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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 7 Jul 1971

Vol. 255 No. 5

Social Welfare Bill, 1971: Second Stage.

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

The Bill is concerned mainly with the extension of the existing social insurance and social assistance schemes to implement the proposals in the Budget for improvements in those schemes and consequential matters. The explanatory memorandum circulated with the Bill is designed to clarify the provisions of the Bill which, because of its technical nature, tends to be difficult to understand in places, and should assist Deputies in their examination of the Bill.

The Budget increases in the field of social assistance will give an extra 40 pence a week to all existing non-contributory old age, blind and widow pensioners and to those in receipt of deserted wife's allowances. The maximum personal rate of old age, blind and widow's pension and of deserted wife's allowance will then be £4.65 a week. The increases in the personal rates of pension at the maximum will enable the scale of means and rates of pension to be extended in each case to give an additional rate at the bottom of the scale which will be payable to persons whose means are outside the present limits for pension.

Orphans' non-contributory pensions will be increased by 25 pence a week and the rates paid to widows and deserted wives in respect of qualified children will be increased by 15 pence in respect of the first and second child and by 40 pence in respect of each other child, thus bringing the payment for each child up to a level 90 pence.

The improved payments for orphans and for dependent children of widows and deserted wives are intended to assist persons in those classes who have the onerous task of rearing children. The maximum rate payable to a widow or deserted wife with two qualified children will go up from £5.75 a week to £6.45 a week; where there are four children, from £6.75 a week to £8.25 a week and where there are six children the rate will be increased from £7.75 a week to £10.05 a week. The maximum rate of orphans' non-contributory pension will rise to £2.50 a week in respect of each orphan.

A modification is being made in the means test for widows and deserted wives who have dependent children and who are employed. In such a case at present, earnings from personal exertions of up to £39 a year in respect of each qualified child are disregarded in the calculation of means for the purposes of widow's non-contributory pension or deserted wife's allowance. Under the Bill this amount will be increased to £78 a year in respect of each child. A widow or deserted wife with four children will thus be able to earn £6 a week, instead of £3 a week, without it affecting her title to pension or allowance.

The rates of unemployment assistance for persons in urban and rural areas are being increased by 35 pence a week for the recipient and by a further 30 pence a week where there is an adult dependent. The maximum rate will then be £3.95 for a single person and £7.05 for a married couple resident in an urban area. Outside urban areas the corresponding rates will be £3.65 for a single person and £6.65 for a married couple. These increases in unemployment assistance will have the effect of automatically extending the means limit for qualification for unemployment assistance.

All of the increases and improvements in relation to social assistance will operate from the beginning of August next.

The increases in rates of social insurance benefits and pensions announced in the Budget will come into operation at the beginning of October next. These will provide an extra 50 pence a week for recipients of old age contributory pension and widow's contributory pension. Recipients of disability and unemployment benefit, invalidity and retirement pension and maternity allowance will get an extra 45 pence a week. Orphans will get an extra 30 pence a week in their contributory allowances. There will also be additional payments for dependants. An extra 35 pence a week will be paid for an adult dependent of an old age, contributory, pensioner and an extra 30 pence for an adult dependant of a retirement or invalidity pensioner or of a recipient of disability or unemployment benefit. In addition, the amounts paid in respect of dependent children to widows receiving contributory pensions will be increased by 10 pence a week for each of the first two children and by 35 pence for each subsequent child bringing the payments for each child up to £1.

These increases will make substantial improvements in the payments under the various schemes.

From October next under the old age, contributory, pension scheme a single pensioner will get £5.50 a week and a married couple £9.35 a week. A widow without children will get £5.00 a week by way of widow's, contributory, pension. The personal rates of unemployment and disability benefit, retirement and invalidity pension will then be £4.95 a week and, where there is an adult dependant, the rate will be £8.40 a week. The increased payments for the qualified children of a widow in receipt of a contributory pension mean that a widow with two children will get £7.00 a week instead of £6.30; a widow with four children, £9.00 a week instead of £7.60 and a widow with six children, £11.00 a week instead of £8.90.

Certain rates of unemployment benefit which are payable where unemployment continues after 156 days are the same as the maximum rates of unemployment assistance payable in urban areas. As assistance rates are being increased from the beginning of August next, these particular rates of unemployment benefit are also being increased from then.

To meet the extra expenditure on the increased rates of benefits and contributory pensions, an increase in the social insurance contributions payable by employers and employees is necessary from the beginning of October next. The increase proposed in the rates of social insurance contributions which give cover for all benefits, is 19 pence a week, except in the case of agricultural workers where smaller increases are being applied. Lesser increases are also being applied where some only of the benefits concerned are covered. The increase of 19 pence in the ordinary rate of men's contribution will be shared by the employer paying ten pence and the employee nine pence and the total contribution will then be £1.72 a week of which 87 pence will be borne by the employer and 85 pence by the employee.

Arising out of the increases and improvements in the general social insurance system provided for in the Bill, it is proposed also to improve the benefits payable under the occupational injuries scheme. The increases proposed are 50 pence in the rates of the main weekly paid benefits and allowances with proportionate increases in other payments. All benefits under this scheme are met out of the occupational injuries fund which is financed by contributions paid by employers only. It will not be necessary on this occasion to increase these contributions to meet the cost of the increases.

The overall weekly employment contribution payable in respect of men in ordinary industrial or commercial employment will, from October, 1971, be £1.88 made up of £1.72 in respect of social insurance, 11 pence in respect of occupational injuries insurance and five pence in respect of redundancy payments. Of this the employer will pay £1.01 and the employee 87 pence. In the case of women in such employment, the overall weekly contribution will be £1.76 made up of £1.64 for social insurance, eight pence for occupational injuries insurance and four pence for redundancy. Of this the employer will pay 96 pence and the employee 80 pence.

The increase in the rate of voluntary contribution covering widows', contributory, pensions only will be five pence making it 37 pence and the increase in the contribution which covers old age and widows', contributory, pensions, retirement pension and death grant will be ten pence making it 91 pence.

A table showing the present and proposed rates of contribution appears in the explanatory memorandum. As Deputies will already know, the Health Contributions Bill at present before the House provides for weekly health contributions of 15 pence to be collected by way of the social insurance stamp for those classes of employees to be covered by the provisions of that Bill. This 15 pence will be additional to the rates of contribution I have mentioned.

Apart from dealing with the Budget proposals and matters consequential on those proposals, the Bill proposes to deal with a further matter which has been the cause of some concern in recent years and which has already been the subject of much discussion in the House. This is the position of the employee who, through no fault of his own, may lose benefit by reason of his employer's failure to pay employment contributions for which he is liable in respect of him. As I have already indicated in reply to questions in the matter, steps have been taken by way of regulations under existing powers to enable employment contributions to be credited to an insured person where contributions properly payable have not been paid and the failure to pay is shown not to have been with the consent or connivance of, or attributable to any negligence on the part of the insured person.

These regulations go part of the way towards enabling an insured person to satisfy the contribution conditions for benefit where there has been failure on the part of the employer to pay contributions but they do not solve all the problems. If, for instance, any of the basic conditions which can only be satisfied by contributions which have been paid are not satisfied, credited contributions are of no avail. It is proposed in the Bill, therefore, to take power to enable regulations to be made which will allow contributions which have not been paid to be treated as having been paid subject to safeguards to ensure that in cases where there has been collusion between employee and employer in the non-payment of contributions the employee will not benefit. The concession is designed for the protection of employees and it is not proposed that the treatment of unpaid contributions as having been paid should remove any part of the liability of an employer to pay these contributions and to make good any benefit lost as a result of his default. There is provision in the Bill, therefore, to ensure that any employer who fails to pay contributions or who pays contributions late will be liable to pay to the Social Insurance Fund the amount of benefit which would have been lost but for the treatment of unpaid contributions as having been paid or the treatment of late paid contributions as having been paid in time. Such amounts will then come within the scope of the existing powers to recover amounts due to the fund by legal process. In addition the Bill provides for the imposition, on summary conviction, of heavier fines and, at the discretion of the court, terms of imprisonment or both fines and imprisonment, on employers who fail to comply with the provisions of the Social Welfare Acts regarding the payment of contributions.

