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Dáil Éireann - Volume 32 - 14 November, 1929

Public Business. - Poor Relief (Dublin) Bill, 1929—Committee Stage (Resumed).

Debate resumed on amendment 6 to Section 4.

Mr. de Valera: As I indicated last night, our attitude on the rate of wages is that if anybody is asked to work and is given a certain amount of relief, the time he should be supposed to work should not be more than the time that would be necessary in order that the current rate of wages that he would earn would [1270] equal the amount of relief that was given. As far as I can see, the proposer of this amendment agreed to that. But I am afraid, so far as I can read it, that the amendment is much wider. It suggests work “that but for the provisions of this section, would be done by persons employed for wages in the ordinary course of industry or trade.” Is it intended by this amendment to prevent a local authority, for instance, organising the building of houses; organising bricklayers and tradesmen, and employing them on that work for such time as would be the time, if they were employed at the current rate of wages in which they would earn the amount given in relief?

Mr. Morrissey: There is no such intention.

Mr. de Valera: Well, then the wording of this amendment must be changed, and there is agreement on this side at any rate about the main thing which we have in mind, and that is that the Deputy would withdraw the amendment and put in definitely what he wants.

Mr. Davin: Ah, ah, what about Deputy Flinn?

Mr. de Valera: We have no objection whatever if the Deputy will do that. We are quite prepared to vote for this amendment even at this stage.

Mr. T. Murphy: What about Deputy Flinn; is he going to vote for it?

Mr. de Valera: We are going to vote for it at this stage in order to have the Bill clarified by the Minister at some later stage. We want to safeguard the position. We are as anxious as any Deputy on the Labour Benches to safeguard the principle that these men shall not be employed at a rate lower than the current rate of wages.

Mr. Anthony: Is that the Deputy's view?

Mr. de Valera: The point is that the wording of this amendment means more than that.

[1271] The President: Perhaps the Deputy is going to vote for it.

Mr. de Valera: We will vote for it if necessary, for the ordinary purpose of putting in an amendment ourselves afterwards.

Mr. Davin: The Deputy is coming over.

Mr. de Valera: The Cumann na nGaedheal Ministry need not imagine they are going to put us at loggerheads about this question at all. They will fail if they think that. We hold as strongly as the Labour Deputies that if work is going to be given for relief the rate of wages and the hours at which the person should be employed should not be lower nor longer than the current rate of wages. That is to say, that the time which the person should work to earn relief should not be more than under the current rate of wages. I was not here last evening when Deputy Morrissey was explaining the amendment. As far as I could find out the purpose of his amendment is exactly the same purpose as that which I indicated when speaking on the Bill last night. Is that so?

Mr. Morrissey: Quite, in so far as the Deputy went.

Mr. de Valera: Will the Deputy agree that the wording here does not mean that?

Mr. Morrissey: No, I do not agree with that.

Mr. de Valera: Take the wording. It is a question of English after all.

Mr. Davin: Hear, hear! Did the Deputy hear Deputy Lemass last night?

Mr. de Valera: Take the wording of the amendment: “work that, but for the provisions of this section, would be done by persons employed for wages in the ordinary course of industry or trade.” Now suppose a local authority started getting house-building organised, and bricklayers to whom they were giving relief organised, and other workmen that [1272] would be engaged in that particular work organised, and set out to supply some of the houses that we are short of. Would they not be doing something there that might be done in the ordinary course of business and trade? We would be definitely encroaching on ground that Deputy Good or somebody else would be covering in the course of his ordinary business or trade. We are prepared to say that the local authority should do that.

Mr. Davin: Does Deputy Flinn agree with that?

Mr. de Valera: I do not care what Deputy Flinn agrees with. I am speaking for myself and for the majority of the party here, I am certain.

Mr. de Valera: The Labour members would appear to be more interested in indulging in matters of this kind than in getting the real matter at issue settled. If they are really interested in this question it would be well to have from them what is meant by the amendment. I am anxious to safeguard the principle that is set out in the amendment, but at the same time I do not want to have any local authority prevented from organising the workmen to whom relief will be given so that they may do useful work. As I read the amendment, it would seem to indicate that the workmen would be forbidden to do anything of the sort that I have set out. In the last analysis we would not be satisfied with the wording of the amendment, and, if the Deputy does not withdraw it in order to clarify it at a later stage, it is our intention to put in an amendment on the Report Stage so as to clarify the matter.

Mr. Morrissey: Hear, hear!

Mr. de Valera: I have not attempted to draw up any such amendment yet. I have examined the whole matter very carefully, and I would be inclined to suggest a change in this fashion—to perform any task of work which, in the opinion of the Board, is suitable to the sex, age, strength and capacity [1273] of such person, provided that such person shall not be obliged to work for a longer period than would be necessary at the current rate of wages for that class of work for him to earn the sum granted by way of relief. Something like that is what we require. That is the sort of thing that I want. I do not want to see something which is so wide that it would prevent the local authority from organising necessary work. I say these things merely to clarify the situation. If the Labour Party will not withdraw that amendment, deliberately to prevent misunderstanding, we will vote for the amendment, it being clearly understood, if this amendment is passed now, and if the Minister himself does not do it, that we will be responsible for bringing in an amendment at a later stage in order to make it quite definite what it is we are aiming at. I do not think there is any necessity for me to say any more just now.

Mr. Hogan (Clare): I think it is generally accepted nowadays as a truism that every great crisis produces a great man. This crisis of unemployment has produced a great man in the person of Deputy Flinn.

Mr. Flinn: Agreed.

Mr. Hogan (Clare): He has championed a system of philosophy so brutal in its principles and so inhuman in its application that it took almost a century before anybody was found to stand up to defend it. It is a system of philosophy which says rob the poor because they are poor. That is the system of philosophy that Deputy Flinn adumbrated and defended here last night. He said, in effect, that because there are hundreds unemployed, thousands unemployed, you can force down the standard of living; because there are scores of thousands unemployed you can force down the subsistence level. To what extent is Deputy Flinn or those for whom he speaks concerned with “The pallid pimp of the bread line;” how far is he concerned with the houseless or the hungry so long as his sacred doctrine [1274] of rob the poor because they are poor is upheld?

