asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he is aware that employees' insurance cards are being accepted by his Department without the employees having initialled them; and if he will issue a directive to all employers to the effect that those cards must be initialled by employees prior to surrendering them to the Department.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Insurance Card Initialling.
17.
Since the Social Welfare Acts came into operation on 5th January, 1953, an insured person has the right to inspect his insurance card while it is in the custody of his employer.
In 1967 it was further provided that an employer having the custody of the insurance card of an employee was required to produce the card to the employee for signing by him within four weeks before the expiration of the period of currency of the card. This was to give him an adequate opportunity of examining the card and, if it were not properly stamped, of taking the necessary steps to bring the matter to the notice of my Department. In this way it was hoped to minimise the incidence of loss of benefit to insured persons through non-stamping or late stamping of insurance cards. However, this procedure was found to penalise employers of good standing, particularly those employing very large numbers and, consequently, its enforcement was not considered advisable.
Instead, in 1971, I introduced legislation which enabled me to treat as having been paid on the due date any employment contribution which should have been paid by an employer but was not paid and the worker was in no way culpable for the non-payment of the contribution. In this way insured workers are protected against loss of insurance benefits which they would otherwise suffer by reason of failure on the part of employers to stamp insurance cards.
In these circumstances I do not consider there is a necessity for the directive suggested by the Deputy.
In view of the fact that up to 1971 the regulations provided for the employees initialling their cards and the fact that cards were received which were not initialled, would the Minister not think that there is compensation due to those employees who were deprived of benefit by virtue of the fact that their employers failed to stamp their cards? Is the onus not now on the Department to compensate these people?
I do not think there were any employees who were deprived of benefit.
There were and I will give the Minister a list of a survey I did, at no cost to his Department or anybody else, which showed that people were deprived of benefits by virtue of the fact that employers never stamped their cards. They actually took money from those people under false pretences.
That might have been before the new regulations.
We are talking about before 1971. What about these people? Is the Minister going to provide some compensation for them?
I do not think it would be possible.
Surely it should be possible in view of the fact that a mistake was made by the Minister's Department.
I would not say a mistake was made.
When the Minister's Department accept cards which were not initialled would the onus not be on them now to compensate those people.
No. I do not think so.
The Department broke the regulations.
We did not.