As in previous years the position will arise in August next, when non-contributory pensions are increased, where for the period up to the end of September next, when contributory pensions are increased, cases may occur where the non-contributory pension to which a pensioner might be entitled would be temporarily more favourable than the corresponding contributory pension which he holds. It was never the intention that the option which was given to contributory pensioners by the 1966 Act to switch to non-contributory pensions where it would be to their advantage, should operate for very short periods and there is provision in this Bill as in previous years Bills to prevent such switching where the advantage would only be temporary. The right of pensioners to switch where the advantage would be permanent will remain.

To conclude I will summarise the cost of the various proposals in the Bill. On the social assistance side there is £2,350,000 for old age and blind pensions, £548,000 for widows' and orphans' pensions, £89,000 for deserted wife's allowances and £796,000 for unemployment assistance, the total cost being £3,783,000 in a full year, all of which will fall on the Exchequer. The gross cost of improvements on the social insurance side will be £6,709,000 in a full year, of which the increases in contribution rates will provide some £5,446,000.

I have much pleasure in recommending this Bill to Dáil Éireann for speedy and favourable consideration.

This Bill, as the Minister has just said, is intended, in the main, to give effect to improvements in the schemes of social assistance and social insurance announced in the Budget statement of 28th April, 1971. It also provides for consequential matters including increases in social insurance contributions.

My first reaction to this Bill would be that of many social welfare recipients namely asking the question: what does this Bill do for them? Does it do anything more for them than hold their incomes at the same level they were at before the cost of living rose? Every miserable increase that has been granted to social welfare recipients since 1957 has been swallowed up by rising prices and in too many cases they are less well off than they were before in real money terms.

It is unfortunate that, with the introduction of this Bill, they still have to pinch and scrape to make ends meet. The increases of 40p and 50p which have been granted are practically eroded by the spiralling cost of living. My concern and that of everybody on this side of the House is for those deprived sections of our people who, unfortunately, have to depend on social insurance.

Let me tackle, first of all, the problem of the widows in this country. The Minister will remember that we in Fine Gael brought in a motion just before Budget day asking that the lot of widows would be considerably improved. We had hoped then, from the reception the Minister gave our motion, that a substantial increase would be given to that deprived section of our people in the Budget. Not only had we hoped for that but the widows themselves were looking forward to the 8th April and the speech of the Minister for Finance. They, like us, were sorely disappointed. It was then my belief, as it is still, having consulted with the widows and the other people in my constituency, that no section of the community would feel in any way aggrieved if in the Minister's Budget there was imposed some taxation that would give some real relief to the widows of Ireland. Unfortunately, the Minister for Social Welfare and the Fianna Fáil Government seem to be slack in their social conscience. The widows' case is a just and moral one. How can the Minister, in these days of spiralling costs, expect them to live on something around 30p per week?

Under this Bill a contributory widow with two children will be in receipt of £7 per week, that is, £1 per day. That means, in effect, that each of the three people will have to live on 33p per day. In the case of a non-contributory widow with two children, she will be entitled to £6.45, or 30p per person per day. Do we public representatives in 1971 believe and think it right that any adult person should be expected to live on 30p per day? I know that the taxpayers who provide the money for us to distribute are sorely disappointed that something better has not been done. There is a social conscience here and the entire community are asking themselves the straight question: "What are we doing for those people?"

Speaking on our motion earlier, Deputy O'Donnell and I said we did not wish to overstate the case of the widows. Every Deputy here knows that there is a limit to the public purse but we are also convinced that that section are the most deprived and they still have the same complaint as they had when our motion was unanimously accepted. I appeal to the Minister on their behalf to do some real thinking on this and I press on him and his Cabinet colleagues that a new deal for widows is called for.

In regard to other sections of social welfare beneficiaries, the 40p to 50p increase is not in keeping with the increase in the cost of living. When the Minister for Finance in his Budget Statement spoke of the good this would do, many social welfare recipients who had read it or heard it or saw it on television thought there was something real in store for them. Like me, they now believe that their position after August will be just as bad as it was in 1970. They believe, like we do, that too low a priority is being placed on reforms in the social welfare code. Increases are not being given to compensate for the increases in the cost of living and I appeal to the Minister to give a higher priority to the job of tackling the social problem in an enthusiastic and genuine way. The wealth of the country should be distributed more equitably. It should be used for the benefit of the whole community with special regard for the deprived and the underprivileged.

Previous Ministers as well as the present Minister seem to have taken as their criterion how little rather than how much they would give. In 1971 we should leave that behind, especially in view of the imminence of EEC entry. In EEC countries social welfare benefits are much more generous and I appeal to the Minister to make a real change in the code here in preparation for EEC membership. I have no doubt the social welfare classes have the Minister's sympathy but apparently he is unable to convince the Minister for Finance and his other Cabinet colleagues of the genuineness of their case.

I referred earlier to the statement made in the Budget speech of the Minister for Finance that the Government this year decided to improve the lot of widows, deserted wives, orphans and others. I think that what I have been saying must convince the Minister that the reverse is the case. While on this subject, there is still this annual complaint that although new taxation is collected almost immediately, about the third week in April, social welfare improvements are not paid until the first week in August in some cases and the first week in October in others. This causes great annoyance to the recipients and it should not be beyond the ingenuity of the Civil Service to devise some way of paying the improved benefits earlier.

I wish to say a few words about children's allowances. Nothing has been done in regard to them this year. In my study of EEC countries in this respect I have found that children's allowances in this country are very far behind those in several European countries.

I was glad to note that section 8 of this Bill provides authority for the making of regulations to enable contributions which an employer has failed to pay, and where the insured person is innocent of any complicity in the failure to pay, to be treated as having been paid in order that the insured person will not suffer loss of benefit. All of us are glad to see this section because many people have suffered in the past in this respect. During the past 12 months I brought to notice a case in my constituency where a factory went to the wall and where many employees suffered greatly because their cards had not been stamped properly. One point I should like to make on this is whether there is any degree of retrospection. During the past 12 or 18 months many factories of one kind or another closed down and left many employees in trouble. I hope the Minister will be able to tell us that there will be retrospection to cover such cases.

I do not wish to delay the House further on this Bill. We will have a chance later in the week of debating the Estimate and I do not think it is fair to the Minister or to the House to delay too long. All I want to say is that we regard the increased benefits as entirely inadequate and that we suggest the Minister should put on his thinking cap and remember that Ireland is crying out for a change in the social welfare code.

There is no doubt that the Government are adepts at using arithmetic in the pretence that by using it they will improve something. The fact is that there is only one improvement in the Bill and it is to be found in section 8. The rest of the Bill is a disimprovement because it does not equal the increase in the cost of living in any respect. So far as section 8 is an improvement I welcome the Bill, but there is no other reason for welcoming it.

The method of legislation here adopted—legislation by reference—is extremely objectionable. The work should be done in a straightforward fashion instead of referring back to various other Acts: Section 52 of the Act of 1952, the Second Schedule to the Act of 1952, and so on. Section 15 is a lot of mumbo-jumbo, instead of doing the job in a straightforward way, the way it is done in Canada and the United States where the document is a unit, and where any literate person who can understand ordinary English can understand what is being said.

