The main object of this Bill is to obtain legislative authority for the increases in the rates of non-contributory old age, blind and widows' pensions, unemployment assistance, and the married person's allowance in the scheme of old age (contributory) pensions, announced by the Minister for Finance in his Budget Statement on 19th April last, and for the introduction of substantial concessions in regard to the means conditions for the receipt of unemployment assistance, also adverted to by the Minister for Finance. A number of other necessary or desirable amendments of the law, which with one exception, are referred to in more detail in the explanatory memorandum circulated with the Bill, and which Senators will have seen, are also included. I shall deal with these in greater detail in a moment and also with a concession in relation to old age pensions which is not mentioned in the memorandum.
Firstly, I should like to deal briefly with the Budget increases, which, I think, require little explanation. The Bill provides for an increase of one shilling and sixpence per week in all non-contributory old age and blind pensions. According to the means category of the pensioner, therefore, the new rates of these pensions will be 30/-, 25/-, 20/- and 15/- a week.
The increases provided for in rates of unemployment assistance, mean that recipients themselves will get an increase of 1/6d. a week, plus the same extra amount for an adult dependant. If the recipient has dependent children, he will get an increase of 1/- each for the first and second child and an increase of 1/6d. a week for each subsequent child. For example, a man who is on unemployment assistance and who has a wife and four dependent children will get an extra 8/- a week as from 1st August next. In certain cases, as a result of the easing of the means conditions for the unemployment assistance scheme, also proposed, the increases in rates will be further augmented.
Widows' non-contributory pensions are being increased by 1/6d. on the personal rate, by 1/- for each of the first two qualified children, and by 1/6d. for each subsequent qualified child, so that, to give an example, a non-contributory widow pensioner with four qualified children will receive an increase of 6/6d. weekly in her pension.
Contributory old age pensioners who are receiving an allowance in respect of a wife or husband will also benefit. The allowance for a wife or dependent husband which is contained in the old age contributory pension is equal to the maximum rate of non-contributory old age pension, and this allowance normally continues to be payable as a benefit to the surviving partner when a married pensioner dies. Receipt of the allowance, or of the survivor's benefit, disqualifies the surviving spouse for receiving a non-contributory old age pension. Because the maximum non-contributory old age pension is being increased from 28/6d. to 30/- it is necessary to increase the contributory dependant's allowance and survivor's benefit correspondingly. The new rate of contributory old age pension and allowance, for a married couple entitled to the maximum rate, will, therefore, be £3 10s. a week.
The Bill makes substantial concessions in relation to unemployment assistance and some desirable relaxations so far as certain aspects of non-contributory widows' and orphans' pensions are concerned. As members will, no doubt, be aware, there are two yearly means limits for participation in the unemployment assistance scheme. A limit of £72 16s. applies in rural areas and a limit of £98 16s. applies in urban areas. The Bill provides for a single yearly means limit of £100 which will, from 1st August next, apply throughout the State. Applicants for unemployment assistance in urban areas possess little or no means apart from their earnings from employment and since such earnings do not count as means for unemployment assistance purposes, the means limit is of no practical significance. Many rural applicants, however, are smallholders and have means derived from the occupation of land. The means problem is, in fact, essentially a rural one. The introduction of the new means limit will bring into the scheme about 1,200 additional recipients in rural areas—mainly smallholders with means ranging from £72 16s. to £100—who will qualify for payment of assistance at rates ranging from 18/6d. a week downwards, plus 2/6d. a week for each dependent child after the second such child.
The amount of assessed weekly means which is disregarded in determining the weekly rate of unemployment assistance payable in any particular case is also being increased. The first 1/- of means is so disregarded at present. The disregarded amount, will, in future, be 2/- in the case of a person without a dependant and 5/- where the person has a dependant. In easing this condition of the scheme therefore it will be noted that I have made a distinction between persons without dependants and persons with dependants, which, I am sure, will be welcomed.
The concession will enable many recipients—some 16,000 at peak periods—to qualify for higher rates of unemployment assistance than heretofore and it will especially benefit those who have families. The effect will be to increase still further, by 1/- a week for a person without a dependant, and by 4/- for a person who has a dependant, the rates of unemployment assistance payable where the assessed weekly means exceed 1/- and 4/- respectively. The combined result of this concession and the increase in rates in the case of a man with a wife and four children, with means in excess of 4/-a week, will be that he will receive a total increase of 12/- a week in his unemployment assistance as from 1st August next.
Concessions in relation to widows' and orphans' non-contributory pensions are also provided for in the Bill. Under existing legislation, it sometimes happens that a small increase granted in a pension from, say, another government, can cause a greater decrease in a widow's or orphan's pension payable by my Department, the net result being that the pensioner's total income is reduced. The Bill ensures that such net losses of income will no longer occur. An alteration is made by Section 11 in the residence condition for widow's pension. A widow is at present disqualified for receipt of non-contributory widow's pension unless she has been resident in the State during the period of two years immediately preceding the date of her claim. If she has been absent from the country she cannot, therefore, qualify for a pension until two years after her return unless she was in receipt of the pension at the time of her departure. Two years' residence here, at any time, will be sufficient, under the altered condition proposed in the Bill.
