I move:—
That in view of the increase in the cost of living since present scales of benefits were fixed, and the general inadequacy of the rates of benefits now paid, Dáil Éireann is of opinion that old age, blind and widows' and orphans' pensions, sickness and unemployment benefits and unemployment assistance should be increased immediately.
It should hardly be necessary to stress, or explain in detail, the terms of this motion or to give any justification for having it brought before Dáil Éireann. During the past hour, five, six or seven Deputies paid tribute to the Land Commission and the Minister for Lands for doing a certain thing which will give a certain amount of property to people who already have some, if only a little, property. This motion deals with people who have no property and, mind you, it is not alone for those who have no property we speak, but also for those who not only have no property but who have no means except what the community, through State legislation, decides to give them.
The motion is in two different parts. It pertains to two different sections: those in receipt of social assistance and those in receipt of social insurance. It should be stressed, in the first place, that so far as social welfare benefits, as they are called are concerned, they are divided into two different classes. Many people are under the impression that every person who draws a pension, an allowance, or a benefit from the State, is getting a complete handout. It is true in some cases that it is a complete handout in so far as there is no contribution for it. That applies in respect of old age pensions, widows' and orphans' non-contributory pensions, blind pensions and unemployment assistance, to quote a few.
There are others: those in receipt of unemployment benefit and sickness benefit and those in receipt of widows' and orphans' contributory pensions. These are people who are not getting a handout from the State. They are people who have to contribute and whose employers have contributed, week after week, month after month, and year after year, by way of the insurance stamp affixed to the insurance card.
I should like to speak first about those people who are absolutely dependent on social assistance. When we talk about social assistance, we think of old age pensioners. I have a fair idea of the type of reply I shall get from the Government benches when the Parliamentary Secretary or the Minister stands up to reply. In any case, we in the Labour Party believe that the treatment of the old age pensioners and those in receipt of unemployment assistance, blind pensions and widows' and orphans' non-contributory pensions should be vastly improved. There should be an effort, or some sign of an effort, on the part of the Government to make such an improvement. I shall probably be told, in respect of old age pensions that there has been an increase in recent years as the cost of living increased. That may be a fact to a certain extent, but that is not our entire case here this evening.
As will be noted from the terms of the motion, we talk not only about the increase in the cost of living, but we specifically stress, in the second line of the motion, the general inadequacy of the rates of benefits paid at present. We may have regard to the cost of living and try to delude or "kid" ourselves by saying that old age pensioners and others have got proportional increases. It is a long time since the initial 5/- was given to the old age pensioner. It seems ever so long ago since the old age pensioner was asked to exist on 10/- per week. In relatively recent years, in the past ten or 12 years, we were a little more generous as far as the increase in the cost of living was concerned. However, I do not think any of us would readily admit that our old age pensioners are getting the treatment they deserve.
The old age pensioner is now receiving 27/6 per week. We have spoken about judges and justices within the past fortnight. The Taoiseach said that because the cost of living increased by 15 per cent. between 1953 and the present time the least we could do for these people would be to give them an increase of 10 per cent. He regretted we could not give judges and justices the full increase of 15 per cent. Bear in mind that, in receiving an increase of 10 per cent., one of these gentlemen, at least, will receive an increase, not an actual salary but an increase, of £480 per annum which is something approaching an increase of £10 per week. I do not base my argument entirely on a comparison with the salaries paid to judges, justices and members of the Supreme Court but I think there is a vast difference, to say the least of it, in the two cases. It is certainly not overstating the position to say that between the income of certain sections of the community and that of those who are required to live on 27/6 a week, there is a vast difference.
If one has regard to an old age pensioner living on his or her own, who has to pay even 3/- or 4/- per week for rent, we can readily calculate what is left to buy the other necessities of life, particularly food. It means that about 23/- or 24/- per week is left. Divided by seven, it means that the old age pensioner living on his or her own has something like 3/- or 3/6d. per day for maintenance. We must ask ourselves how can anybody buy sufficient food, not to talk of anything else, on the small sum of 3/6d. per day?