This method of legislation is a stunt to create experts and it does create experts because any ordinary person has the greatest difficulty in understanding it even where the subject matter is as simple as this. Lawyers are said to love it but I have never yet met a lawyer who is all that fond of it. In many cases it makes for a great improvement in their incomes. The sooner we depart from this method of legislation the better—this continuous building-up and building-up until eventally you have a mixum-gatherum morass through which no person can go without immense effort, the kind of effort which no person should be asked to make.

Even the cost of living index which, of course, does not reflect correctly at all the changes in the actual cost of living, showed a 3 per cent increase in the three months from February to May and that is a rate of 12 per cent per year. All through this Bill there is an increase of 10 per cent in the benefits. I see that £4.50 becomes £4.95 and £7.65 becomes £8.40, but £3.60 becomes £3.90. That is for young people. We always cheat young people if we get a chance at all, particularly in Government Departments. In the case of certain married women, the £3.60 becomes £3.90, that is, 30p on £3.50, or one-twelfth, or about 8 per cent. It is only two-thirds of the increase in the cost of living. Therefore there is the usual dirty cheating where young people are concerned.

Children's allowances are not mentioned at all. I will forecast this. There will be no maintenance of the rate of children's allowances until the next election is looming up, the same as there was no improvement in them for years until the 1969 election was looming up. Our rate of children's allowances for ordinary families is half the rate in Britain and, as I said before in this House, in Britain it is half the rate in France and in Italy. Any pretence that we are worse off than the people in France and Italy is just poppycock and mumbo-jumbo—the kind of nonsense that the Government put across in connection with their campaign to drag us into Europe by the hair of the head. I suspect that the people will give them a very rough answer to that question when they get the opportunity, judging by the development of the indices on which the Government apparently place so much reliability.

On the other hand pro rata the contributions are going up a great deal more than 10 per cent. The contribution is going up by 19p a week and this is apart from the other 15p in the pretence Health Bill that was brought in here the other day and which has not yet gone through the House. That is a total increase of 34p a week. What is that on the present rate of contribution? It is much more like 25 per cent than 10 per cent. Since the Government are wasting money all over the place they have to collect it from the people who cannot defend themselves, while they pander to the legal evaders of ordinary income tax. We will be dealing with that later on today. They are pandering all the time to people who have found loopholes in the Income Tax Acts and they will be allowed to continue to evade tax under section 4 of the Finance Bill which will be coming before the House.

Do the Government not realise that, for example, the overall contribution in the case of women will be £1.76 as compared with, I think, £2.01 in the case of men? This is an immensely greater contribution pro rata to what they earn than the contribution which is made on behalf of men. We all know what the ratio of women's incomes is in this country to men's incomes. Women are extremely lucky if they earn two-thirds of what a man earns and yet they are to pay nine-tenths of the contribution for a man in social welfare stamps. Of course this is intolerable. It is inhuman. It would not be put up with in any properly civilised country just the same as the rates of children's allowances here would not be put up with in any properly civilised country.

This proves something that we all know in our hearts, although the Government pretend it does not exist at all. It proves that the people who are not able to defend themselves will be kicked around. This is done continuously and then we hear Deputy P.J. Burke talking on the Budget about improvements in social welfare benefits. He repeats that over and over again. There are no improvements in social welfare benefits this year, none whatever, except in this Bill in section 8 which is an improvement in the machinery of operating the thing but not an improvement in the overall approach at all. In circumstances in which the Government are wasting money and borrowing in all kinds of territories and getting the country deeper and deeper into the mire every day that passes, they will not even preserve, for people who are already extremely badly treated—and I refer in particular to the lower paid worker who has a large family—the value of the children's allowances.

There has been no increase in children's allowances in this country since 1969 and the cost of living has gone up by about 30 per cent in those 2½ years. The Minister asked me would I agree to a means test the last time we were discussing this question of children's allowances. Since I am always, like Deputy Andrews, a reasonable man, I said "yes". I do not know. I am not at all clear about the matter. I said "yes" because, to improve children's allowances, I would be prepared to go to any length the Minister wants me to go, provided he improves them. In fact, I do not even want him to improve them. All I want him to do is maintain them at what they were in 1969. The Minister and his Department know well that they are not being maintained and the reason why they are not is perfectly obvious: it is because the Government have never wanted to give them an increase worth talking about. The amount is quoted at a rate per month where every other social welfare benefit or allowance is quoted at a rate per week and the reason why it is quoted at a rate per month is because the amount would look so shameful if it were quoted at a rate per week. It is quoted per month to put a veneer on it. It is outrageous that small children should be in a state of semi-starvation because parents' wages are inadequate. It is outrageous that they should be inadequately clothed and fed, not to speak of their having not even the smallest amenities. I used think the Minister for Social Welfare had a heart. I thought I saw some evidence of it at times but he seems to have got into the hands of some group of roughnecks who have trussed him up so that he is unable to do anything. He achieves nothing. He has a rope around his neck and the roughnecks have strung him up.

Let me put it bluntly: this Bill is just one degree better than leaving the thing as it was and making no effort at all to meet the decline in the value of money. It is just one degree better. If I had any confidence in the cost of living index produced by the Central Statistics Office I could say this Bill is of some use, but I have no confidence in the cost of living index produced by the Central Statistics Office. I demonstrated that conclusively in this House, when, in 1968, they showed an increase of 4.5 per cent in the cost of living; wages went up by 9 per cent, import prices by 11 per cent and export prices by 10 per cent and they calculated that the cost of living had gone up by only 4½ per cent. How could anyone have any confidence in them after that? What cross-checking they attempted to do I do not know, but they showed themselves up as being a lot of fiddlers with figures, fiddlers who did nothing at all to make a proper effort to produce a genuine cost of living index. The cost of living index from February to May of this year showed an increase of 3 per cent, 1 per cent per month; I am convinced it did not show the real depreciation in the value of money. Ask any woman, as has been done before, what the increase has been. There is a figure here of £1 per week as the cost of keeping a child. I met a woman the other day, a most abstemious woman, and she told me she never buys a steak, or anything of that sort, for herself and she said it costs her £5 a week for food. She is living by herself. Does anybody suggest that a growing child does not want as much food as an adult? Of course he does. He wants more food. Yet, we have in this Bill £1 per week as the amount for keeping a child.

The Government, by backing inflation, have deliberately brought about the present situation. I have said that inflation is a good old nag provided you do not take the horse out and race him every week. It is exactly this the present Government are doing and have been doing; they have been taking the old nag out and they have raced the unfortunate animal to the point at which he is only skin and bone. The further inflation goes the worse the situation becomes and the more rapidly the value of money decreases. Not even the efforts of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Federation of Employers will save the Government from the consequences of their own foolishness and their own crazy conduct. Nothing can save them now because inflation has got completely out of hand. This effort here is simply stopping holes in the dike with utterly inadequate means. It is not an improvement and any suggestion that it is an improvement is entirely false. I do not know if Deputy Barry was right in sympathising with the Minister and suggesting that he thought the Minister would do better.

I think his intentions are good.

I used to think that about him too, but one does not see too much evidence of good works as a result of good intentions.

The people with whom he is dealing are the trouble.

