I think the House as a whole will agree that there is need for a comprehensive Workmen's Compensation Bill similar to the Factories Bill. Former legislation is out-dated and obsolete and the increase in industrial development makes it imperative that we should have a complete and comprehensive scheme of workmen's compensation. Because of industrial progress there is urgent need for such a scheme.
It has been suggested that a Committee of the House, or an outside committee, should be set up to make recommendations to the Minister and the House in that regard. I am in complete agreement with that proposition. The question as to whether or not workmen's compensation should form part of the social welfare scheme or be amalgamated with the various types of insurance would come within purview of such a committee. For that reason I do not think we need at this stage discuss that aspect of the matter in any detail.
As I see it, this Bill is intended to remedy temporarily, pending a comprehensive measure, some of the most glaring injustices as a result of former legislation, injustices which operate against the interests of the workers, the people for whose benefit the legislation was originally framed. All amendments since the 1934 Act have been based on an adjustment of the position to meet the increased cost of living. While that was laudable, it nevertheless left considerable injustices to be remedied. The Minister is now attempting to correct these injustices in a temporary manner at least pending further action by him and the proposed committee.
The best test as to whether this is a good Bill or a bad Bill will depend on its reception by those who are most interested. When the Bill was first published the Trades Union Congress, a congress of people solely and primarily interested in the working people and their needs, welcomed the Bill as embodying certain changes which the Trades Union Congress and trades unions generally had been seeking for many years. That is commendation indeed from those who understand the position.
Attention was drawn to the fact that the weekly compensation had been increased from 50/- to 90/-. Comment was also made on the compensation increase under this Bill in relation to fatalities. It was stated that these provisions were good in themselves and essential from the point of view of the working classes.
Apart from that, there are two other distinct advantages where the injured workman is concerned. There is power to initiate proceedings for a lump-sum settlement. Deputy Briscoe adverted to that. There is power to proceed under common law for compensation notwithstanding the fact that the injured workman has actually been in receipt of workmen's compensation for a period of 12 months.
I would like to add my voice both as a Labour Deputy and as a trade union organiser in support of that of the Trades Union Congress. It has been my lot for a period of ten to 15 years to take an active interest in workmen's compensation cases. Any man who holds the position of branch secretary or trade union organiser must of necessity appreciate the importance of workmen's compensation legislation and must, equally of necessity, come up against the snags and injustices inherent in existing legislation. The reduction of the period from four to two weeks and the abolition of the three-day waiting period is to my mind a distinct advance in this Bill, one that is welcomed and one for which the Minister should be given full credit. Under existing legislation workers were compelled, because of the meagre amount of compensation which very often almost brought them to the verge of starvation, to come to some settlement with the insuring company. It is quite true that a District Justice or a Circuit Court judge had to approve of such a settlement and to decide that such an agreed settlement was favourable to the worker.
In many cases that could be got over very easily by the workman himself indicating that he felt in much better condition of health than he actually knew himself to be. We are all well aware how doctors differ, and differ genuinely, and very often it is the manner in which the injured workman himself expresses how he feels to the judge that decides in the judge's mind the grievousness of the injury. If he finds that a workman, seeking to arrive at an agreement, indicates that he is not as seriously injured as he well might be, any judge who is human will be inclined to adopt the workman's word and sometimes agree to a settlement that is not at all in the interests of the workman. With the increase in the weekly compensation rate, the 90/- per week, in the future there will be much less reason for the worker to seek an immediate settlement. Ninety shillings a week, while not a wage, perhaps, or a compensation that is wholly adequate, is so great an improvement on the previous rate, especially where single men are concerned, that the urgent need to seek a settlement will not be there.
On the question of fatal accidents it might well have been said of the workmen's compensation codes of earlier days that it was much better from the insurance company's point of view that a man should be killed than that he should be injured. Fatality meant a small lump sum while injury meant perhaps continuation of payments over a long number of years. That the loss of a breadwinner to a family has now been estimated by a somewhat better financial assessment is certainly, in my opinion, an advantage to the workman. The increase of the juvenile dependents' age from 15 to 16 is also a step in the right direction and one that the trade union movement and the workers generally appreciate very much.
