievance which requires such action. But in this Act we have a provision that should workers cease work they are penalised to the extent of loss of their pension rights. That is something that most people in this House would strongly disagree with. It is there and, from what the Minister said, it will be a considerable time before it is remedied.
In counties where Part III of the present Act has been adopted it seems to be impossible for councillors or workers to determine just what registration means. I have met county councillors who seemed to think that the creation of a register of established servants which is called for under the terms of the Act means that only servants with full employment for the entire 12 months would be eligible to have their names entered upon such a register. On the other hand, we have cases of councils which are completely at a loss to know what to do in regard to the treatment of their established servants. The Act, in my view, should be so amended as to ensure that there should be security of employment for those of the workers whose names are entered on the register.
Obviously it is quite unreal to try to apply an expensive superannuation code such as this to casual workers who do not know from one year to another whether they will get six months', eight months' or nine months' employment. It is unreasonable to expect that casual workers employed in certain counties on a purely seasonal basis in some instances, or at certain times of the year, should be expected to accept very considerable deductions from their wages as contributions towards a superannuation scheme under which they may never come to benefit. A halfpenny in the shilling is a very substantial deduction in the wages of such workers when it is remembered their wages are so very low.
One other anomaly which has been brought to my notice, and indeed it is a coincidence that this instance that I bring to the attention of the Minister occurred in County Cavan. There a roadworker with a substantial number of years' service—he was over 60 years of age—was retired by the county council. Under the terms of the Act he qualified for allowances or pension under the provision of the 1925 Act. He was about a week or two on pension when he died. His wife received no gratuity or pension because the 1925 Act does not provide that any gratuity be paid in respect of persons who are pensioned within its terms. The Act of 1948 does provide that where a pensionable servant goes on pension directly under the terms of the 1948 Act, in the event of his death his wife becomes entitled to a gratuity equivalent to 12 months' pay. But that will not come into operation for a very considerable time because it is obvious that some years must elapse before any road workers will be pensioned directly under the Act of 1948.
Those of them who are at present going out on pension are going out on pension and receiving pensions by virtue of the Act of 1925 as provided for through the medium of the Act of 1948. Such people are usually very old men—in fact I have come across a man of 80 who succeeded in concealing his age over a long period so that he would not be dismissed by the county council. That particular activity is not unknown to Deputies in other areas, too. In cases such as this when the man dies and leaves a widow, the widow is not entitled to the same benefit as other workers' widows would be entitled to in a few years' time, that is, a gratuity equal to one year's pay. That is something that should be corrected and I hope will be corrected when the time comes.
The only other aspect of the matter that I will refer to and that occurs to me at the present time—there are thousands of matters of detail that could be referred to but I do not think it would be right to take up the time of the House in discussing them here in such a fashion—is one which is important as it affects the operation of the Act permanently and one which I think can be dealt with by the Minister even without legislation. That is the very lengthy delay which occurs at the present time at the moment when a worker employed by a county council ceases to work and applies for a pension. We have had cases of workers having to wait—old men who have served out 40 years in some cases, more years than they can remember, literally—and some of them as far as I can see started to work with local authorities when local authorities were first founded in this country and have remained working since.
I think it is most unfair to those men that when they do come to the age that they are retired, or voluntarily retire themselves, that they should have to wait six or eight months to get the few shillings coming to them by way of pension. This is an administrative matter and varies in its treatment from one county to another. It may be a comment on the relative efficiency of the staff of one county or another.
We have had many complaints here and I would ask the Minister to issue a directive to all county councils or managements that particular attention should be paid to applications of such workers for pensions and that they should be expedited, facilitated and pushed through in every way. It is not fair that these delays should occur and many of us have seen what has happened when a worker ceases work with a county council with which he has been employed for a long number of years. It is generally found that he has not very many days of his life left so that we should try to make those few days he has in hand at least as happy as it is possible to make them.
Deputy Rooney mentioned the question of road workers who were dismissed before the Act came into operation in 1948. We had the position in County Dublin in 1947—the year in which the Act was introduced and put through this Dáil—in which 40 or 50 men, not one of whom had less than 35 years' service and some of whom had almost 45 years' service—were callously dismissed by the acting-county commissioner who was in office at the time. They were dismissed only a matter of months before the Act became law and was entered on the Statute Book. Most of them are dead now. There is hardly a dozen of them left alive but in justice to them, because of their long service, I would urge the Minister to consider when he is examining this whole question making some provision for people of that classification who had long service and who, through no fault of their own and through no reason to which they contributed, were disemployed shortly before the introduction of this legislation. I suppose from the indications there are that we will not see this amending legislation for some considerable time and that that problem will solve itself because most of those men who served their councils well will most probably have passed away. But it is an important principle that they should not be overlooked even if only one of them was left when the time comes to amend the Act.
I want to say, finally, that it is a matter of complete dissatisfaction to us that we should have to wait so long when we have been promised that the amending legislation was under consideration by the Minister and officials of the Department. Many Deputies have been assured by means of parliamentary questions that this Act was under examination for the purpose of amendment, and yet we are now told that no guarantee can be given as to when the amendments can be introduced. We have had five years' experience of the operation of this Act, and it is completely unsatisfactory. Members of other local authorities have had the same experience. It is a piece of mystery legislation on which the lawyers cannot get agreement among themselves on its interpretation, while it is evident that it inflicts hardship on road workers throughout the country. Yet we are told that the Government can give no guarantee as to when it will be amended. Contrast that with the fact that legislation which is, to my mind, of a relatively frivolous nature can be rushed through in a matter of minutes in order to improve the conditions of a small group of vested interests. The road workers have to wait until the Dáil thinks fit in its own good time. I think that is most unjust.
Mr. MacCarthy rose.