Because there are forty outside the factory, the wages of the twenty inside should be divided by two so that the law of supply and demand shall be maintained. Because a hungry man will work for twenty shillings instead of twenty-five shillings, why pay a man twenty-five shillings? Because you can force the workingman's child to subsist on half a pint of milk a day instead of a pint of milk, why give that child a pint of milk? That illustrates the brutality of the doctrine preached here last night from the Fianna Fáil Benches by Deputy Flinn. It is the doctrine of the jungle, the doctrine of the tooth and the talon. If Deputy Flinn stands for that doctrine it should be clearly understood that the doctrine of the jungle should be enforced for people who pay super tax just as well as for those who seek home assistance or relief work. Deputy Flinn is one of those philosophic philanthropists, or philanthropic philosophers, who generally dry their tears over the sufferings of the unemployed with share scrip or deposit receipts. The law of supply and demand is, of course, one that should be upheld. The human element should never be brought into account. You are to force down the standard of life of the trade unionists so that capital may have its price. Deputy Flinn speaks of a pool. What pool? We want to know what is left out of the pool of resources just as much as we want to know what is put into it. We want to know on what authority certain people glut themselves on what is kept out of the pool, whilst they sentence others, who have to depend on the pool for a living, to a life of misery.

Deputy Lemass was a very poor editor of Deputy Flinn's speech, a very poor editor indeed. Deputy de Valera edited it much better. He spoke more humanly and uttered more humane philosophy, much more humane philosophy. I want to tell those people who are interested in this matter, and those who stand [1275] for that philosophy, that Deputy de Valera spoke more the mind of the people who support Fianna Fáil than did that high priest of capitalism, Deputy Flinn. There should be no doubt about this matter. It is very hard to speak calmly and dispassionately after hearing the jungle talk and after the adumbration of the tooth-and-talon law that we heard yesterday. If the law of supply and demand is to operate in this case, and if there is to be nothing for the human element, no consideration for the value that the human unit is to the nation, then those people who stand for that doctrine will have to face it when it is applied to themselves.

Mr. Briscoe: Could I get an answer to the question that I put on the Second Stage, and again yesterday? It would seem as if we are now merely wasting time trying to get political kudos out of the situation that confronts us. The point is: are these people going to be paid or are they going to get food in return for their work? Will the Minister explain how this section is going to operate? It is little use to have a debate proceeding on the lines upon which it is now running.

General Mulcahy: I will intervene in this discussion when I get room.

Mr. Briscoe: I am sure Deputies will give way to the Minister in order to allow him to give an explanation.

Mr. MacEntee: I would like, after Deputy Hogan's speech, to bring the House back to the subject matter of this debate. We are dealing with the amendment that stands in the name of Deputy Morrissey: “In sub-section (1), line 5, after the word `work' to insert the words `which is not work that, but for the provisions of this section, would be done by persons employed for wages in the ordinary course of industry or trade, and”'

Now, what I think we are really concerned about is what is the exact meaning of that amendment and [1276] what is the purpose and intention of it—“which is not work that, but for the provisions of this section, would be done by persons employed for wages in the ordinary course of industry or trade.” I would ask Deputy Morrissey to indicate to the Dáil what sort of work would be permitted if his amendment were to be accepted by the House. Deputy Corish, I think, gave us to understand last night that he did not think that the amendment would exclude the clearing of derelict sites. But surely that is work which would be done by persons employed for wages in the ordinary course of industry or trade. I would like Deputy Corish to reconcile his statement with Deputy Morrissey's amendment if he can, to show me how Deputy Morrissey's amendment would not prevent the employment of persons on a relief scheme merely to clear derelict sites. They would be doing work which obviously would be done for wages in the ordinary course of industry or trade. The persons to whom relief was given might even be set to work to sort rags. I do not suggest that that would be fit or adequate work for them, but I am suggesting the most ridiculous example I can think of to show that there is not a single thing which would have any element of utility in it that could be performed by these persons if Deputy Morrissey's amendment were adopted. Therefore, Deputy Lemass was quite justified in saying that if this amendment were adopted the only thing these men could be employed on would be the building of follies. We are supposed to have a Labour Party in this House with a very up-to-date and a very advanced outlook, but here we find them in this amendment deliberately going back to the basic principles of the Famine laws.

General Mulcahy: And you are going to vote for it.

Mr. MacEntee: We are going to vote for it because we want this position clarified and because we are not going to permit a smoke screen to be raised as to the position of Fianna Fáil in this matter. That is why we [1277] are going to vote for it. But we certainly do feel that this amendment, in its present form, is not going to carry out what was at least the avowed purpose of some of those who supported the amendment, if not the purpose of the Deputy who moved it.

General Mulcahy: The policy of making things worse in order to make things better.

Mr. MacEntee: We have to make them worse, if you like, in order to have clarified the muddy waters that have been stirred up. We are not going to allow our attitude in regard to this amendment to be distorted or to be abused, or to be misrepresented in order to serve or advance the purposes of the Government.

Mr. Anthony: I am glad to know that there are certain points of agreement between some members of Fianna Fáil and some members of Cumann na nGaedheal, but I regard the proceedings so far to-day on the part of the Fianna Fáil Deputies who have spoken as more or less in the nature of a saving of faces and a washing of hands after what has been described as the tooth-and-claw speech of Deputy Flinn yesterday. Deputy Flinn said, in effect, that he understood the problem of unemployment, and that there were thousands and tens of thousands of people who were prepared to accept work on the Shannon scheme at 32s. per week. He also said, amongst other things, that there were thousands of persons now wanting houses who could not get these houses built because of the building trade union. There appeared to be unanimity of opinion also between certain members of Fianna Fáil and certain members of Cumann na nGaedheal that these trades unions should be abolished and that coolie labour conditions should obtain in this Free State.

Mr. Lemass: Who said that?

Mr. Anthony: I will come to that in a moment.