I notice that the Minister, in his opening statement, sounded a note of warning as to what the effect of Section 8 of this Bill might be or what might be the reactions of the insurance companies to that section, that is, the right of the worker to initiate proceedings for a lump sum settlement. Deputy Briscoe has just now sounded the same note of warning. I do not deny that perhaps there is some justification for the Minister's fears and the fears of Deputy Briscoe and that in actual fact increases in premiums might result which would be detrimental to the costings of a firm if insurance is to be charged against overheads. That is a reasonable thing to consider, but I wonder is the danger as great as either the Minister or Deputy Briscoe seemed to fear. I believe that the Bill as drafted gives fairly ample protection in that regard. Sub-section (4) of Section 8 of the Bill says:—
"The court shall have a discretion to grant or refuse an application under this section and in exercising that discretion shall have regard to the nature of the workman's injury, his reason for making the application, and, where the employer so requests, the employer's circumstances."
Is it not reasonable that the insurance company should take the line that most of us in this country take? Let the courts of our country take their duties seriously; let them exercise their judgments based on facts and on all the circumstances, and it is only where the judge—or, in the higher courts, a number of judges—consider it wise and beneficial and proper in the interests of the workman, after considering which course will do least injury, that they will grant such an application.
I think there can be no gainsaying the fact that this House as a whole agrees that prior to this proposed change in the legislation the dice was loaded against the working man. The insurance company could, if it so desired, pay him a weekly compensation rate for the whole of his lifetime. They could also, if they so decided, go to the courts after a period of six months and have the compensation redeemed by a lump sum settlement. Is it not reasonable that what is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander, and if the insurance company has that right, so within reason and as far as is within the power of the justices, should the workers have the very same right?
I feel certain that the insurance companies will feel that they are protected sufficiently by sub-section (4) of Section 8 and will not jump their premiums to the extent that any of us might have thought at first.
Should there be considerable pressure I think there is just one point where the Minister might consider a small relaxation and that is on the question of six months' incapacity. The Minister might consider, if it did meet with the views of any Deputies or, perhaps, insurance companies, that that could be extended, if necessary to 12 months. I would feel, speaking purely on my own and from my own observations, that a permanency of incapacity would take a period of at least 12 months to develop or to develop so that the idea of permanency or otherwise would become established.
The Bill suggests six months. I have no objection to the period of six months beyond that if the Minister felt as a result of pressure from any Deputies on the employers' side that that should be extended, I, as an individual trade unionist, speaking purely on my own behalf would feel that that concession could possibly be made.
Whatever we may say about the risk of the insurance companies jumping their premiums, there is one thing to which I would like to draw the attention of the Minister, and I think it is a much more serious matter for his consideration than any of those risks. It has come to my knowledge that ever since this Bill was published, insurance companies in a considerable number of cases are taking time by the forelock and forcing into court for a lump sum settlement a number of cases that have been long on their books, the idea being—it is quite clear—that they would get a judgment on the basis of 75 per cent. of the 50/- rate.
I will quote one case, without giving the name, of a worker who lost his right arm in 1949. Since 1949, being a single man, he has been in receipt of 50/- per week, and several times during that period the insurance company attempted to give him a settlement. No satisfactory figure was arrived at. Within the past few weeks, he has received notice that the company are taking him to court to have a settlement fixed. That is but one of a number of cases that clearly would benefit by the Act in which an attempt is now being made to deprive the parties concerned of the advantage of this Bill, due to the delay in this House in bringing it to completion. I would seriously suggest to the Minister that he should consider adding a section to the Bill giving a right to any person whose case has been decided since the introduction of this Bill to go back for a further assessment, if and when the Bill finally becomes law.
The intention of this Bill is to give full advantage to the injured workman and I do not think that any such action as I have indicated should be permitted to deprive a worker of what are clearly his rights. It has been said by one Deputy that, while he had very little sympathy or very small sympathy with employers who had insured their workers, on the question of their right to go into court to secure a lump sum settlement, he had very great sympathy with the employer who had not insured his worker at all. I take a completely opposite view. To my mind, insurance of workers should be compulsory. I am not going to discuss the question of compulsory insurance, because again that is a matter for the comprehensive Bill, but it is no excuse for an employer to plead that he could not afford to insure his workers.
I think it was Deputy Moran who made the point and I think what he said was that they could hardly afford to employ a worker, not to speak of insuring him. I think this should be looked at in the other way and that no man who cannot afford to insure a worker should have the cheek to suggest that he should employ him. Surely the rights of the dependents, the wife and family, of that workman must be safeguarded, should he be killed in his employment or so maimed as to be useless for life or should he be partially incapacitated, while working for another man. Surely it should be compulsory that these would be protected before that man could be put into employment to give profit to another, because no man employs any other man for other than a profit motive.