The Deputy knows about the road to Hell. Certainly the Government are on the road to Hell all right. Government Deputies have grown extraordinarily silent in recent months. One or two old warhorses, like Deputy Paddy Burke, get up here and tell us how good the Government are and what they have done and say that we on this side of the House vote against improvements for the poor people, and so on. We have all this kind of nonsense. It is time somebody tackled this cod system we have at the moment. I believe we had this year so far the highest rate of inflation in the western world. We are rapidly reaching the stage at which ordinary workers with large families will be unable to feed their children. If I could commend the Minister for this Bill, I would do so, but I cannot commend him. This Bill is a cheat. Everything in the Bill, with the exception of section 8, is a cheat on the people in relation to whom there is a pretence of improvement.

(Cavan): Any measure designed to improve the lot of the grossly underprivileged classes is to be welcomed. This measure does not really make any serious attempt to improve the standard of living of the social welfare classes, if one can apply the term “standard of living” to people in the lower income group who are really only existing.

It is true, as other speakers have said, that the improvements of 40p, 35p and 30p have not caught up with the increase in the cost of living. People who are in a position to make themselves felt and have strong bargaining powers have money to spend on luxuries and semi-luxuries. It is a fact that money is flying around in certain circles. This, however, only accentuates the position of the unfortunate people who are living on social welfare benefits, non-contributory old age pensions, unemployment assistance, disabled persons allowances and that sort of thing. We would not be doing our duty if we did not register a protest at the failure of the Government to improve the lot of these people. It is true that year after year they get what used be shillings and now are pence, but this is not cushioning them against the increase in the cost of living.

In previous years the Government have engaged in the shabby practice of introducing two Budgets and one Social Welfare Bill. The two Budgets impose taxation. The Budget in the spring imposes taxation all round and increase the cost of living. At this time of year we have the Social Welfare Bill which increases social welfare payments by a small amount from August or October on the basis that that will protect the social welfare classes from the spring Budget. In two years out of three this Bill was followed by another Budget in the autumn and by a post office Budget. This year it has been followed by the Health Contribution Bill. All these make inroads into the social welfare benefits and yet we shall have no further Social Welfare Bill until this time next year. That is something to be deplored.

This Bill deals extensively with social welfare and I think I am in order in referring to the Employment Period Order which took away unemployment assistance from men in rural Ireland from April until November. I need not go into the history of that order in detail; it has been dealt with fairly fully in this House. All I would say is that it was not accidental, it was deliberate. The Book of Estimates provided for a saving of £1½ million under the heading of social welfare and the intention was to deprive unemployed men all over the country of unemployment assistance. Furthermore the circular that was sent out, which I have already put on the records of this House, from the Department of Social Welfare clearly stated that the Employment Period Order this year was a different sort of order from any other order because it applied, without exception, to all men without dependants whether they were urban or rural dwellers. That famous circular was sent to every exchange in the country.

The Government wobbled and waffled and by the first amendment order eliminated urban dwellers and under further pressure eliminated men in rural Ireland who are over 50 years of age.

But what about the men under 50 years of age? What about the people who are not capable of working, who were never capable of working, who have to fight their battle between the Department of Social Welfare and the health authority investigation officers who contend that they are able to work and that the employment order applies to them? During either the discussion on this shameful order or during the Budget, and the Minister can contradict me if I am wrong, an assurance was given that some legislation would be introduced to deal with the problem people I am talking about and, in fact, a special scheme in lieu of social assistance or unemployment assistance would be introduced but we have not heard one word about that legislation yet.

I put a supplementary question to the Minister about this in the last few weeks and I was told "Yes, it is on its way". A Bill dealing with the health contributions has been brought in. Its principal object is to collect £7 a year from certain farmers and 15p a week from people who pay social welfare contributions but what about the other legislation which was supposed to be brought in to ease the lot of the people deprived of unemployment assistance by the Employment Period Order? We can only tell people who write pathetic letters to us saying they have been cut off the dole, that we have recommended them to the health board for a disabled person's allowance or home assistance which is the old poor law assistance and the lowest form of assistance that can be given to anybody. The Minister knows that there are many of these people who have to fight very hard to get home assistance in lieu of unemployment assistance. We heard about the tatie hokers in Scotland. The Minister was able to tell me in the House a couple of weeks ago, when I was making the case that the employment period order would force these unfortunates to take up this undesirable employment in Scotland, that not as many had gone there this year as in previous years. I should like to be satisfied that this is so and if it is so it is due to all the publicity that this type of employment got.

I would appeal to the Minister or the Minister for Health or whoever is to be responsible for this promised Bill to deal with persons who have come to the working age, we will call it, and have not reached 50 and who are hit by this employment period order, to introduce legislation to deal with them and with people who are not able to work, who are mentally or semi-mentally retarded, physically unfit for work or mentally unsuited for work, and to give them an allowance by way of right instead of home assistance which they have to fight for and which they very often do not get, who have to queue up at the town hall, courthouse or dispensary and be questioned by the home assistance officer before they can get £1 or a couple of pounds a week. If such a measure is introduced, as far as this party is concerned it will get a welcome reception and speedy run through this House.

I, like other Deputies who have spoken, want to welcome section 8 of the Bill which makes provision for payment of insurance benefits to employees of employers who have failed to stamp their cards. I should like to say that I am glad that this amendment has been brought in and I take some credit for drawing the Minister's attention to the need for this. Over the past couple of years, we had examples of this. There was one example of it on the Cavan border in County Westmeath, examples of it in Cavan and glaring examples of where firms went out of business in Monaghan during the year and unfortunate persons were deprived of their social welfare unemployment benefit because their cards were not stamped.

I and other members of this party campaigned in the House in favour of that and I was, therefore, rather surprised to see reference in one of the newspapers that only members of one party had called for this amendment. I should like it to go on record that certainly members of the Fine Gael Party—Deputy Barry, myself and others—have been pointing out this abuse and calling for legislation to remedy it and I am glad that section 8 is in the Bill.

Dealing with section 8 the Minister says that regulations will be introduced to avoid collusion between employees and employers. It is only right that that provision should be made but there are a number of employees in the State who do not realise the importance of insisting that their insurance contributions under the Social Welfare Acts are paid. When young or middle-aged and healthy they are inclined to collude sometimes with their employers and maybe accept slightly larger wages and avoid paying the stamp but there should be a campaign by way of advertisements in employment exchanges or notices in the papers or notices printed on insurance cards emphasising for employees the necessity of insisting that these contributions be paid regularly and their stamps being in order. It is not now but maybe in ten or 15 years, that these people will be gradually—and "gradually" is the operative word—moving into a sphere in which they will be entitled to better benefits but unless they insist now on their cards being stamped they may be deprived of contributory old age pension in later years or a disablement pension or sickness benefit. That should be brought home to the employees and they should be encouraged to insist on their rights.

There are one or two other little things that I want to deal with, matters I have raised with the Minister from time to time both in the House and in correspondence. One is something that I will continue to campaign for and that is payment of non-contributory old age pension to unfortunate parents who were left here in loneliness and who want to go to reside with their sons and daughters in England. I shall urge strongly that the Minister should put an amendment into this Bill amending the law so as to enable him to pay non-contributory old age pension to parents who, as I say, are living here, certainly in loneliness, because they do not want to go as paupers to their daughters and sons-in-law in England but who, if they had the £4 or £4 10s a week, would go as independent people. That is being denied to these people on the basis that it is not possible to enforce the means test in England. I do not know how some old age pensioner here is suddenly to transform his income from nil to £500 or £600 a year unless he wins the pools or the sweep. They are beyond earning.

I quote from a letter I got on 28th June, addressed to myself. I shall not give the name of the person. I quote:

Thank you so much for having taken the trouble to reply so nicely to my letter of earlier in the year re the possibility of non-contributory old age pension being paid to old age pensioners who may be obliged through infirmity to seek the help and love of their families who have emigrated and settled in England.