[1278] Mr. Lemass: Come to it now. Quote the statement.

Mr. Anthony: I will come to it in a moment. You take your medicine.

Mr. Lemass: That is not medicine; it is a lie.

An Ceann Comhairle: The Deputy should not say that.

Mr. Lemass: Very well. I withdraw.

An Ceann Comhairle: Will Deputy Anthony give way to the Chair for a moment? I said yesterday when Deputy Briscoe rose that we were in fact discussing Section 4, amendment 6 and amendment 8 together, but that we had got into a very much wider range of topics, and that we could not continue on that line indefinitely. While I recognise that I must allow certain Labour Deputies to make their position clear, I would like to commend to Deputy Anthony, while he is on the general question, the brevity of his colleague who has just spoken.

Mr. Anthony: All right, but I suggest, as far as reference has been made to wages and conditions on the Shannon scheme by Deputy Flinn, that I am entitled to refer to some of the things he said in relation to them. I want to say this—and I think it will be generally agreed, at any rate, throughout the Free State —that for the working-class people of this country the 32/- Free State or the 32/- Republic has no attraction. I challenge any person in this House or outside it who has visited the Shannon scheme and inquired into the conditions of living there, apart altogether from the question of wages, to deny that these workers were employed and engaged under the most dehumanising and demoralising conditions in this part of the world, or in any part of Europe, for that matter.

Mr. Byrne: Can you substantiate that?

Mr. Anthony: Yes, I can. That that work has been carried on without [1279] a semblance of recognition for Factory Acts or any other class of humane legislation in force in this country is undeniable, and is manifested by the high rate of mortality due to accidents, not to speak of the large number of minor accidents. It is undoubtedly a fact that in the present state of capitalist society— so well represented by Deputy Flinn and certain members of the Fianna Fáil Party—so long as that condition of things is permitted to operate, we will have a larger number of persons than work can be provided for, as indicated week after week and month after month by the thousands of persons who must leave our shores to seek employment elsewhere. These conditions, I submit, will continue to operate so long as the present state of capitalist society exists, and it is for the Fianna Fáil Party, who proclaim themselves such great friends of the workers and of the down-and-out unemployed, to make an approach to dealing with this matter in a somewhat better way than that advocated by Deputy Flinn yesterday—the law of tooth and fang.

I want to reassure Deputy Flinn, Deputy Lemass, and the other members of that Party who think as they do, if they have any doubts or misgivings on the matter, that the working-class people of this country do not now and will not at any future date recognise the 32/- a week scheme which they apparently accept as the be-all and end-all of labour activity in this country. At the same time, I am glad to know that there are members of the Fianna Fáil Party who do not think as Deputy Flinn and Deputy Lemass do on this question, and I want to reassure them also that the trade union movement in this country is a stronger movement than Fianna Fáil, is stronger even than Cumann na nGaedheal, and that not even the two forces combined can again drive the workers back to the level they had to submit to in 1913. Now, to come to the matters dealt with by Deputy Good on this amendment—

[1280] An Ceann Comhairle: Did Deputy Good intervene on this amendment?

Mr. Good: Not so far.

Mr. Anthony: Deputies who have spoken on this amendment envisage a time when Dublin might be the Mecca of all unemployed persons in this State. We do know that whilst the metropolis in every country has certain advantages it also has certain disadvantages. There is no doubt but that many young persons flock to the metropolis in the hope that some latent ability which was not discovered in their own home towns might be discovered there. But I do not share the doubts expressed by some of the Deputies opposing the amendment. I would like also to remind the House that, whilst the metropolis has its problem of unemployment, in addition to other problems, the other cities and towns of the Free State have their own particular problems and questions.

An Ceann Comhairle: I think the Deputy is on another amendment that has been disposed of.

Mr. Anthony: I only want to make it clear——

Mr. MacEntee: It is good to see the Deputy in the House during the debate, anyhow.

Mr. Anthony: Personally, I feel that it would be a very bad thing for the country as a whole if persons like Deputy Good, say, had to come under the operations of this clause. There would be a repatriation of nationals.

An Ceann Comhairle: Neither Deputy Good nor Deputy Anthony can be repatriated under this particular clause.

Mr. Anthony: Deputy Byrne, who has certainly made himself the mouthpiece of his Party in this connection——

An Ceann Comhairle: He has not said a word about it. The Deputy must either talk about this amendment or conclude.

Mr. MacEntee: The Deputy thinks to-day is yesterday.

[1281] Mr. Lemass: Deputy Anthony came in here and proceeded to make a speech which clearly indicated that he did not even know what the discussion was about, much less what was said in the discussion, and he attributes to me statements that I challenge him to prove I made. If he can prove from the Official Report any statement made by me which, even by implication, could be advanced to support the allegations which he made I will undertake never to speak again in this House. That is a big promise. This amendment of Deputy Morrissey's has been discussed for a considerable length of time. Those who spoke against the amendment, as it appears on the paper, include Deputy Morrissey. He himself admitted that the amendment, as it appears on the paper, did not provide exactly for that which he wished to have provided for.

Mr. Morrissey: I did not say any such thing.

Mr. Lemass: I think I can find the actual words as I took them down. But he admitted that the difficulty of providing the safeguards he wanted to provide was very great and that this amendment did not appear to do it completely.

Mr. Morrissey: I said that I realised it would be difficult to get a form of words which would provide all the safeguards that we require.

Mr. Lemass: Exactly, and I agree with Deputy Morrissey that it will be very difficult to do so. I suggest to him, however, that he has not found them, and I think he will be prepared to admit that he has not found them, because this amendment, if carried, would mean that those destitute, unemployed persons seeking relief could not be given work——

Mr. Morrissey: Nonsense.

Mr. Lemass:——that the only work that could be given to them would be work of an utterly useless nature [1282] which would not, in any circumstances, be done by a person employed for wages “in the ordinary course of industry or trade.” I submit that any work of the slightest utility which would be done for wages in the ordinary course of industry or trade could not be performed by persons in receipt of outdoor relief if this amendment were passed, and that would include even the clearing of sites for the purpose of building schemes, as suggested by Deputy Corish and approved of by Deputy Morrissey. But even what was suggested by Deputy MacEntee—the picking of rags and that sort of work—is done in the ordinary course of industry or trade for wages.

