Before dealing with the Bill, I should like to call the attention of the Minister and his Department to the fact that a very desirable practice has grown up in this country, at least, in regard to other Departments, of giving an explanatory memorandum or having a White Paper circulated in conjunction with a Bill. That makes life very much easier for Deputies. It is a practice which grew up first on the other side of the water, and it was found to be so successful and so popular that it was extended to all Bills. Now, we got three or four Bills in our post last week: one of them was this Army Pensions Bill that we have before us, and three of them came from other Departments, which presumably were just as busy as the Department of Defence. Each of the other Bills was accompanied by an explanatory memorandum, although in fact, I think that none of the other Bills was as difficult or as tedious to follow as this particular Bill. This is a small Bill. It does not claim to do a tremendous amount. What it is doing, certainly, is beneficial and will be welcomed by every Deputy, but this small Bill either amends, extends or relates to seven other Army Pensions Acts. Now, the fact that this the eighth Army Pensions Bill—and if you take in the Army Service Act and the other Army pensions scheme, this is the tenth, in 20 years, dealing with a tiny Army—is doing a lot of harm to Army interests, because the outsider, the man in the street, measures the volume and degree and extent of pensions by the multiplicity of Acts passed affecting that particular service.
It is a little bit farcical when we consider that both the State and the Army have only just about come of age—they are just a little over 21 years old—that we should be handling at the moment our tenth pensions Bill for a force that in numbers would not equal half an average parish. In addition, I may say that we have had, I think, 23 Defence Forces Bills. Of course, it might be said that they are continuing Bills, but however that may be, I think it is about time that we got away from the introduction of a temporary Bill every year, and that it is about time that we got consolidated into one Act all these comparatively minor Army Pensions Acts. Take the case of an ordinary Deputy who has to earn his livelihood, even though he may be a lawyer, he would find it very hard to study this Bill properly. Put that Deputy face to face with this little Bill and say to him: "Read that to-night", and he will find that he has to delve back into seven other Acts dating back to 1923 before he can properly understand the contents of these four sheets of paper. I think it would be better to bring in a comprehensive Act with amendments, and thus rescind all the previous Acts.
Now, with regard to the Bill itself, as I said earlier, I certainly welcome the new proposals contained in the Bill. It is an extension of allowances or pensions, and, in some cases, an extension of dates. I tried, in reading this Bill—but I confess that it was only from recollection or memory—to get a picture of the pensionable position of members of our Defence Forces, and as far as I can piece together, from memory, the pension position from the first Act of 1923 to the one now before us, my view of the thing, which may be wrong, is that a soldier who is disabled as a result of a wound is definitely pensionable, no matter when he received the wound or when he was discharged; that a soldier disabled from disease is pensionable if that disease was acquired prior to the 1st October, 1924, or if that disease was acquired or aggravated by service subsequent to the 3rd September, 1939. There is a lapse of some sixteen years during which if any soldier acquired a disease, became disabled from that disease and was discharged as a result of it, and if the disease was acquired subsequent to the 1st October, 1924, then as far as I can trust my recollection of the various Acts we have dealt with, that man's case is not covered except his disease was aggravated by service during the emergency. I ask the Minister to correct me if I am wrong there. If I am correct, then it shows a terribly serious omission: that we pension soldiers disabled from disease acquired prior to October, 1924; we pension soldiers disabled by disease subsequent to the 3rd September, 1939, and we accept no responsibility whatsoever for soldiers who were disabled or who died of a disease, which was attributable to service, between October, 1924, and September, 1939. If I am correct, and if we are bringing in an Act to amend those previous Acts and to alter the dates contained in the previous Acts, then there is a glaring omission in this Bill.
Now, I should like to get the Minister's direction with regard to soldiers suffering from tuberculosis or discharged because of tuberculosis attributable either to service or aggravated by service. We are putting through another Bill in this House, and that other Bill provides for full pay and allowances for people suffering from infectious diseases including tuberculosis. At certain stages they will get full pay and allowances. Am I to read into this section dealing with tuberculosis that that other Bill applies to everybody in this country except the soldier, and that the soldier is going to get somewhat worse treatment than every other individual in this country? I presume that the rights of pension given for partial disablement as a result of tuberculosis are not as big as full pay and allowances. If that is correct, then we are discriminating in a very peculiar manner and in a very unjust manner against the man who developed tuberculosis in Army service, as compared with the man who developed the disease behind the shop counter, or out in the fields, or in a factory. If we are doing that, then instead of giving anything by this Bill, we are taking away from the individual soldier who is suffering from that particular disease.
Now, I believe—and I say this in no critical or controversial manner at all— that very many and continuing injustices are being done in the handling and assessment of claims put forward by disabled soldiers, whether the disability was due to wounds or disease. Very unsatisfactory verdicts are very frequently given, verdicts that on their face at least any medical man, reading the claim, sizing up the evidence, would disagree with. I believe that such verdicts are being given because every individual member of the board is doing his work too well and too honestly. That is a peculiar thing to say. But how is the board constituted? It is a board of three persons. One of them is a medical man, nominated by the Minister for Defence, with no restrictions or reservations. It is more or less obviously his duty to see that the claimant gets a fair crack of the whip. Professionally, he will do his work honestly, but he is there to look after the ex-soldier. There are two other members of the board. One of the other members is also a doctor. But there is a difference when you come to the second man—he can only be appointed by the approval of the Minister for Finance. That does not apply to the first man. Then, when you come to the third man, the man whom you may regard as the Referee, he again can only be appointed by the approval of the Minister for Finance. In practice, it amounts to two watchdogs on behalf of Finance, and one with regard to the Army.