Some time ago I heard on TV that some consultations were in progress between Northern Ireland and British officials and our own Department of Social Welfare about reciprocal arrangements on certain subjects but I never heard any follow up to that and so do not know whether anything happened about non-contributory old age pensioners and I am anxious to know as owing to continued infirmity of my wife and myself there is a possibility that we may have to leave here before the winter comes in and the old age pension would be a great help to us if we could have it over there.

That is typical of the type of letter one gets and the type of representations that are made, I am sure, to every Deputy. This is something that is peculiar to this country. This country has been blistered with emigration down the years and there is still a substantial amount of emigration and many children, particularly daughters, go over to England and they marry decent Englishmen and Irishmen over there and many of them would be delighted to take their aged parents to live there with them but the parents do not want to go as paupers, without anything to come in even for pocket money.

Why cannot there be a bit of original thinking in the Department and with the Minister to amend the legislation in order to deal with this national problem, and a national problem it is? It flows from the curse of emigration. The young people go away. They settle abroad. The old people, their parents, grow old at home and either remain in isolation and loneliness in out of the way parts of the country or are condemned to institutions for the aged in this country, at public expense, whereas they could be in England. England is not all that vast a country and the numbers would not run into thousands. We have enough inspectors of one sort and another at home and it should not be beyond our capabilities to employ another couple of inspectors, if the Minister thought fit, and let them go and visit these people in England if they are prepared to give their address. I have been harping on this matter for years and will continue to do so because I feel strongly about it and I do not believe there is justification, good, bad or indifferent, for refusing to do what I request.

I realise that the deserted wife allowance has been in operation only for a short time but the Minister should have made an amendment in this Bill following representations recently made by me. When the deserted wives' allowance came into operation a woman I knew, who was then about 45 years of age, received the allowance because she had one son. The son is now 18 years of age and has begun work as a trainee. Now, because this woman has not a qualified child, after having the deserted wives' allowance since it came into operation she finds herself cut off from this allowance. She will have to wait until she is 50 years of age before she can qualify.

That is not the end of the story. This woman has been hit on the double. She was employed in a local convent which runs a secondary school and a national school. She had social welfare stamps fixed on her card while employed there. She is told now she cannot continue to get the deserted wives' allowance because her son is 18 years of age and she is not 50 years of age. She is also told from the same Department that the stamps which she received while she was employed in the convent do not qualify for unemployment benefit because apparently the work she was doing is regarded as domestic work.

How in the name of goodness can work which entails charring in a secondary school and a primary school be regarded as domestic work and not qualify this person for unemployment benefit? I have first class knowledge of this case. I ask the Minister why a woman who qualifies for a deserted wives' allowance should have it discontinued when her son reaches 18 years of age and she is not aged 50. In most cases the woman will have reached 50 years of age. The Minister should amend the legislation to cover those people.

I want to refer to the female relief allowance which is given for a person looking after an old age pensioner. The regulations need to be amended to enable a more liberal interpretation to be put on them. The Minister knows the case I am talking about. It is that of an old lady living alone with a girl in her early twenties. This girl was reared by the old lady from birth. She never lived in any other house or with any other person. She was born and reared in this house and regards the old lady as her mother. Her real mother is dead and her father is institutionalised on a long-term basis. The old age pensioner is over 80 years of age and is looked after by this young girl but she is not regarded as a female relative within the scope of these regulations. Surely that is a very narrow-minded approach to a social problem.

I know hard cases make bad law but this is a very hard case. This girl's father killed her mother and he is in an institution. The girl has lived with her grandmother all her life but the cold, calculating people in the Department of Social Welfare say she is not a female relative within the meaning of the Act. Surely she is an adopted child, whether she is legally adopted or not. This sort of narrow-minded thinking in the Department really annoys people. If the people in the Department had a heart instead of a stone they would come to the conclusion that this old lady is in loco parentis to the girl and should qualify for the allowance. I put down a Parliamentary question about this case but, unfortunately, I was not present when the Minister answered it. I also put down the question in a different way so the Minister knows the case I have in mind. I join with other speakers who have said that the social thinking in this country is such at the present time that if the Minister were prepared to do the decent thing by the social welfare classes the taxpayers would not begrudge paying extra taxation and this House would certainly be glad to vote the money for it.

The Bill before the House is mainly to improve the present rate of social welfare allowances by 40p for non-contributory old age pensioners and 50p for contributory old age pensioners. Of course, we should not lose sight of the fact that the increases given are outpaced by increases in the cost of living. Those increases will be implemented next month in the case of the non-contributory pension and in October in the case of the contributory pension but their living standards will not be better than they were 12 months ago because the cost of living has increased by much more than the allowances which those people receive.

I was sure by 1971 when a Bill such as this Social Welfare Bill was brought before the House we would have some section in it dealing with the retirement age for old age pensions. I have been a member of this House for 20 years but during that time the qualifying age for old age pensions has remained the same. Why not give the pension to people who are excluded from receiving anything at 65 years of age? Civil servants get pensions at 65 and they do not have to go out in the weather to work like farmers. They are not like shopkeepers working on the side of the streets who have to keep their businesses going when they are aged over 65 years of age in order to get a living. They get a pension when they reach the age of 65 and, in many cases, the pension they receive is almost equivalent to the salary they had been earning. Why should those people who are outside the social welfare code be deprived of a pension until they reach the age of 70? I am not casting any reflection on those people who enjoy comfortable and sheltered positions in this country. They are very fortunate but we must consider those who are not so fortunate. I am thinking in particular of small shopkeepers. Everybody knows the problems and difficulties with which these people must contend but when a shopkeeper reaches the age of 70 he will have even more difficulty in obtaining an old-age pension. First, he must satisfy the Department of Social Welfare that he has transferred his business to a member of his family for a purpose other than qualification for an old age pension. If he does not so satisfy the Department, he will not get any pension. Secondly, he must submit to the Department receipts for all his purchases and on the basis of these, his profits are calculated. If the calculation indicates that his yearly profit is more than £260.75, he will not qualify for a pension. He is told that he has an income of more than £5 per week and that he can live on that. He is told that he is not in the group of citizens who enjoy big pensions. It is time that the law in this regard was changed.

If it is found that a shopkeeper had an income of less than £260.75 but more than £247.75 he would get a pension. The Minister has seen to it that such a person would not be deprived but according to this Bill the pension in such a case would be 40p a week. As Deputy Fitzpatrick said, the people in the Department of Social Welfare, with a few notable exceptions, have hearts of stone. They tell us what is the law and that the place for advocating changes is in this House.

The position in regard to widows and other people depending on social welfare leaves much to be desired but I shall leave those categories aside for a moment and concentrate on the self-employed, whether they be shopkeepers, farmers, carpenters or any other category. These underprivileged sections of the community should be brought into line with the more privileged ones. With the exception of Norway where the age is 70, every country in Western Europe has a lower pension qualifying age than ours and Norway is reducing the age to 67 from the beginning of next year. This is the only country in which a person who is not in the privileged classes must continue to labour until he is 70 before qualifying for a pension and he will qualify then only after intensive investigation on the part of the Department. If the Department are satisfied that the person has no means whatsoever and that he has no say in the house in which he happens to be living, he will, under this Bill, receive a pension of £4.65 a week. However, this figure is scaled down until the figure of 40p a week is reached. Because of the increases in the cost of living the increases given each year to social welfare recipients are ineffective. In fact, the allowances are miserable. I know that money does not grow on trees but we must provide for those who depend on social welfare. Organised labour has powerful pressure groups that threaten to hold the country up to ransom if they do not get what they ask but the particular categories about which I am speaking have no such pressure groups and, consequently, they are treated with contempt. Those who are unorganised, those self-employed people who have no unions, organisations or associations to look after them, will have to wait until they have one leg in the grave before they "may" qualify for an allowance.