Mr. Morrissey: This applies only to boards of guardians—not to other local authorities.

Mr. Lemass: If Deputy Morrissey will put that in his amendment——

Mr. Morrissey: Will the Deputy read the section?

Mr. Lemass: “Does any work which is not work that, but for the provisions of this section, would be done by persons employed for wages in the ordinary course of industry or trade.”

Mr. Morrissey: That is the amendment. Read the section.

Mr. Lemass: That is quite clear. Read that in relation to the section and it does not alter its significance at all.

Mr. Morrissey: Will the Deputy read the section?

Mr. Lemass: I have read the section, and if Deputy Morrissey reads the section with the amendment added to it he will find if the amendment were carried that the only work which those persons in receipt of outdoor relief could be employed at would be such work as I suggested yesterday—shifting a heap of stones from one side of the institution yard to the other, the [1283] building of follies, the picking of oakum or something of that kind. If Deputy Morrissey wants to ensure that these persons will be given work, if he also wants to ensure that the manner in which they will be given work will not result in any depression in general wage levels, if he also wishes to ensure that these persons cannot be used against the interests of the workers in a labour dispute, if he also wishes to ensure that the work will be of a useful nature, conferring some benefit on the community by its performance, if he wants to ensure what we want to ensure——

Mr. Morrissey: The Deputy is improving on yesterday.

Mr. Lemass: Everything I have said now I said yesterday, and I challenge Deputy Morrissey to find one statement in the Official Report of my remarks yesterday contrary to what I am saying now. I will admit that the mere fact that I have said that is not likely to save me from misrepresentation by Deputy Anthony and other members of the Labour Party at some future election. I will probably be misrepresented in any case. I am quite certain of it. I am quite sure that Deputy Murphy will be an adept at it. I have been reading some of Deputy Murphy's speeches in the “Cork Examiner”——

Mr. T. Murphy: You can be quite sure you will hear plenty about it.

Mr. Lemass: Let us hear the truth. That is what we want. I am stating the attitude I stood for yesterday, and that I am still standing for, the attitude that this Party stands for, and if Deputy Morrissey wants to ensure that that object will be realised——

Mr. Anthony: Do you stand for what Deputy Flinn stands for?

Mr. Lemass: If Deputy Morrissey wants to ensure that that object will be realised he will be, I think, forced to agree that some alteration in the wording of his amendment is necessary. [1284] The Minister for Local Government made a suggestion yesterday which, although not adequate, did go some way to meet the difficulty. He suggested that we should insert in amendment No. 8 the words “undertaken for the purpose of providing additional employment,” after sub-section (a). That amendment would not appear to be a safeguard against all the dangers that might arise, but the idea is, I think, the idea that what we want to have provided for, that these persons should be engaged upon additional work which would not be undertaken if they were not available. But it should be work of a useful nature, work which in some other circumstance might be done for wages by persons in the ordinary course of industry or trade. But so long as these destitute unemployed in receipt of relief are not used to disemploy persons who would be certain of engagements otherwise there could be no objection to the manner in which they are engaged. The idea that we want to provide for is the idea of additional work. If the Minister or Deputy Morrissey, or the Minister and Deputy Morrissey in consultation, or Deputy Morrissey and Deputy de Valera in consultation, could get an amendment which would ensure that that idea would be given effect to in the Bill, I think that all this hubbub that has arisen could easily be disposed of.

General Mulcahy: There has been talk this afternoon about there being agreement about the main thing, but my interpretation of what is the main thing would not be the interpretation that has apparently been put on it by other people. The only main thing on which there has been general agreement is, if it is possible to provide work that would not ordinarily be done, and to employ on that work persons who are seeking relief, that that work ought to be provided. Deputy Derrig suggests that relief work is no use. In fact, that is the conclusion that a very large number of people engaged in the work of relief have had [1285] to come to because of the difficulty of finding work upon which persons might be employed and of the uneconomic nature of most of the work that has been tackled in that particular way. There has been general reaction from time to time against relief being carried out by those responsible for the relief of the poor. Nevertheless, I take it that while having that as an opinion, and to a certain extent I sympathise with that opinion because, as I have said, our difficulty is to know upon what work any of these poor law authorities will employ men if they want to employ them. While having that opinion, I take it that even Deputy Derrig would join the general opinion here that if it is possible to provide work that work should be provided for those men. Now it is proposed here that certain action should be taken that will compel the Minister to be clear about something or another, and the general ideas are served out, conflicting with the various points and the Minister has to clarify everything, and make everything word-perfect from the legislative point of view, so that everything being word-perfect from the legislative point of view, everything outside will be right for those who want to administer it. After the discussion heard here, I have no hope that any words that can be put into this measure are going to reconcile either the differences that have been disclosed here between Deputies or are really going to help anyone to administer relief in the most satisfactory way.

Deputy Morrissey, speaking yesterday, suggested that the Balrothery Board of Guardians might come along and build labourers' cottages with this particular class of relief. He fears that Deputy de Valera thinks that it would be an excellent idea if local bodies throughout the country, having housing schemes that were not being gone on with, would take the type of labour that is looking for relief, would organise carpenters and labourers, saying to them. “We are prepared to relieve you.” In the [1286] case, say, of a man with a wife, I take it the relief would be 7/6, because this is the basis upon which it is administered in Dublin at present. A man is given 7/6, with 2/6 for his wife and 2/6 for every child. Take a man with a wife and two children, he would get 15/-. Deputy de Valera sees local authorities organising their house - building schemes by taking that particular type of persons, organising them into gangs and treating them according to their trade union rates of wages and saying, “Ordinarily you get 15/- on relief; therefore we will now give you eight, nine or eleven hours' work to do and require that of you for relief work.” He seems to think that magnificently organised and splendid economic schemes of housing can be conducted in that particular way. The general experience of engineers and others who have to deal with relief labour has been that the capacity of the man they get is about 50 or 60 per cent. the capacity of the type of man that would be got by an ordinary ganger or foreman organising his gang for general trade purposes. I would like to hear that denied if anyone with experience can deny it.