In all fairness to the Department and to the officials, it should be said that the blind person has some little extra. There are some different schemes whereby he can benefit to a slightly greater extent. Weighted against that is the fact that the recipient is blind. He cannot do for himself. He cannot enjoy many of the pleasures of life that even an old age pensioner can because he has no sight. The fact still remains that, with these other small schemes for blind pensioners, the State says, in effect: "A blind pension of 27/6d. a week is sufficient."
Consider the widow whose husband, before his death, had not sufficient stamps. She is now in receipt of a widow's or a widow's and orphans' non-contributory pension and gets something like 26/- per week. Without going into figures, it must be abundantly clear to everybody that we cannot be proud of the position.
Consider the much-abused, unfortunate man on the dole, the man who draws unemployment assistance. The single man gets something like 19/- per week if he resides in an urban area but if he happens to live in a rural area he gets something like 13/- per week. That is a situation which not alone the Government but the general public will have to face and do something to relieve. In particular, these men and women who must have recourse to unemployment assistance, or the dole as it is generally called, will have to be assisted in some way. Neither the community nor the State can provide work for them. We have no work to give them. We have neither productive work nor non-productive work for them.
We say, in effect: "If you stay in this country and in a rural area we shall give you 13/- per week." They must feel pretty bitter and cynical so far as the Government and the public are concerned, especially when some people accuse them of loitering around the labour exchange merely to draw the dole. The vast majority of them do not want to draw the dole. The vast majority of them want not the dole, not the 13/- or 19/- per week, but employment. That employment has not been forthcoming and is not forthcoming from the Government. Therefore, I suggest the Government will have to face the problem of providing work for these people, whether productive or non-productive, or else give them some inducement to stay in their own country by giving them a somewhat better allowance.
On two occasions the Parliamentary Secretary has made the remark—he said it last week in reply to Deputy T. Lynch who raised the subject of the inadequacy of the old age pension— that it is only a grant-in-aid. He said that in a voice which was not too audible. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us what he means by a "grant-in-aid"? I am sure old age pensioners in Wexford would not understand if I said to them that they were not expected to live on that 27/6d. per week as it is only a grant-in-aid. What does the Parliamentary Secretary imagine they have to supplement the 27/6d. per week? Is he of the opinion that these people have some sort of income? Is he of the opinion that they are assisted to any extent by other people and that the 27/6d. per week is a sort of bonus or present from the State? I assume the Parliamentary Secretary's reply to me will be something like this: "The local authorities have responsibility", "Their families have responsibility" or "Some charitable organisations have responsibility towards those in receipt of old age pensions, blind pensions, widows' pensions and unemployment assistance."
Let me take the position of the local authorities first. The Parliamentary Secretary knows as well as I do that many local authorities in this country, representing the ratepayers, refuse to accept the responsibility placed upon them by this House under the Public Assistance Act, 1936. Therefore, these old age pensioners, blind persons, widows and people on the dole wonder who is responsible for them. They are not wastrels. Because of their age the old age pensioners cannot work. They get the old age pension because they have not an income of a certain amount. The vast majority of them have no income whatever. The means test provides that if they have not more than £52 10s. per annum they may qualify for an old age pension.
Most people assume that, because they get the old age pension under that means test, they have £52 10s. per annum, or £1 per week, but such is not the case. The local authorities are not too generous. As far as I am aware, many of the local authorities will not come to the assistance of an old age pensioner if that old age pensioner is not living on his own. I had occasion to go to a certain local authority recently to ask for assistance for an old age pensioner and I was asked immediately: "Is he living on his own?" If he is living on his own, they give him 5/-. If he or she happens to be living with somebody else, whether a relative or not, the local authority give nothing.
Therefore, we can accept that it is only in exceptional circumstances that a local authority will come to the assistance of an old age pensioner, a blind person or a widow and then only to a very small extent. That is another very good reason why the Parliamentary Secretary should clarify his two recent statements to the effect that this sort of weekly assistance is merely a grant-in-aid. They may get assistance in some cases from their families but the heads of the vast majority of these families find it difficult to maintain themselves, their wives and their families and they believe it is not unreasonable that the State should not necessarily keep these people fully and in the utmost comfort, but treat them a little better than they have been treated over a long number of years.