That is the view I take of it, and it is certainly an explanation for the very unsatisfactory decisions that every one of us, as Deputies, handles from time to time. There may be some other explanation. But every one of us is coming in contact with cases, or our attention is being called to cases in which most of us are thoroughly dissatisfied with the verdicts given. It may be that the dice is loaded in the manner I say, or there may be some other explanation. But one thing is certain, that there is a growing need and there has been a growing need in this country for the past 18 or 19 years for some such Department as exists in other countries under the name of Soldier's Friend Office. Elsewhere, if a man feels he has a grievance, that he has not got justice, that his claim has not been very fully explored, that the verdict is an unsatisfactory one, there is a State Department, a State-paid officer with a staff to whom he can go, who looks into the case and, if he thinks the ex-soldier has not got simple justice, he has the right, over the head of the board and everybody else, to bring the case directly under the Minister's notice, and the Minister very frequently reopens the case and sends it for review.
The very form that a man has got to fill up if he is claiming a pension in this or in most other countries is entirely too intricate, too detailed, and too definite for the ordinary ex-soldier. He is not trained to know what is of importance or not in filling up the claim, and some Department, such as exists elsewhere, is unquestionably desirable. It is not a very big office, and it is not a very expensive project. But, from my own knowledge in the Minister's Department, I know that such an office is required. When I was Director of Medical Services in the Army, I spent one-quarter of my time getting reviewed by the Minister unsatisfactory and unjust decisions with regard to disabled claimants. In most of the cases reopened and reviewed, the verdict was reversed, and the applicant got his pension. I remember one case of an officer who was dying of tuberculosis in a workhouse in South Africa, and it was turned down as not being attributable to service. Although it was no part of my duty, and I could have been reprimanded for butting in on such matters, I consistently and regularly did it. In that particular case I was able to show that, out of some 14 officers and nurses who had carried out duty in that particular post, seven or nine of them had gone down with tuberculosis. The decision was reversed and that man died in comparative comfort rather than in absolute destitution. I do not intend to mention them here in public, but I can recollect dozens of cases which, by that kind of officious interference, I got reopened and the decisions reversed.
Since my time everything in the Army has become more militarily efficient, more highly regimented. Nobody can go outside of his own Department and butt into another person's Department. But there is nobody pressing or bringing to the Minister's notice for review, for reference back, cases where unsatisfactory or apparently unsatisfactory findings have been arrived at. Officers, agents, functionaries of one kind or another, are being appointed in this country ad lib. Money is being spent very freely in and by all the Departments. That modest office is surely an office that is well overdue. If it was for nothing else than to prevent being made the type of speech I am making, it would be worth the money expended upon it, because, if there was such a tribunal there, with such an officer and such a staff to handle the assessments, to refer a case to the Minister if it struck them that it was a case which should be reviewed, then we would be perfectly satisfied with that tribunal and with the Minister reviewing the case later on.
It may be said that every case comes up before the Minister. Of course it does. It comes before the Minister with a verdict. But, when cases are referred back to him a second time, with somebody pointing out that there is something further to be looked into, that there is apparently an unjust decision, then the very same Minister or any Minister would ensure that there was a review and that the decisions were reversed. I think it is a terrible thing to think that there is even one person disabled in the service of the country, crippled to a high degree in health, directly as a result of that service, who is not receiving an adequate or reasonable or just pension under any or all of our pensions schemes. Speaking conscientiously, as a person with a certain connection with that class of work in the Department of Defence, I assure the Minister that there are very many cases of unsatisfactory verdicts. I am not criticising the way in which any individual did his work, but I am urging that a small Department of State, a soldiers' friend department, be set up to assist those unfortunate men in filling up their claims or, where that special department considers an injustice has been done, to act further by having the right to place the verdict directly before the Minister and ask for a review. We all would be perfectly satisfied with the result of such a review.
I do not like the constitution of a board dealing with the result of disease and disabilities, where there are two doctors and a layman. Speaking from a professional point of view and certainly not in any offensive way, I would say you have the most ignorant of the three deciding the case, when the two doctors divide and take opposite views on a professional matter, on a matter of the physical condition of some organ of a person's body. The layman, who does not claim to have any expert medical knowledge, is the deciding man in such a case. If there is to be a board of three, there should be a medical officer, appointed by the Minister for Defence, a second medical officer appointed, perhaps, by the Department of Finance, and a medical chairman appointed by some neutral association such as the Medical Association of Ireland. Then there would be two medical opinions and no quarrelling with regard to the results.
My view with regard to this Bill is that it is well conceived, generous and a step in the right direction. However, if my conception of the gap between October, 1924, and 3rd September, 1939, is correct, then there is scope in the Bill, by amendment, to extend the previous Acts, so as to cover the cases where disease is acquired to a certain degree of disablement between those two dates and men were discharged from the Army prior to the 3rd September, 1939.