Mr. Morrissey: We would not try to.

General Mulcahy: As I say, it is a general experience and what I say cannot be done is that on relief work you cannot afford to pay wages that ignore the capacity of the man that is carrying out the work. Deputy Morrissey, passing from the fear of what might happen about house building up at Balrothery, more or less suggested that it actually happened, or something on all fours with it had happened, and that I had said that 30/- a week was a sufficient wage for men who were employed on the actual work of developing land for housing purposes. What actually happened was that before Christmas the work was begun. Because of the opposition of certain persons, who tried to get the men not to work, the project was left aside, having worked a few days, [1287] and begun again in January on an area that would probably take 250 houses. The Commissioners started relief work in the clearing and developing of that area. On that site for the last nine months or more they have got about 65 men engaged who would otherwise be in the receipt of relief. They pay them 30/- a week, and when the matter was raised here before I said that the work had been costed and that if there was any saving on that work based on the difference between what the actual costing of the work would be in the ordinary circumstances and the actual carrying out of the work with relief labour at 30/- a week, the difference would be paid to the men in a bonus. About four weeks or so ago the question arose with the Commissioners that at the rate the work was going on they could not see their way to afford to carry on the work at a cost of 30/- per week per man.

In the critical atmosphere brought about by the development of the decision of the Commissioners to shut down the work there was a discussion on the matter, and an offer was made and an increased output was given following that offer. Since that offer was made on the work which was actually performed the Commissioners have paid a bonus of 5/- a week extra, so that the men on that work have been drawing 35/- a week since then, but the demand, if we understand the words here, is that men who are engaged in that particular work should be paid 58/8 per week, perhaps not as high as that, because the men are working, say, 36 hours a week as against the 44 which the 58/8 would warrant. Persons responsible for administering poor law cannot accept the position that men who are put on relief work of the type they get looking for relief can, economically even, if you take into consideration the fact that they would otherwise be drawing relief, be paid the rates of wages some Deputies here would demand. At the present, as I say, these men with increased output are being paid 35/- a week for a 36 hours' week. [1288] The average agricultural wages paid in the district in which they are working is about 33/3. I am sure Deputy Cassidy would suggest that it is not even as high as that. The road workers, for a 44 hours week, are paid 43/- in the same area. That has actually been done, and that is the kind of work that I personally would like to see done. That is the standard that I would like to see maintained by the Commissioners and by people carrying out work of this particular class. There is no use in the suggestion the Labour Deputies made that trade union wages must be paid for this particular class of work, or in the suggestion that Deputy de Valera made, that an equivalent to the trades union wages of work should be done in respect of the relief that is proposed to be given. It has been asked what exactly we do propose by inserting here “the powers.” I said before, it is difficult to see where any body administering this Act can find even a little amount of work to give as either test work to persons whose bona fides in the searching of relief is doubted, or to persons for whom work would be desirable if they are to be kept in proper morale. Deputy Morrissey has not helped us in any way. As has been clearly said, the amendment prevents work of any kind being got.

Mr. Morrissey: I do not agree at all. Would the Minister point out where it would?

General Mulcahy: We are asked here not to allow them to do work that in the ordinary course of industry or trade would be done. It would rule out some of the work that has been done here in the city, the making of roads in particular places, and paths. I would like to hear a suggestion as to the kind of work it would not rule out, because that is what we have been looking for, and that is a matter in which we have not been helped by Deputy Morrissey.

Mr. Morrissey: Is the Minister clear that this section refers to boards of guardians?

[1289] Mr. MacEntee: It applies to the Minister's own amendment to the section.

Mr. Morrissey: We have not reached that yet.

Mr. MacEntee: You are discussing the two together.

General Mulcahy: I am quite clear that this section and the amendment that is there empower a board of guardians to pay for the carrying out of work by relief labour. What my amendment proposes is that the guardians can contract with either an ordinary local authority, such as the Dublin County Council, or the Dublin City Commissioners, replacing the borough council, to carry out some piece of public utility work. It provides power that if any public utility society or any philanthropic body want to develop, say, a site for houses, that the guardians can contract with these people to do the type of work such as has been suggested here by Deputy Corish. The empowering amendment gives them a machinery by which they can get work done.

Mr. Morrissey: At low wages.

General Mulcahy: If the Deputy thinks that the 35/- a week that is being paid on the Drumcondra work at the present moment is low wages and that a different class of wages should be paid there, that is one particular matter. But I cannot suggest to an authority such as the Dublin Union Commissioners that they should pay more.

Mr. Moore: With regard to that example, would the Minister say whether the increase from 30/- to 35/- a week led to increased output or whether it was the offer of the bonus that led to it?

General Mulcahy: The increase to 35/- a week followed an increased output. It followed an offer of increased output, and the increase of 5/- at the present moment is dependent upon the maintenance of that increased output, which has been given and is being paid for. When [1290] we speak of wages generally we are referred by some Deputies here to the road workers. I want to say first, in reply to Deputy Cassidy who raised the matter yesterday, that all we are preventing the county council in Donegal from doing is from paying a higher rate of wages out of money provided by the State than they are prepared to pay out of money raised by the rates.

Mr. Cassidy: May I interrupt the Minister in regard to that? I think he is altogether misinformed, inasmuch as at the present time the Local Government Department only allow the county council to pay the starvation rate of wages of 26/- a week. Some of the local authorities in County Donegal are paying 30/- a week out of the rates. As far as the Donegal County Council is concerned, they employ no direct labour on the by-roads. Consequently, the Minister is not right in the statement he has made. The Minister is deliberately standing for 26/- a week in Donegal, although a number of the local authorities, notably the Bundoran and Buncrana Urban Councils, are paying a higher rate of wages.

General Mulcahy: I am doing no such thing.