There may be quoted to me the cost of living index. The cost of living index has no bearing on the cost of living to such as an old age pensioner. I said that in the House before and I repeat it tonight. The cost of living index figure, which is supposed to represent the rise or fall in the cost of living four times per year, has nothing to do with the expense it is to an old age pensioner to try to maintain himself, because in that cost of living index figure, there are not alone food and rent but various other things which are supposed to make up the cost of living. These things have no bearing whatsoever on the way of life of the old age pensioner, the widow, the person on the dole or the blind person.
The old age pensioner, the blind person, the widow and the orphan and the unfortunate man on the dole are concerned with only three things. They are concerned with the price of food, with the cost of their rent and with the cost of clothing. As regards tobacco, drink, the price of newspapers and all the other things that are in the cost of living index figure, he does not care a jot for them because he could never afford them. The last time I spoke on a similar motion I said that while the ordinary cost of living had gone up by 12 per cent., at the same period, the cost of food, rent and clothing had gone up something like 20 per cent. Therefore none of us need pat himself on the back and say we have compensated the old age pensioner for the increase in the cost of living over the past five, six or ten years.
I know it would take a fair amount to give these increases. That is a point the Parliamentary Secretary made before. He will quote to me, I am sure, as he has quoted before, the total amount required to give 2/6, 5/- 10/- or 15/- to an old age pensioner. I know it is a colossal sum. It is a formidable sum but there is also the formidable responsibility placed on the community to look after the aged. We must make the effort and if people have to make sacrifices, it should be brought home to them that they are making sacrifices for people who are not wasters, who are not just looking for charity but who merely want to live a normal life and to live the normal span of life.
When we think and talk about money, we should add up all the small amounts of money this Dáil and this Government passed for this, that and the other project. It may be said: "We shall pass this project"; "We shall give this grant and that grant—it is only about £15,000.""For this venture, we shall allocate another £500,000." Any Minister for Finance or Minister for Social Welfare may well say: "That would not give an old age pensioner an increase of a farthing." We know that but it all adds up. These sacrifices added up could in time reach a figure that could give justice to the people for whom we plead tonight.
We are concerned about tuberculosis in cattle. We are concerned with the growing of Irish wheat. We are concerned about tourism. We are concerned about the foreigner coming in here to spend money and generally to amuse himself. All these things cost this country millions of pounds. I shall not take the Government to task in relation to the question of bovine T.B. eradication. We realise its importance to the country. However, the Minister for Agriculture blandly announced at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis, or some place down the country, that this year we are spending £5,500,000 to eradicate T.B. in cattle and will spend more next year and the year after. Granted one cannot make an absolute comparison, but we can get that sort of money year after year for that kind of project and it is only every three or four years we become bountiful and say: "Here is another 2/6 for the old age pensioner."
I have not seen a gleam of hope nor have I heard a hopeful word from this Government since they came back to office in March, 1957, so far as social assistance recipients are concerned. We are paying £17 million for health services and £24.5 million for social assistance and social welfare benefits. This is mentioned any time one refers to this question. It all boils down to one thing: the person on the dole who cannot get employment in the rural area gets 13/- per week and the old age pensioner who has worked all his life for this country and who has incidentally worked for himself can get only 27/6 a week at 70 years of age.
This is not a condemnation of any particular Party; it is a condemnation of the whole community. We want to see some initiative shown by the Government and by the Parliamentary Secretary by way of giving hope to these people that there will be some scheme, that there will be some money available in order to ensure that in future we shall not be ashamed of the small amount of social assistance we handed out individually to these people week after week for many years gone by.
The second part of the motion talks about insurance benefits. I do not see the great difficulty there. If the Minister makes the case that we spend so many millions, £20,000,000, on social assistance, as it is very desirable that we should do, I do not think we can make the same case against an increase in insurance benefits. We may have been lagging behind to the extent that we have not yet provided insurance schemes not so much to provide against blindness, as to provide for all the widows and orphans or all those people who may be rendered widows and orphans, an insurance scheme for all those who cannot labour any more when they come to the age of 65 or 70; but we have the scheme so far as social insurance is concerned. We have the scheme whereby a worker pays one-third into the fund, the employer pays one-third and the State pays the remaining one-third, or whatever sum is required from year to year.
