No, but he is not a good one. As an example of a good employer—Deputy Dockrell knows many of them, like I do—I will give the picture of an employer who, when a workman meets with an injury in his employment, does not pay him, as at present, 50/- a week but, as many good employers do, pays him his full wages as sick pay. There are many good employers like that. They recover part of the payment in the form of refund of the workmen's compensation sum from the insurance company. But, as far as the ordinary employer is concerned, who complies with the law—in some cases because he has to—this House is not under any particular obligation to that particular individual.
The problem is, as Deputy Finlay says, the problem of the uninsured employer. First of all let us get clear. If an employer is not insured, it is for one of two reasons—either because he wants to save on his insurance premiums—and then he is not a good employer—or he is ignorant of the fact that he can insure against this risk. I think, on the whole, there will be very few people, especially those who propose to employ people, who are unaware that you can get insurance cover for this particular risk. Generally, the attitude is that we take a gamble. If we have no accidents, we save the premiums and, if we do meet with an accident, then we hope to God we will escape the consequences.
Let us look at the other angle. An employer is not merely liable under the Workmen's Compensation Act, he is also liable under the Employers' Liability Act for a much more serious sum. If we argue that we should not impose this burden on the employer who is not insured, why should we impose the burden on him if he is not insured in respect of the Employers' Liability Act? Granted, there is the element of negligence, but every man who employs people knows very well that, while he may take very careful measures to avoid negligence on his part, there is always the element that there may be an oversight and he may still be held liable. It is ordinary common sense to insure against that.
It may be argued that there is not the same onus to insure against an accident under the Workmen's Compensation Act because there is not the element of negligence or carelessness charged against the employer but every employer knows that, once you employ people, no matter how careful you are, there is the element of an accident arising if it is only an accident caused by a worker's own carelessness or through the carelessness of another workman or purely through an act of God. To that extent, it seems to me that there is just as much onus on the employer to protect himself and his workmen against the risk covered by the Workmen's Compensation Act as there is under the Employers' Liability Act.
I doubt if anybody in this House would have very great sympathy for an employer against whom an order was made for heavy damages on the basis of his negligence if that employer was then to get up in court and plead that he should be relieved of meeting the sum because he was not insured. In fact, the immediate reaction is that the damages should probably be doubled for his negligence, not only in regard to his workman, but in regard to himself.
I recall a case some years ago where we had to act on behalf on a young man who lost part of his arm. The employer was found to be negligent. We got an award against him. We were never able to recover. He went bankrupt. He evaded all his liabilities. Three years later he was up in business again. That kind of employer every body will condemn.
Under modern conditions, the factor of insurance is widely known. Every day in the papers even the small farmers can read of workmen's compensation cases in the courts where there is an award given. There can be no suggestion that there is any great element of ignorance in failure to insure on the part of the employer. Rather, I think, it is the element of indifference, carelessness or very often, the ordinary economic element of cupidity, trying to save a few pence.
That is the type of employer who is now held up as an obstacle to doing what all sides of the House believe should be done. As I said, if we insert one word in the 1934 Act we have in fact got Section 8. The only difference, of course, is that the workman is able to apply. That is not a principal difference and that in itself is not giving rise to the difficulty. The difficulty is arising from the fact that the workman will now be able to apply when his weekly payment will have been increased from 50/- to 90/-, but the basis of calculation in so far as permanent incapacity is concerned remains the same under the section as it was under the old Act. The basis of decision in respect of partial incapacity will continue to be the same under the section as it was under the old Act. The only difference, in fact, is that we have gone to the extent of safeguarding the employer, the so-called good employer, who has no regard for himself or his workmen and, therefore, does not protect himself and his workmen by taking out insurance.
We put in sub-section (4) to say that, having applied to the workman the provisions of the 1934 Act, which have been applied in the case of the employer for a good many years, and the court having decided, on the facts in the case, that redemption would be a good and proper thing for the workman, we then turn around and say that, having decided all that, the court shall be entitled to exercise discretion on behalf of the employer. In other words, if, having found the workman has a fully sustainable case for redemption of his weekly payment, the court then finds that it is faced with one of these peculiar employers who will not protect himself and his worker, the court can then decide in its discretion that, even though the Legislature has decided that this protection will be given to the workman, it has now got the discretion of twisting that protection to protect the indifferent employer who has placed himself in the position that he has to admit that he has to go bankrupt because he cannot meet the particular claim or who has to come into court and admit that he has been at fault in not maintaining protection both for himself and his worker.
Listening to this debate, it occurred to me that in fact we are colouring this whole proposal in the section much more than is really necessary. I have to confess that I am as much at fault as anybody else in that respect. I feel we are being misled by two factors: first of all, the cost; now the cost does not arise out of the section itself. The cost would be no different in principle in so far as the 1934 Act is concerned merely because of the inclusion of the word "worker" and if, as I said earlier, we were dealing merely with the amendment of the section and not with the amount of weekly payment there would probably not be the same difficulty as we are experiencing at the moment.