Section 19 will allow a considerable concession in assessing the means of a claimant to old age pension who is the older member of a married couple who are living together, where the spouse of the claimant is sixty years of age or over and where the couple are wholly or mainly dependent on each other for their livelihood. The effect of the provision will be to allow up to £165 of the joint cash income of the couple, for example, the earnings of the husband, to be excluded in the calculation of their means for the purposes of the older partner's claim. If they are already entitled to have a portion of their income ignored in the calculation of their means, say, for example, the first £52 of any voluntary or gratuitous contributions or up to £80 of a military service pension, any amounts disregarded under these heads will be regarded as forming part of the figure of £165. Hitherto, a married couple with a cash income of £4 1s. a week approximately would both be debarred from receiving the pension.
This new provision will enable the older member of a couple, eligible for the concession and with cash income up to £7 4s. a week, to qualify for the minimum rate of pension. I have no doubt that this concession will be especially beneficial to married couples where the wife, for example, has reached the age of seventy years and her husband is still working, perhaps as an agricultural worker, or road worker, with wages which, though small, would still be sufficient, without this concession, to debar her from receiving the old age pension. This concession, as I have said already, will enable her to qualify.
I need refer only briefly to the remaining amendments which will improve and strengthen social welfare legislation generally. The power of deciding officers, appointed under the Social Welfare Act, 1952, to decide whether a person is or was in insurable employment, and to give decisions in respect of past events, is being clarified by Section 16. A provision in the Old Age Pensions Act of 1908 for the making of regulations providing for notice to be given by registrars of births and deaths to pension officers or local pension committees, of the deaths of persons over 70 years of age, which has never operated here, is being repealed.
The Bill contains a number of provisions which will, it is hoped, help to discourage people from making fraudulent claims and giving false information in relation to unemployment benefit and unemployment assistance claims. Administrative measures against fraud are being reinforced by special provisions in the Bill to help in reducing it to the minimum. Conviction for fraud in relation to an unemployment benefit claim will now carry with it disqualification for the receipt of unemployment benefit for six months immediately following the date of the conviction. Similarly, conviction for fraud in relation to an unemployment assistance claim will involve disqualification for unemployment assistance for six months. Where the offence relates to a qualification certificate, the offender, if convicted, will be debarred from obtaining or holding such a certificate for a similar period. The maximum fine which can be imposed by the court for offences in relation to unemployment assistance is being increased from £25 to £50, the limit already in operation in relation to other social welfare services. The concealment of any material fact for the purpose of obtaining or continuing a pension is being made an offence under Section 58 of the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions Act, 1935. These provisions, which are contained in Sections 10, 13, 14 and 18 of the Bill, will apply only to offences committed on or after the 1st August next.
Power is being taken to enable current payments of pension to be withheld in recovery of overpayments of old age pension and widows' pension fraudulently received and in respect of which a decree is being sought or has been obtained in court. The Bill will also permit an overpayment of benefit, pension or assistance, fradulently received, to be recovered by withholding all or part of any benefit, pension or assistance which may subsequently become payable to the claimant. Where the overpayment is of non-contributory old age pension, the right of recovery will extend to payments to which the spouse, widow or widower, as the case may be, of the claimant becomes entitled by way of pension, benefit or assistance. The pension, or benefit or assistance to a third party can also, under the Bill, be offset, with his consent, against an overpayment of a non-contributory old age pension due by someone else. In tightening up the law in these ways I am, of course, aiming only at those claimants who dishonestly get, or attempt to get, public money to which they are not entitled.
The number of people who will stand to benefit under this Bill is in the region of 220,000—old people, persons who are blind, widows and their children, and the unemployed and their wives and children. The increases in non-contributory pensions and in assistance rates announced in the Budget will cost £768,000 in a full year. The relaxations in the unemployment assistance means conditions and in relation to widows' pensions will cost an additional £81,500 a year, while the cost of the easing of the old age pension means test for certain married couples will be of the order of £20,000 a year, so that the total yearly cost of the proposed increases and concessions in social assistance comes to the substantial sum of £869,500. In the current financial year the cost will be £580,500 apart from the £19 million already provided for social assistance requirements. The increase of 1/6d. in the old age (contributory) pension married person's allowance will cost in the region of £49,000 in a full year, or £33,000 in the current financial year and will be met out of the social insurance fund. I would remind members that this is the third successive year in which non-contributory old age and widows' pensions and unemployment assistance rates have been increased and it constitutes the fourth general increase in the non-contributory assistance schemes since the beginning of 1957.
I feel confident that members will welcome the increases and concessions provided for in this Bill and it gives me great pleasure to recommend it to the Seanad.