I did not vote for such a thing, anyway. It could be said that every word that comes out of a politician's mouth is a vote catcher. I accept that. A politician gets credit for doing good and is entitled to get credit for doing good but he can be genuine in what he advocates even though at the same time he might like a little credit. The late President Kennedy said that you have to boost yourself if you hope to get power and do more good. How can you do good if you have not power? There is no great harm in trying to get a little backing for what one does if the aim is to get a little more influence and greater power to do greater good.
My interest in this subject is great. We do not like to shed tears about ourselves. I happen to be affected and have been affected for 40 years. It has been my lot to mix with these unfortunate people during 40 years. In fact, I mixed with some of them this morning in the Richmond Hospital. I will say no more about that. I know these people and what they are up against. I have several letters here. I do not want to read them. I have a letter from a person in Kerry saying: "The old people deserve increases and we know they are getting it hard but they cannot be compared with cripples and people who are bedridden." They are considerably worse off than even old people because old people at least may have their health and may be able to get around. They may have a small pension. They are allowed to earn up to £1 a week and receive maximum old age pension of 35/-. In a great many cases the disabled person has been crippled from birth or for a great many years and may have no pension. He may not be able to earn anything. I am referring to those who are 80 per cent, 90 per cent or 100 per cent disabled.
I am not asking that every disabled person should get 35/-, the same as a non-contributory old age pensioner gets. There are degrees of disability. A man may be disabled but may be able to earn a certain amount of money. There are others who are totally disabled and cannot earn anything. Only those who are unable to work and are greatly disabled would get the maximum. I am asking that the maximum be increased to the same level as the maximum non-contributory old age pension.
It is the local authority, not the Minister, who will decide the degree of disability. The Minister merely fixes the maximum. Unfortunately— and this is why I am pressing the motion—it rests with the local authority whether those unfortunate people are subsidised by way of assistance or not. While in some cases the assistance officer may be generous, in other cases he is not. That has been proved. I have here a letter the writer of which says she has £1 a week and is getting nothing from the assistance people. It was in order to get something from the assistance people that she wrote the letter. There was no stamp on the envelope. The writer said that she could not afford a stamp.
Too much is left to the local assistance officer as to whether those people should get additional assistance or not. My point is that in their own right, if totally disabled, they should get it. Of course, there is a means test. There is a means test in respect of all non-contributory pensions or allowances. The beneficiary is entitled to certain amounts, irrespective of income, in the case of contributory schemes. It is the accepted practice, in the case of non-contributory schemes, to have a means test. That is understandable. If a person is totally disabled, I trust the assistance people will not be a bit too tight on the question of means. I want to see a totally disabled person getting at least 35/- a week, the same as the non-contributory old age pensioner. That is not a lot. As time goes on and as the non-contributory old age pensioner gets an increase I should like to think that the disabled person will get a similar increase.
My complaint is that because all those other beneficiaries such as the unemployed, the blind, the widow, the orphan, and so on, come under the social welfare code the focus every year is on those people and none of them are missed. They all get something. The disabled people do not come under the social welfare code and they are forgotten.
I have been in this House since late 1957 and I have seldom heard anybody talk about the benefits for disabled persons. I am alive to that situation because I am interested in that class. I found that although they got their £1 in 1953, which was paid in 1954, they have got no more money since 1960. Six long years have elapsed during which they got nothing because they were forgotten. Maybe it was nobody's fault but the fact is that they were forgotten.
If the disabled persons came under the social welfare code I know they would have got increases in those years. I want to see the gap closed in relation to what all the others got during those six years, so far as disabled persons are concerned. They got 2/6 over the past three years and I do not despise that 2/6.
I argued the matter here and the Minister was good enough to indicate that he would keep those people in mind for the Budget. I appreciate that attitude. The people I speak for, who are totally disabled are a burden on their families. A lot of them have to be lifted from bed to chair, and have to be fed and dressed. Someone must always be there lest they should fall into a fire or something like that. If those people were in homes, it would cost the local authority probably £10 a week for each one of them.
People who are bedridden, and lots of them cannot get around, need little luxuries, no matter how small, to tide them over. You know what it is to be in jail, with nothing to do. Lots of people who are confined in jail would prefer to be out working. The cell kills them.
I understand the Minister is willing to accept the principle of the motion in so far as the non-contributory old age pensioners are concerned. I am willing to accept that. He said he would deal with it during the Budgetary period. I do not see anything wrong with that as it will be in a few months' time. It will not be terribly costly. There is not a great number of seriously disabled persons and the fact that half the amount is payable by the local authority makes it easier on everybody. I made the same case a year ago when we were accepting recommendations for the Health Committee. Actually this proposal was favoured by that committee.
I do not say the Opposition are callous. I know they are political and the game is that everyone has a "go" at everyone else with his eye on a vote. I have no doubt they are as sympathetic as I am towards this class of person only unfortunately a little politics are mixed up in it.
Other classes of beneficiaries have had three and four increases whereas the disabled persons got none because they were forgotten about. Surely it costs at least as much, if not more, to keep a 100 per cent disabled person as it does a non-contributory old age pensioner, and so on? I want at least parity and to ensure that henceforth when one class gets an increase the other classes will get as much. I do not want to dwell on how pitiful it can become when one knows such people and realises the feelings of their families. So long as I have the Minister's statement that he accepts the principle of this motion——