The whole difficulty is that we are trying to do this at the same time as we are trying to do another overdue justice to the worker, namely, increase the weekly payment. First of all, because the amount involved in, say, the case of a young man of 21—the lump sum redemption for total incapacity—may run into the neighbourhood of £3,000 or £4,000, we are all starting to get a little bit afraid of putting £3,000 or £4,000 into the hands of a workman; but every day of the week we are putting many times that amount into the hands of other individuals who have got less sense of responsibility than a worker has, and no one objects. In the case of the worker that figure is arrived at after a court of competent jurisdiction has fully examined and determined the worker's legal right. There is no other element in it and, if the court determines that right, the man then has a full right to secure that amount. That is one of the factors causing difficulty, namely, the actual amount of money involved.
If this question had arisen in 1934 when the original Act was passed we would have been talking then in terms of £1,000 or £1,500 as compared with £3,000 or £4,000 to-day. That was big money in these days. The value of money has changed so much that the comparable value to-day of the sum that would have been secured in 1934 seems to be so inflated as to look completely out of proportion and certainly to go outside the limits to which an ordinary worker is entitled. Secondly, we have the problem of increased premiums. With all due respect to Deputy Dockrell, there is no sense in giving him a living. We know from the figures for this type of insurance that the total amount collected in premiums from industry is not a very big figure. I think it is a matter of something less than £2,000,000. We are told that if we implement this section there will be a 60 per cent. increase in premiums and we boggle at that. But we do not boggle at the fact that out of a sum of less than £2,000,000 at present paid by industry to insurance companies the insurance companies are picking up 30 per cent. in the form of profits. If there is a good argument against passing this section because it will impose an additional 60 per cent. on industry why does industry not concern itself with the fact that it is already paying 30 per cent. to insurance companies for which it gets no value at all? There is at least a good case behind all this to justify the increase.
With regard to the overall costs, I suppose that even if we cost out the total increase that may flow from the passing of this Bill, including Section 8, it is doubtful if it will add .5 per cent. to the total costs of industry and if Irish industry will collapse because of the imposition of .5 per cent. on its costs, then I think the future for Irish industry is very black indeed. Of course, nobody believes that.
Again, while I and other Deputies have been quite frankly in a somewhat confused state of mind over this, and I think we are only starting to see the light now, I do not think it is proper to have us further confused as between the principles involved and the costs. If the principle is good, and the principle has been applied for many years on behalf of employers, then there will have to be a very strong argument as to why the principle should not be applied on behalf of the workers. By merely putting one word into the section of the 1934 Act we can do exactly what we have in mind and we will impose on the courts one additional problem which did not exist under the 1934 Act once the employer made the application; the only addition will be this discretionary power given to the courts under sub-section (4). That was not in the 1934 Act. I have no particular objection to it, but I think that, having accepted the viewpoint that the court should have that discretion to deal with the special circumstances on the part of the employer, we should not overstress the case that can be made for the employer and we should not be unduly led astray because of the difficulty of the good employer who is so good, either from his own point of view or from the point of view of the workman, that he fails to take this elementary precaution.
Deputy Finlay mentioned industries in which there are special difficulties, such as the mining industry. Section 78 of the 1934 Act makes ample provision whereby various enterprises in an industry can by mutual arrangement cover their costs under workmen's compensation so that no one firm will be unduly burdened. Really the problem arises in regard to the individual employer and so long as he has got the possible liability that can always exist for an ordinary civil action for damages arising out of his own negligence or default, then he should as an ordinary sensible man insure against that risk. Once that principle is accepted, the argument is equally strong that where a man enters into the employment of any person he should accept that there is always the possibility of a genuine accident and there should be the same liability on him to secure insurance cover.
It may be argued that when this matter has been considered and examined by the commission and duly reported on, we may at a later stage deal with it by making insurance compulsory. But I do not think that we should leave it until that stage. The commission will have a very heavy job of investigation and it may well be some time before we get its report and, in so far as both sides are anxious to try to secure the passing of the main principle embodied in Section 8, I would again urge the Minister to give more careful examination to this matter between this and the Report Stage. If he does that he may well agree that members of this House, and possibly the Minister for Social Welfare and his officials, have allowed themselves to build up bogies to frighten themselves away from something they know is desirable and is in fact quite practicable if we examine the matter with a little less colouring and a little less labouring of such extraneous factors as cost and the increase in premiums, the alleged increase in cost so far as industry is concerned and particularly this whole bogyman of the good employer who has forgotten to insure.