Mr. Cassidy: Can the Minister deny that?

General Mulcahy: Yes.

Mr. Cassidy: Does the Minister deny that the local authorities mentioned are not paying more than 26/- a week?

General Mulcahy: No. I simply deny that I am doing anything in County Donegal except preventing the local body paying out of State funds a rate of wages that they are not prepared to pay out of their own funds.

Mr. Cassidy: They are prepared to pay 30/- a week out of their own funds. You are preventing them paying more than 26/- a week, which [1291] means that you are standing for 26/- a week as a living rate of wages.

An Ceann Comhairle: Donegal is rather far away from this amendment.

Mr. Cassidy: The Minister introduced it.

An Ceann Comhairle: The Minister is following it up, Deputy Cassidy having introduced it.

General Mulcahy: Is a rate of 35/- a week on relief labour on this particular class of work objected to by the Deputy?

Mr. Morrissey: I have not said anything about it.

General Mulcahy: He is objecting to a wage being paid for this particular class of work which is higher than the wage paid for general road work in about twenty-two of our counties.

Mr. Morrissey: How much lower?

General Mulcahy: This rate of wages is higher. It does not, as the Deputy will agree, compare with the rate of wages that would be paid if the ordinary labourers' wages in Dublin were paid on this particular class of work, as we are asked by the Deputy to do. I cannot accept Deputy Morrissey's amendment because, as far as I know, it would prevent any work of any useful kind being done, as has been said. I cannot see any hope, even by combining my brains with those of some of the other Deputies, that I can suggest anything more useful as an addition to my amendment here than what has been already proposed, and that is to extend the term “any work of public utility” to “any work of public utility undertaken for the purpose of providing additional employment.” That provides the power to get done any work of that particular class that the bodies dealing with relief in the city and county of Dublin can possibly find, and I know that their search will be a hard one. The question has also been asked whether persons employed [1292] on this particular relief work are going to be paid in money or in kind? Persons employed on work will be paid in money. Persons who are being relieved will, as far as possible, be relieved in kind, but, as far as the necessities of any particular case are concerned, will be relieved in kind and in money.

Mr. Briscoe: The Minister has answered to a certain extent the question which I put yesterday. I understand the Ministry has already come to a definite decision with regard to the administration of this relief and I should like the Minister to state to what extent relief is going to be given in kind and in money. It is all very well giving a man who has a wife and child a food ticket amounting to fifteen shillings, but how is that man going to clothe himself and get a shelter for himself? I should like the Minister to give us something definite as to how it is going to be administered. The rates are going to be increased for the purpose of relieving the unemployed —the people who have no food. The Bill is classifying these people as destitute, and we are not told how the relief is going to be administered. There is great objection to the manner in which relief is at present administered—some people will get it and others will not. There is one thing which I should like to point out, which was borne out by a lady who is very active in Dublin in connection with the destitute poor. If a man applies to a relieving officer to come and inquire into his case, and if the relieving officer decides to give him a food ticket for himself and his family, if that man dares to take on a day's job to augment the food ticket by a few shillings towards his rent or to clothe himself, he is debarred from further relief. I want the Minister to tell the House clearly and explicitly what the restrictions are going to be, if any, and are some of the restrictions already existing in connection with the administration of relief going to be removed? I am not concerned with the labour policy or with Deputy Morrissey's amendment, but [1293] what I am concerned with is that the urgency of the situation in Dublin has brought about this solution from the Minister. That is what we are considering and what the Bill covers. As representing Dublin, I want to know how is it going to be administered and what the restrictions are going to be, and then we will be getting nearer to what I am concerned with. I believe most people are concerned with the poorer people in Dublin.

An Ceann Comhairle: The section and the amendment concern not the form of relief, but the question of work which may be required of the persons applying for relief.

Mr. Briscoe: On the Second Reading, I mentioned that I should like the Minister to explain Section 4, which concerns relief. These amendments have since come in, and we do not yet know how the main idea of relief is going to be administered. These are only side issues. The fact of having work found for a certain number of unemployed men is one thing, but there is a great number for whom work will not be found, and to whom relief will have to be given.

An Ceann Comhairle: Even accepting the statement that it is a side issue, this is the particular side issue that we are now considering.

Mr. Briscoe: When will the main issue be discussed?

An Ceann Comhairle: We can only deal with this point at present.

Mr. Lemass: I was going to ask the Minister if the amendment which he suggests to this amendment, No. 8, would not be more appropriate in Section 4, after the word “work.” where it first occurs in line 3? If that amendment is inserted in amendment 8, it will relate only to work done by contract for somebody else, whereas if it were put in Section 4 it would relate to all the work done under the Bill.

General Mulcahy: I am prepared to put it in wherever it will be most useful.

[1294] Mr. Kennedy: I am interested in this Bill in this way, that I see, with the continual rise of unemployment, that in the rural areas we will have to consider the application of some relief like this. On this amendment, one thing strikes me which I am not clear about, and which I put to Deputy Morrissey. A municipality or county council in the ordinary way carry out what we call normal schemes of road work, sanitation, etc. If they decide on giving relief to unemployed labour on the improvement, say, of by-roads, on water supplies and extra sanitary schemes, will the adoption of Deputy Morrissey's amendment prevent the council employing the destitute on such schemes?

Mr. MacEntee: It would.

Mr. Kennedy: We should like to be clear on that. If, say, an extra sanitary scheme is started or a water supply to a village, can the local trades council come at the municipality and say that they can only employ members of this trades council?

Mr. Davin: Where is that?

Mr. Kennedy: I want to be perfectly clear on what we stand for on this. I contend that it is better, say, if you are giving £1 per week in relief to take a batch of men on for two or three days at this work, and another batch for two or three days more, rather than to leave them drawing a kind of dole. I think it is better for the community as a whole. As regards the Minister's contention about their not being capable of giving the work of normal men, that is principally due to malnutrition. I contend that after a while they will give as satisfactory work as a normal man. Of course that is no solution for the problem at all. It is the duty of the State to provide work for everyone out of work, and they will find that the passing of this Bill will not solve the problem. Eventually the problem will have to be faced of dealing with all the unemployed, and if Deputy Morrissey's amendment is carried. [1295] and it is through the machinery of local government that relief schemes will come and will have to be found to solve the unemployment problem, will the adoption of his amendment prevent destitute people from being employed on abnormal schemes and nobody but people with a trades union card being employed?