In talking about the qualifying age for pensions we must remember that many of our people when they attain 70 years are incapacitated. At 70 every second person suffers from an incapacity. A person labouring under such an incapacity has not got much time to enjoy the £4 or £5 from the Department. I want to say to the Minister, Deputy Brennan, and to the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Geoghegan, the two men in charge of social welfare: "Pull up your socks. Your job is to press the Government— the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance and the Cabinet in general—and get justice and fair play for the people who must labour on until they are 70 years of age before qualifying for an old age pension." Are they not contributing as much in their own way to the State as any of us here? As any of our public servants? As any of our workers in private employment where pensions are available at 65? I think they are and I hope that when the 1972 Social Welfare Bill is introduced there will be a section in it providing for a lowering of the age limit. I have tried to make myself as clear as possible and repeated something that I have said here before.

I want to refer to people in the farming or business community who marry late in life. On reaching the age of 70 they may have four or five relatively young children. There is no possibility of assigning the farm or premises to a member of the family because they are too young and hence the applicant must bear the full burden of the means assessed by the Department of Social Welfare. As this document will show a pensioner with two qualified children, if he is earning £265.75 a year, or £5 a week, is entitled to a pension of only £1.90 a week. That is wrong and something that should be changed.

Contributory pensioners are entitled to their pensions at 65. I am very pleased that that position obtains. They were known as servants in the past. I am glad to see they are now classified as officers. I am glad they are getting their pension at 65 and getting it without a means test.

There are widows' associations growing up around the country and I suppose a share of pressure will be applied. I do not see any great harm in having such associations for widows because I have had occasion to refer to their position here time and again. Let us take the case of the widow of a farmer or shopkeeper whose husband dies leaving her, a relatively young woman, with four or five children. If the farm or shop is any size at all she will not qualify for a pension The position changes completely when the husband dies. While he is alive he is in almost all cases the person who does the work, who formulates policy. When he is gone and the wife left with four or five children she cannot carry on as her husband did. The position is completely different. I see no justification for having such a rigid means test as obtains in regard to widows.

The widow in receipt of a non-contributory pension is allowed to earn £39 in respect of each dependent child without having it calculated against her as means. In 1971 £39 is a very small sum. If she has three children she is allowed to earn £117 for the year, slightly more than £2 per week. Why not give a widow much more latitude if she has to go out to work to earn money to keep her children? Why not allow a widow with a non-contributory pension to earn more money? Is not the income tax assessment sufficient, if she would be liable to it, without having this sort of means test? I want to bring home to the Minister that allowing a widow to earn only £39 in respect of dependent children before having income assessed against her is completely out of line in this day and age. She is allowed only £100 for herself and anything in excess of a capital value of £100 is assessed against her. The Minister should address himself to those questions in regard to the position of widows who are left with young families. The regulations applying to non-contributory pensions are too rigid and should be modified.

There is a great difference now when all cases are determined behind closed doors. I was a Member of the House when that was not the case. I remember when we were able to go to Lord Edward Street and meet some decent men who were then in charge of pensions appeals. One could meet them face to face and discuss with them any personal factors bearing on the applicant's case. At least you would come away with the assurance that you had sympathetic consideration and that the scales were weighted in favour of the applicant. That happens no longer. When Fianna Fáil came back to power in 1957 they changed that. In fact one of these officials and one of the finest public servants we ever had, had to move to Canada. He was harassed because he was supposed to be consorting with Opposition Deputies and was possibly too favourably disposed towards answering their correspondence or holding discussions with them. That is well known; I am sure the Minister knows it. This man was harassed by the Fianna Fáil administration; he was pushed over to Children's Allowances and finally he left and had to emigrate to Canada. He was a fine, decent man and if we had this type of person in the Department at present, perhaps, we would not have too much to complain about.

I am referring to what happened in the past in regard to the system for determining appeals and the great changes that have taken place. The system was perfect. If it was necessary, you had no problem in meeting the judge, sitting down with him at the table and going over the case from A to Z and putting all aspects of it before him. He is now an anonymous person. According to my subsequent inquiries only a limited number of Deputies had access to the appeals officer. I am not saying I know the position at present but a limited number of Deputies continued to have this access. Whether they were Government Deputies who sought that right or not I do not know. I think I am within my rights in mentioning the big change that has taken place in the system. This was mentioned by a previous speaker. I had better acquaintance with the personnel of the Social Welfare Department then than I have now. I found them to be very decent men. I am inclined to agree with Deputy Fitzpatrick in regard to some of the officials there at present.

The Deputy appreciates that it is the Minister who is responsible to this House and not the officials.

I know that the Minister is responsible but I do not see why the officials should be immune from mention. I know we have that regulation but I do not think I am infringing on it. I am making a comparison between past and present and saying, as was said by the previous speaker, that some of these people are stone hearted, not all.

What the Chair is concerned about is that the Minister is responsible to the House.

And I am bringing the matter to the notice of the Minister. I am at a big disadvantage here in contributing to this debate. If I brought in files of correspondence from people who were unfairly treated I could clearly illustrate what I have in mind but it would be unfair to applicants to discuss their private affairs in this House with the attendant danger of publicity and identification. I am sure the decision will be changed, if not by this Government then by the next, in a couple of these cases where the decision was outrageous. One was an old age pension case and the other was in respect of a prescribed relative allowance.

In regard to unemployment assistance regulations and the area to which the order applies in the western counties, I have raised this matter on a few occasions with the Minister. Parts of County Cork have been discriminated against. I got a map for the Minister to peruse. It sets out the part of County Cork which is deemed to be within the 12 western counties and that is the part of County Cork to which I think this unemployment assistance order should be extended in so far as it relates to the assessment of farmers' incomes on a land valuation basis.

I would have sent the map to the Minister a fortnight ago because as soon as I raised the matter here I got the map from the county development team in Cork but when I did send a letter to the Minister a month ago I got no answer and I feared my map would also end up in the wastepaper basket. You cannot send letters to these fellows. I do not blame the Minister for that. I am sure he did not see the letter but the danger is that a letter might never see the light of day. There is no justification for the limits at present operating in County Cork. This farmer's unemployment assistance order extends to 11 of the 12 western counties in full and even extends to a part of Limerick but it is limited in west Cork to less than one-third of the area that is deemed to be within the 12 western counties for other State purposes. Why this distinction? Numbers of small farmers in those areas are being deprived of an allowance, unjustly in my opinion, by virtue of this discrimination.

If the Minister wishes I shall present him with this map, or I shall send it to him in an envelope marked "personal". I am aware that some Departments are being used merely as propaganda machines by the Government. They churn out countless letters in the hope of increasing the votes of the Government party. On the other hand, it is well known that some letters received by Departments are put into the wastepaper basket. That does not apply to all public officers but it applies to a number. My reason for referring to it now is because that number is closeted within the Department of Social Welfare. The wheel will turn and these people should realise that. The people associated with them think they will remain in office for the rest of their lives. That is not so. The Government are limping along on the crutches of the dissidents. The Government are hobbling along like an old age pensioner of 90 years. When the Government are removed from office I hope the letters that have been sent to some people will be compared with those sent to others. Retribution will come to those who have consigned to the wastepaper basket letters received by the Department.