The last increase to these people was given about the Fall of 1956. People in receipt of sickness benefit, unemployment benefit and widows' and orphans' contributory pensions got an increase of 25 per cent. That compensated for a past increase in the cost of living but there has been a 12 point increase in the cost of living since August 1956.
I suggest that inasmuch as there is a scheme and that the workers do not object to paying a little more, nor do the employers, the State should also face up to its responsibilities and give an increase that would compensate to the extent of the full 12 points. The sooner we attach these benefits to the actual cost of living—I am talking specifically about insurance benefits— the better. We found, over the years, that the payments to these people have lagged behind. It is only after five, six or ten years that we have given them an increase but it is not sufficient to compensate them for their losses in the intervening period. There have been increases in food prices—naturally Fianna Fáil know that better than anybody because it was their 1957 Budget proposals to abolish the food subsidies which made tea, bread and butter much dearer. The Parliamentary Secretary knows that house rents have increased—I allege on the direction of the Minister for Local Government. There have been all these increases and life has become much more difficult for people who find themselves dependent on social insurance at the present time.
There is another big item of expense that usually has not been taken into account—medical expenses. The attitude of the Minister for Health and the officers of the local authorities with regard to giving out medical service cards has resulted in many more people incurring much more expense than prior to the inauguration of the present health scheme. Apart from anything else, if we were, for the sake of argument, to say that everybody who should have a medical service card has one, there may be a period when people become ill, even say for two or three weeks, during which they are not granted a card. Some of the assistance officers are reluctant to give them the temporary medical service card and these unfortunate people find, because of the way the health scheme is administered, that they are required in those two or three weeks— during which they are, perhaps, suffering from influenza or tonsilitis—to pay 10/- to a dispensary doctor or pay for drugs which they may require. These are additional expenses for which they have not been compensated. They are reflected in the cost of living since August, 1956.
We have not much experience of it in rural areas but bus fares have been increased in Dublin. That increase must be borne by people mentioned in this motion, from old age pensioners down to people in receipt of insurance benefits. It was a further smack in the face for people on social assistance and people in receipt of social insurance to hear the Taoiseach blandly state, in the speech he made in Oxford recently on Partition, that if the people of the Six Counties decided to join with us in a Thirty-two County Republic they would lose nothing in social welfare benefits. Very laudable indeed but there is a very hollow ring in it when one remembers the old age pensions, the sickness benefit and the unemployment benefit given in the North and what is given here.
Would it not have been far better for the Taoiseach to pledge himself, the Government and Irish people, when speaking at Oxford, in a statement to the effect, not that those people in the Six Counties would lose no benefits, but that in a short time the people in the Twenty-Six Counties would enjoy benefits comparable with those paid at present in the Six Counties or in Great Britain? But in his speech he said he recognised that these were adequate. We suggest that it would have been far better for him to pledge himself and the Government to make an effort to see that our social welfare benefits and social assistance were improved, and greatly improved, quickly.
The attitude has been: "We are doing well enough when we give them an increase now and again". It reminds one of a hungry dog. It will equal when hungry but we throw it a crust or an old bone and that keeps it quiet for a while. The 1/6d. or 2/6d. keeps the man on the dole quiet for a while but then there is an agitation and people write to the newspapers and say that the treatment of old age pensioners is scandalous. The public also have a responsibility in making that clamour count in order to induce Governments, and particularly this Government, to give them more.
I am always appalled at the attitude of the Minister for Social Welfare with regard to all these benefits and with regard to—I do not want to pursue it here—his attitude to health services. On one occasion I heard Deputy Sherwin ask the Minister, would he consider that the disabled person's maintenance allowance of £1 was sufficient to keep that person for a week. The Minister for Social Welfare just folded up the file wherein he had the information and sat down saying: "It is not too bad from other people's pockets." I heard him say that in this House, that £1 for the man who is disabled, the man who cannot work, is £1 from other people's pockets. We have a duty to all these people whether they are blind, disabled, or old. If that is the attitude of the Government—the attitude displayed by the Minister for Social Welfare—I am afraid we cannot expect much improvement. I commend this motion to the House and to the Government. I hope that the House will unanimously agree that the people mentioned in this motion deserve more assistance and that that assistance should be granted to them immediately.