Mr. Morrissey: Not at all.

Mr. Lemass: I want to get from Deputy Morrissey what exactly he means when he says that if the amendment is read in connection with the section it is quite clear that the danger referred to by Deputy Kennedy will not arise. Does he mean that the only work on which persons in receipt of outdoor relief or destitute people must not be employed is work that would otherwise be performed by persons employed by the board of guardians for wages?

Mr. Morrissey: It is quite clear that the Deputy knows as well as I do what it means.

Mr. MacEntee: So far as I can see, it means that which you will not admit.

Mr. Davin: Why did you change your mind from last night?

Mr. Flinn: When I spoke last night I put it to the House as a problem. I put it with complete consciousness of the fact that in speaking in that spirit I was taking a risk of what has happened happening—that what was said sincerely, quite clearly, without premeditation, without guarding words of any sort or kind, would be selected and used for the purposes of political propaganda. That risk, unfortunately, I had to take. I may have hoped that misuse would not have been made of that contribution, but I had no right, founded on experience, to hope anything of the kind. I personally have not been able to get hold of a copy of my own speech of last night, and I presume, therefore, that no one else has, and I have not been able to go through that speech and find if there was any word which should be changed or any expression which [1296] should be altered; nor have I been able to go through it to find the particular words or expression upon which there has been based the suggestion that I have enunciated the doctrine of tooth and claw.

As far as I understand the position, what is complained of is the statement made by me that if any man would come forward and employ in this country the whole of the unemployed at the rate which was paid on the Shannon scheme, that man would be a benefactor of the highest possible order. That seems to me to be the gravamen of the complaint. I repeat that statement, and stand over it and I will maintain it. If we take the figure, given by the Labour Party, of unemployment in this country, it is supposed to run to 90,000 people.

An Ceann Comhairle: The Deputy is not surely going to initiate another debate on unemployment?

Mr. Flinn: No, sir. As a matter of fact I do not desire to speak at all unless the House feels that the attack that has been made ought to be answered.

An Ceann Comhairle: That is why I did not say anything to the Deputy when he rose. I think, if he so desires, he must have an opportunity of meeting the particular kind of attack that has been made, and if the Deputy can manage to do so without involving us again in the very same debate upon the general question of unemployment it would be satisfactory. If we are to have the figures and statistics of unemployment gone into, which we all know is a very wide question, then we would be getting far away from the amendment.

Mr. Aiken: On a point of order, I think Deputy Flinn should be allowed to make his defence against what most people believe to be an entirely unjustifiable misrepresentation of his statement.

An Ceann Comhairle: The Deputy will be allowed, if he so desires, to explain what he said yesterday afternoon, but, as I indicated, after he had spoken yesterday to another [1297] Deputy and to the House, the section, and the amendments, do not really raise the whole question of unemployment, and we cannot, I think, now begin that debate over again. We cannot have a general debate on unemployment on this amendment, but we can hear from Deputy Flinn anything he desires to say as to his speech of yesterday.

Mr. Flinn: We had three speeches of unlimited and violent attack founded upon that speech without any interference. I am not upon my defence. The figures given by the Labour Party of unemployment in this country were given to cover somewhere about 90,000 persons. At 32/- a week for fifty weeks in the year, the employment of these people would represent a wage of £7,000,000. I say deliberately that any man who would come forward, in the present condition of economic affairs in Ireland and the present degree of poverty and unemployment, and add to the fund of wages £7,000,000 of money by taking the whole of these 90,000 people out of unemployment into employment, is a great benefactor to this country and one to whom I, at any rate, am prepared to pay a tribute of respect for his services. These 90,000 men to-day lie in wait upon existing production of every kind, and if any man will come forward and tell us some way by which at mere “line ball” he will restore to the community £7,000,000 worth of food and clothing and shelter which he is prepared to distribute to these unemployed men, then he will be a man who has solved a problem which no man in this House, at the present moment, is capable of solving and which the so-called Labour Party— (interruptions)——

A Deputy: Not the so-called Labour Party.

Mr. Flinn: Yes, the so-called Labour Party.

Mr. Corish: There is nothing so-called about it.

Mr. Flinn: All right. These men will not allow——

[1298] Mr. Anthony: Is Deputy Flinn prepared to subscribe to the doctrine of production for use and not for profit?

An Ceann Comhairle: Let Deputy Flinn proceed.

Mr. Anthony: I am asking Deputy Flinn does he subscribe to the doctrine that I have mentioned, of production for use and not for profit?

Mr. Flinn: These people have told us that they, the Trades Union Party, as they call themselves, are stronger than Fianna Fáil and Cumann na nGaedheal combined.

Mr. Anthony: We accept that.

Mr. Flinn: Yes, their strength has been shown in this House as 110 to 5, as 113 to 12—that is the strength of the Labour Party. That is what they get when they go to the electorate, the vast majority of whom are labouring people. They come back with four or five per cent. of the representation in this whole Dáil. Have they the right to speak for Labour? They whom Labour repudiate and will not send back to this House, will not allow this, that, and the other. They have not as much power as the Farmers' Party, because the Farmers' Party do happen, for the moment, to hold the balance of power, and they do not. Again, I repeat deliberately, and will stand over it, that the man who will come forward and find productive work which will pay seven millions of money to the unemployed in this country at this moment will perform a very real service. He will lift off the cost of production the whole of those who to-day are idle and have to be maintained out of the existing production. They will begin the upward curve, they will give us some reserve and some opportunity to build up on conditions which to-day are stagnant. I have nothing to withdraw, nothing to extenuate, and nothing to apologise for.

A Deputy: The bulldog breed.