In regard to the unemployment assistance order and the payment of unemployment assistance on a land valuation basis, while it would be more desirable if the order were not necessary, I suppose that while Fianna Fáil are in office such orders will be required. I am in agreement with the proposal to assess means on a land valuation basis, although the measure has been the subject of much criticism, both inside and outside the House. I am favourably disposed towards this measure and I wish to compliment those responsible. While it brings within its scope people who normally would not be entitled to unemployment assistance, I do not see how any legislation can be drawn up without that happening. In many cases farmers have developed their land to a considerable extent since the land was originally subject to valuation in 1852. In the 119 years that have elapsed the land has changed considerably and the present owners are favoured by this type of legislation. However, that is in the order of things.

That will be changed now. According to the Minister for Health they will be assessed on an income basis.

When they were assessed on an income basis there was no incentive to extend farming operations; in fact, the reverse was the case. In many cases small farmers have little or no income from October to April because creamery cheques are practically non-existent then. The few pounds that many farmers are getting is of tremendous help to them and many of them have told me they are pleased about this allowance. Naturally they would prefer to have work but frequently it is not available and they have no way of supplementing their income except by direct payment from State funds. I will present the Minister with this map and I trust he will accept it from me. Of course, if he wrote to the development team in Cork he could get it from them; the secretary—Mr. Murphy—would be pleased to supply him with a copy. I want to see justice done and fair play for all. I have raised this matter on two occasions in the Dáil and I trust that will be sufficient.

The allowance now given to the deserted wife is reasonably generous although there is some difficulty in obtaining it. I should illustrate one difficulty which, perhaps, could apply on a national basis. At the time of desertion, in some cases court proceedings were instituted and sums were granted by the court which may have been fair and just at the time. However, frequently the wife did not apply to have the amount increased despite the fact that the cost of living had increased and also her husband's earnings had increased. In some cases this was due to the fact that the wife did not wish to cause her family any distress or embarrassment by further court proceedings. However, the wife is now told by the Department of Social Welfare that although the Department know her means may only be 40s weekly she is not entitled to get an allowance from them but must go to court and take action against her husband. The wife may not wish to revive a 20-year old quarrel and for this reason may not wish to take court action. I would ask the Minister for Social Welfare not to enforce that clause. He may well create trouble if his Department tell the wife that her husband is not giving her enough money and that she should apply to have the original court order amended.

When old people remain in their homes this means a tremendous saving on public funds. The economic charge for hospital care for an old age pensioner is more than £20 per week. While reference has been made to the prescribed female relative allowance and to the restrictions in the regulations, at a time when we have Women's Lib, looking for equality and so on, I should like to strike out the word "female". Why should not a male relative get that allowance as well? I have in mind a case in Cork where a man returned from England to mind his father who is more than 80 years of age. He has little or no money. He cannot get unemployment assistance or unemployment benefit because he is not available for work. The only allowance he could get was £1 a week from the health board. Why should he not qualify for an allowance? Why should his father not get an allowance of £2.55, or £2.60, or whatever it is, since a daughter would get it if she were minding him? That position should be reviewed.

To sum up, I find it a most unpleasant task to say unpleasant things. I would much prefer, in making a contribution here or elsewhere, to have some pleasant things to say about people. That is an Irish tradition too. Unfortunately, I was unable to do so today so far as some people are concerned—some, but not all by any means. It is our job and our duty here when making a contribution as Members of this House to contribute to the discussion on a factual basis and to make a fair appraisal of the position. We would be unfair to ourselves and to the people who sent us here if we did not do so.

Any comments I made here that reflected on anyone were made in that spirit and I am satisfied that they were correct. I do not reflect lightly on anyone, particularly having regard to the privilege of the House. I do not condemn anybody lightly. I only do so when I think there is full justification for it and when nothing happens after I have made repeated private representations. I never drag anything into this House without first trying out the Department on a private basis.

The big question I am interested in at the moment is the one I mentioned at the outset, that is, a reduction in the qualifying age limit for old age pensions from 70 to 65 years. It should be reduced for all. We should not continue to have four or five different classes of citizens. We should not continue with that system. Where will the Minister get the money? That is the question. Where is he getting the money to pay all the other pensions at 65 years of age? I have no doubt that if a measure were brought before this House to reduce that age limit, and to modify the means test for non-contributory pensions, whether they be old age pensions or widows' pensions, it would have the support of the Irish public and that support would be forthcoming in financial terms also. The Minister should get to work and bring this legislation before us at the earliest possible date and I can assure him of the full co-operation of the Labour Party.

Since I am promised all Stages of the Bill today my winding-up remarks will be as brief as possible. I know the House is aware of the urgency of the Bill, and that the benefits payable have to be in operation by the first week in August and, in the case of old age pensions, by the first Friday in August.

There is not much to add to what I have said in my opening statement except to point out that this year, when the budgetary adjustments of the Minister for Finance were entirely based on curbing inflation and taking account of the inflationary situation, was not an easy time to impose new taxes in order to meet the additional social welfare payments. We never hesitate to do that whenever we think it necessary, and that has been in every single Budget since I came into the House. We never hesitated to impose the necessary taxation to give these increases. I wish that the people who advocate the many good things that could be done, and the better things that could be done, were always prepared to support the imposition of taxes when they are introduced. Unfortunately, this is not our experience.

It is very easy to get up in this House and, particularly on the emotional subject of payments to the weaker section of our people, advocate that better provision should be made in every possible respect. It is quite easy to demonstrate one's social conscience and condemn the other fellow's lack of social conscience by advocating improved payments for all and sundry. I suppose it is not necessary for me to point out—nor would it be necessary for any other Member of the House if he were in my position—that to give extra benefits to all these people would be the nicest and most satisfying thing in the world. The Parliamentary Secretary and I would be more than delighted to give ten times the amount and to cover all the people who are not covered.

Governments must have their priorities. The Minister for Social Welfare is not the only person looking for millions in the annual Budget. The Minister for Local Government thinks that the building of houses is the most important thing in the world for people who have not got houses. The Minister for Education thinks that providing schools and better facilities for children to travel to school are the only things in the world and he could use many more millions. The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries thinks that providing the extra millions the farmers want is the only thing that is necessary. Every Minister around the Cabinet table can produce a demand for extra millions. During the year Deputies advocate that all these things should be done. In a country with limited resources one has to consider what is reasonable against that background. We have been doing that reasonably well.

Some Deputies made the case that the increases did not measure up to the increase in the cost of living index. That is not true or correct. To justify that, Deputy O'Donovan said that the cost of living index was wrong and that it was made out by people fiddling with figures. The cost of living index is wrong and statistics are wrong if they do not prove the Opposition's point, but if they are satisfactory in that they prove something that the Opposition would feel happy to attack they are all right. The same statistics are being used and the same yardstick to measure those statistics is being used. Whether the people who work conscientiously to provide these statistics in the Statistics office are to be accused of fiddling with figures or otherwise, they are doing a job in accordance with the standards set, and the same standards and the same yardstick which have always been used down the years are being used. We have always tried to exceed the increase in the consumer price index when making additional benefits available to social welfare recipients and we have succeeded reasonably well in doing that.

Deputy Barry made a special plea for widows. This year I tried to lean as heavily as possible in the direction of improving benefits for widows. I have, I think, considerably improved their position. As I have said so often here, even before I became Minister for Social Welfare, never will a Minister for Social Welfare be told by the Opposition that he has done enough for these people. He will always be confronted with the same arguments: it is all right, but it does not go far enough; we welcome it, but it is not as good as it should be. Playing on the susceptibilities of the weaker sections of the people is the meanest type of propaganda. Improvements have been made in the case of widows and deserted wives. Nobody adverted during the debate to the amount a widow may earn without losing some of her pension. The allowance per dependent child was £39; we have increased it to £78. These things are very important.

