asked the Minister for Social Welfare whether any assessment has been made of the number of employers who deliberately defaulted in the matter of meeting their obligations in respect of their employees; and whether he proposes to take any action in this matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Social Welfare Obligations.
7.
I presume the Deputy refers to the obligations of employers in regard to the stamping of social insurance cards. Information is not available to show the number of employers who deliberately default in meeting their obligations in that respect nor is there any certain way of knowing whether default is deliberate rather than the result of carelessness, bad business methods or simply financial difficulties whether temporary or permanent.
It may interest the Deputy to know that for departmental purposes employers are classed as reputable, that is to say those who meet their obligations promptly and without fail, and non-reputable, those who do so irregularly or only when pressed. The records of non-reputable employers, who constitute about one-twentieth of the total, are investigated by officers of my Department at intervals of not less than once a year. Cases of default which come to light either as a result of such inspections or otherwise are investigated by officers who have special statutory powers to facilitate the investigation, and where payment of arrears is not promptly forthcoming or where non-stamping of cards is persisted in civil proceedings are instituted for recovery of the arrears. Where circumstances warrant, summary proceedings are also taken against employers in respect of offences under the Social Welfare Acts or Regulations. In the first four months of this year 204 cases of non-compliance in regard to the stamping of insurance cards were referred to the chief State solicitor for the initiation of civil proceedings; summary proceedings were also proposed in 69 of these cases.
I may add that in any case in which an employee loses social welfare benefit as a result of the failure of his employer to stamp his insurance card I am prepared, if he so requests, to initiate civil proceedings on his behalf to recover the amount of benefit lost. As I have already indicated in reply to recent questions in this House the question of what further steps can be taken to protect the interests of employees in this respect is at present under consideration in my Department.
Did I hear the Minister say that he had a classification of non-reputable employers amounting to one-twentieth of the total?
Yes.
If this is so, does it mean that we have literally hundreds of employers classified in the Minister's Department as non-reputable?
Yes. It is a classification for the purpose of knowing those who are likely to be negligent about the stamping. The inspectors keep in touch with those. They are not always the ones who ultimately have the biggest troubles because usually tabs are kept on them.
Could the Minister put a figure on it? Would it be a couple of thousand or a couple of hundred?
I would not say thousands.
Is the Minister aware that many Deputies have given him examples of cases where employees had been without benefit for many months—civil action was pending admittedly but that took, as it does take, a great number of months—and these employees had nothing else to depend on over that period? It seems extremely unfair that as the law now is the employer can go to the Bahamas and the employee to the St. Vincent de Paul Society. That is the situation.
We cannot have a discussion on this matter now.
Would the Minister agree that at the earliest opportunity he should make a report to the House on this matter?
I do not think it is as serious as the Deputy tries to make it appear. This matter of reputation is a term used for classification. Those who are listed in the non-reputable class, where there are doubts, are visited by the inspectors and where visits are periodically made records are usually kept up-to-date. The type of cases the Deputy has in mind may be mostly those who have gone bankrupt.
Is it a fact that many people who fail to stamp cards for a big number of employees one year do not stamp the cards the next year even though the Department are made aware of the fact that they have not stamped them in that particular year, and that they are allowed year after year to carry on in this way without any intervention by the Minister's Department? Why is this allowed? Is it not also true that there is no point in the State or anybody else instituting legal proceedings against employers who have gone bankrupt and that this happens in dozens of cases which I have brought to the Minister's notice in the past couple of months?
Is the Minister aware of an applicant for an old age pension whose pension has been held up for nearly 12 months because her employer did not stamp her cards and that her employer was the Department of Posts and Telegraphs? What action will the Minister take against that Department.
I have no particulars of that case.
I am calling Question No. 8.
This is a very important matter when one-twentieth of the employers in the country are described as non-reputable——
The matter cannot be discussed here. This is Question Time.
I propose to raise the matter on the Adjournment.