I came across a case which I reported to the Minister a couple of months ago of a big estate which had a worker employed cutting timber. As a result of that employment, he lost the use of one hand, and, when he went to claim insurance, he found he was working for a sub-contractor of the estate, even though he did not know it, and when he went into court, while his incapacity was admitted, he found that his decree was against a man of straw and he has now to rely, and to rely solely, on national health benefit—a drain on the State. It properly should be against the estate for which he worked, but, due to this easy trick, employers can get out of their obligations. Compulsory insurance would, as in the case of motor car insurance, make clear that such could not happen.
Those of us who were following the development of workmen's compensation came to know that a certain decision had been given in a court case which was subject to appeal and which left Section 6 of the 1953 Act open to doubt. I am aware that Section 11 of this Bill was put in with the idea of offsetting any such decision, and I think Deputy Larkin, speaking for the Labour Party, in April last, stated that he was not quite clear whether Section 11 was any improvement at all. I feel that the Minister in his reply should indicate what the view of his Department is, now that a certain decision has been given, and whether he is quite satisfied that Section 11 is at all necessary or whether he is satisfied that it meets the position as it is at present. It is the duty of the Minister to see that the wishes of this Dáil are carried out by the courts by seeing to it that Bills are so framed that there can be no loopholes, no legal points with which the lawyers can make play and which will give rise to judgments, on legal points alone, which are contrary to the intentions of the Oireachtas.
On the question of what this will cost by way of increased premiums, I am sure the Minister has made his own inquiries, but some of us have also been inquiring, and I suggest that before there is any haste in the Minister's coming to any decision, as to how much can be afforded, he should examine the costings of employers' liability insurance over the past number of years. I have got a number of figures. I do not claim that they are 100 per cent. correct, but I claim that they are a pretty fair indication of costings, of premiums and various other costs, of employers' liability insurance over the past number of years.
One of the points I get from the figures is that the figures of claims paid as a percentage of the premium income in companies established within the country appear to be some 64 per cent. Commission and expenses of management as a percentage of premium income appear to be as high as 30 to 36 per cent. I would think that, on just these two examples alone, there is room for a certain tightening-up in management expenses and in commission expenses that might absorb some of the increased costs to carry the new risks that the companies may be called upon to carry. Certainly they may not cover all the increased costs but, as Deputy Larkin suggested in his speech, the Minister would be well advised, before agreeing to increases in premium, to have the matter referred to some body such as the Prices Advisory Body.
All of us know that insurance companies are in the business for their profit interest. Deputy Briscoe indicated, when speaking of the risk and of these increased premiums, that these insurance companies would take the line of assessing the risk, irrespective of how small it was, as a new increased premium for a year or longer and then, having got a report from their actuary, they might consider a reduction if their anticipation of the risk did not work out. I suggest it is the responsibility of the insurance companies, before they seek and secure increased premiums to that extent, to show that their fears are actual and well-grounded and that they are only seeking an increase to compensate them not for a risk but for an actuality. It seems ridiculous that they can assess a risk which, as Deputy Briscoe said, might be simply one in a 1,000 and apply it to every one of that 1,000.
This Bill really affects just one section of the community, that is, the working-class people. The employer is incidental only. It is true that he employs the man and pays the premium but, whatever the premium —whether it is small or whether it will now be big—it has always been passed on to the consumer. There is no employer who looks upon the coverage of his workers as other than one of his costs of production. It is only reasonable and right that the risk undertaken by a working man in the production of a commodity should be assessed in the price of the commodity. I remember speaking to a doctor who had worked in Britain during the war and he said to me: "Deputy, if you saw the injuries and the fatalities that happen in the mines in Britain you would consider coal cheap at £20 a ton." He said that the risk of injury and of death to the miners was so great that he felt any price paid for coal was reasonable.
Equally so, I think the risks our people run and the injuries that occur in the course of production, especially in this new mechanical age, must be assessed and taken as part of the production cost of any article. The insurance companies are in the business purely and simply from the profit motive. Only one section should be considered by this House and that section comprises the working people who come under these Acts. Too long, I would suggest, have the rights of the working people been subordinated to the interests of the economy of the country.
In conclusion, I should like to congratulate the Minister on taking the first step to put an end to this practice which has been going on for so long.