I agree that was a good step forward.

We extended the age limit for dependent children to 18 and then to 21 if the children are still at school or college. It is very easy to stand up here and make comparisons with the rates paid in Britain. There are many directions in which the comparisons made are unfavourable to Britain. I am not for one moment arguing that we have better schemes or that we have reached the stage at which these benefits can be regarded as adequate, but the rhythm of improvement and the progress made are reasonably satisfactory. Looking at the numbers brought under the social welfare umbrella one cannot but be satisfied that we are making definite and satisfactory progress.

Make no mistake about it, no Minister for Social Welfare will ever find himself in the position of being able to do all that he would like to do. He is tied to the amount made available to him at any time. I am as well aware as anybody here of all the lovely things that could be done in order to make better provisions for the weaker sections, but regard must be had to the limitations and those limitations necessarily control the progress made. Looking down the programme from 1957 to date, and the rate of progress made every year, one can only conclude that the record is a creditable one.

I do not like attacks being made on the personnel in Government Departments. The Minister is responsible. The officials working in Departments are human beings; they are at times capable of making mistakes. They would be inhuman if they were not. I would say that we have the best Civil Service in the world. I do not think anyone would contradict that. It is a pity that Deputies should attack officials time and time again. The officials in my Department whose job it is to assess means are only doing a job in accordance with the regulations this House has statutorily laid down for them to carry out. They interpret these regulations to the best of their ability. If they ask too many questions or have the wrong approach, as has been alleged, that is because we have made provisions in our regulations but there must be a means test in relation to the payment of some benefits. This applies particularly to non-insured persons, old age non-contributory pensions, widows' pensions, and so on.

There are certain qualifications and those qualifications must be applied before a decision can be made. The officers act in accordance with both the letter and the spirit of the law. I do not think complaints should be levelled against them for doing their work. When a person does not succeed in getting some benefit he is naturally disappointed. Deputy Fitzpatrick read out the kind of letter he gets. The kind of letter I get is one in which the applicant says he worked very hard, that he is a member of the Old IRA, and so on, and yet he did not get the old age pension. He does not refer to the fact that there are certain regulations with regard to means. Irrespective of what one does, how hard one works, or how good a national record one has, one must conform to the required statutory means test.

Does the letter not say he voted for the Minister at the last election? They always say that to me.

One of the anomalies is that a man who works very hard all his life and accumulates some wealth will not get a pension while the ne'er-do-well gets a pension. So long as there is a means test this will be the case. I would hope that the means test would go at some stage but, if I had the £7 million, £8 million or £9 million it would cost to abolish the means test, I would prefer to use that money to increase existing benefits. There are many people who could live comfortably in retirement without a pension.

What about reducing the qualifying age to 65? Has the Minister anything to say on that?

The Deputy was not the first to speak. I am dealing with the points in their chronological order.

I am not setting myself out as the only Deputy in the House.

I will come to the Deputy. Deputy Barry referred to people whose insurance contributions had not been paid. Where a person has defaulted or is not in a position to pay we are taking authority to pay the contributions. Deputy Barry suggests this should be retrospective. It would scarcely be possible to make it retrospective. One could hardly justify retrospection. When the Bill becomes law section 8 will cover what has happened in the past and to that extent one could say it is retrospective.

There is a certain risk because those who are not particularly careful about having their employees' cards stamped up-to-date could tend to be less so in the knowledge and the hope that one day the Minister will pay them anyhow and the employees will therefore lose nothing. The employees could become negligent too. They could say to themselves: "Sure, if they are not paid up we will get it fixed up and anyhow the Exchequer will come to the rescue." The increased penalties provided in the Bill will be rigidly applied in these cases and nobody can blame us for doing so because nothing can excuse an employer for not paying the contributions. There will have to be much stricter supervision. The penalties provided are much more severe than they were previously in order to ensure that cards are stamped up-to-date. The power is there to recover from the people concerned any loss to the fund as a result of having to pay these retrospective——

That power is not being used and the people are not punished. I had one case before the Minister——

The Deputy agreed it was not our fault in that case.

I know all about it.

The numbers employed in the Department of Social Welfare are comparatively small and if Deputies take the amount of our Vote which is paid out in administration as a percentage of the total Vote they will find that relatively speaking we have a very good record. This very often indicates to me the need for more staff in many sections. The Department of Social Welfare carry out a volume of work which is repetitive, which must be done and which deals with thousands. It must go on daily, weekly, monthly and yearly and every year when the Budget comes around there is a complete set of changes and this involves work the magnitude of which is not fully appreciated by the people who are so ready to criticise the delays and the mistakes which they allege occur in the Department.

We try to do a volume of work which reaches out to thousands and thousands of people per week with that limited number of staff and in order that the chain of movement is not impeded or breached the work must go on. The availability of persons for doing what one might call extra-mural work is not as simple a matter as all that. I do not think that the fact is fully appreciated by those who find a means of playing on the susceptibility of the weaker sections of the people as if we were setting out to make it difficult for them to receive the benefits which are gladly paid so long as that little co-operation is given to show that they qualify.

Nobody, least of all myself, would assert for one moment that we have brought everybody who should be brought into the social welfare scheme into it. The schemes have been extended and the rates have been improved each year. Deputy Murphy referred to the 65 age limit. We took a first step in this direction when we brought it down for insured persons in a limited way. The tendency will be to reduce it but we shall do it gradually. The cost involved is fairly high but as a result of better medicine life expectancy has increased and the demand for reducing the age, which existed 30 years ago, does not exist today.

Three years ago I was at a social welfare conference in Austria and all the advanced welfare States, including the Swedes, were there. One of the most remarkable things being advocated by those who had reached what might be regarded as the peak of perfection in social welfare was work of some standard for everybody even for disabled persons and old people. The Swedes advocated that everybody should contribute a measure of work in some way, even by rehabilitation or occupational therapy. They felt people were much better working. Countries in which pensions were paid at lower age levels were inclined to the view that a case could be made for raising the level so that people would be permitted to work longer and thereby enjoy better mental and bodily health. That was a most interesting theme to hear as we are one of the few countries that have not dropped the age below 70.

In view of the fact that I want to get all Stages of the Bill today I do not think it is necessary to make a long Second Stage speech. I want to assure all those who have made points that we admit the relevancy of them all; we admit there are many things we would like to do with regard to social welfare. I do not like people saying that the Minister has his heart in the right place but the Government will not allow him to do more; a Minister can only do as much as the resources available to him permit. As the main theme of the Budget was to curb inflation this was a difficult year in which to give benefits. One cannot lay on extra taxes in an unlimited way. The taxes which were imposed to meet the improvements in the Bill were sorely felt and were not welcomed by the Opposition. It is very easy to say that one would welcome additional taxes being imposed as long as the money went to improve benefits but when extra taxes are imposed they are never welcome. As I have said before, one cannot win and it is hard to have it both ways.

There is to be a break in business now to allow the Minister for Justice to come in but it may be possible to move the Committee Stage before Question Time.

I do not think there is anything else I should say at this stage. The Committee Stage should not take long because all the matters in the Bill are merely giving effect to provisions made in the budget for improvements, with the addition of section 8, which makes it possible to pay retrospective contributions for persons who have not had their payments made.

I was disappointed that nobody referred to the explanatory memorandum. The explanatory memorandum makes it remarkably easy to understand the entire provisions of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.
Agreed to take remaining Stages today.
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