Mr. T. Murphy: It has been said already that this debate has wandered into many strange paths. It is [1299] true also, I think, that we have learned very much in the course of the debate that quite a number of us expected for a very considerable time. The question has been frequently asked what this amendment aims at. There appears to be a very strange reluctance even to attempt to realise what the amendment aims at. I have refrained from taking practically any part up to the present in the discussions on this Bill. I have not studied the amendments or the Bill in the manner that I should have if I were to be prepared to take an intelligent part in the debate, but from a very cursory examination of the amendment I can see quite a number of things that it is aimed to prevent. I have not heard one word as to the attitude of certain members who have made memorable contributions to this debate on points of this kind. This amendment, for instance, will prevent any local authority from organising an army of scabs to do work at their bid and call under pressure conditions. It is going to prevent an organised army of strike-breakers being put at the disposal either of private individuals or of any local authority under the control of the Minister. I am not at all sure that the Minister would not be anxious to have facilities for using an army of that kind. I think that his speeches on this question were characterised by the same outlook that we saw revealed on other questions of a similar kind that came before the House on previous occasions. I think it is nothing short of a tragedy that a Minister with the outlook of the present Minister for Local Government should be presiding over the Department that he happens to be in charge of at the moment. If there is one Department in this State where a humane outlook and a wide knowledge and appreciation of the difficulties of the people of the country should prevail in, it is in the Department of Local Government. But I can see clearly, not alone on this question, but on other questions such as that affecting pensions for widows [1300] as well as numerous other questions, the same strong hand and cast-iron outlook that we had running through the speech of the Minister here this evening.

General Mulcahy: Might I intervene to ask the Deputy whether he considers it absolutely wrong to pay 35/- a week for relief work in Dublin, when the Cork County Council pays 35/- a week to all its road workers, and only 35/- a week?

Mr. T. Murphy: All I will say on that is that I do not want to follow the Minister in a discussion of that kind.

General Mulcahy: Of course.

Mr. T. Murphy: What I want to tell the Minister definitely is this, that until very recently he insisted that the Cork County Council should not pay more than 29/- a week, and that he was simply relying on a technicality—on a recent change in the policy of his Department—when he contradicted Deputy Cassidy on that point to-day. In view of things that we have seen in this House already, it is not surprising at the moment to find Deputy Flinn able to gloat over the magnificent total of 109 votes that we had here on one side of the House yesterday against what the Deputy and his friends have been pleased to describe as the miserable minority. We have had examples of this kind already. Within the last six or seven months we have had on half-a-dozen notable occasions this huge block on one side and the miserable minority on the other. That has always arisen out of the same circumstances; it has always arisen here in connection with questions of wages and of living conditions.

Mr. Lemass: Quote.

Mr. T. Murphy: Whether it was in the case of the Civic Guards or in the case of workers getting employment in tariffed industries, we have had the very same mentality exhibited and the same surprising unity amongst people who tear each other to pieces on other issues in this [1301] House. I regret extremely that the speech of Deputy de Valera, which I am quite willing to admit was a humane speech, was spoiled by a certain remark that he made. I hope I am doing the Deputy no injustice when I repeat his statement that Deputy Lemass was quite justified in the line which he took up yesterday evening. What was Deputy Lemass quite justified in? Fortunately on this occasion, even in the absence of the official records of yesterday's debate, there is some proof of what was said yesterday.

Mr. Lemass: Where—in the “Independent”?

Mr. T. Murphy: I put it to members of the House that this wail of always being misrepresented is not going to continue indefinitely. The “Irish Independent” this morning —I have yet to learn that even Deputy Lemass will have the hardihood to contradict the statement— represents Deputy Lemass as saying that they could not allow the imposition of trade unions to hamper their programme.

Mr. Lemass: Read the whole sentence or give us none of it.

Mr. T. Murphy: I want to know what are the impositions of the trade unions that have to be swept away? What are the trade unions set up for? What policy are they to endeavour to maintain in this country? Are they not endeavouring to do in reality what Deputy Lemass and others of his Party have given lip-service to—the platitudes that they have been using up and down this country for the last two or three years? It is refreshing and desirable that we should know that statements of that kind were platitudes.

Mr. Lemass: That statement was not made by me, nor is it reported in the “Independent.” It is only a half sentence that the Deputy has quoted.

Mr. T. Murphy: It is reported in the “Independent.” I produce a copy of the “Independent.”

[1302] An Ceann Comhairle: Perhaps the Deputy would read the whole sentence.

Mr. T. Murphy: If this question involves a difference like that between certain historical documents that we heard a great deal about in this country for some years, I am not going to continue it.

Mr. Moore: No red herrings.

Mr. T. Murphy: But I am going to continue the statement that I got up to make to the House, no matter what difficulties are put in the way.

Mr. Aiken: And no matter what half-lies you tell.

Mr. T. Murphy: I am going to continue my statement.

Mr. Little: On a point of order, is not the Deputy bound to read the whole of the sentence before he goes any further?

Mr. Davin: He will read the whole speech if the Deputy likes.

Mr. Little: On a point of order, is not the Deputy bound to read the whole sentence before he goes any further?

An Ceann Comhairle: It is a nice point as to whether the Chair has power to compel the Deputy to read the whole sentence. I am afraid the Chair has not that power. The rule about documents is that when a Minister quotes from an official document, and is asked to lay the document on the Table of the House he does so, unless he contends that for reasons of public interest he should not do so.

Mr. J.X. Murphy: Did I not hear you, sir, ask Deputy Murphy to read the whole statement?

An Ceann Comhairle: Yes, I said perhaps the Deputy will read the whole sentence——

Mr. T. Murphy: I confess I did not hear you make any such request. I would not have ignored it if I had.

[1303] An Ceann Comhairle: It was not by way of a ruling but for the sake of peace.

Mr. Murphy: This is the sentence:

“The Fianna Fáil Party was committed more than any other Party to the solution of the problem of unemployment by the provision of work on State schemes in preference to the giving of any kind of relief work, and they could not allow the imposition of the trade unions to hamper their programme.”

I wish Deputy Lemass the comfort of the addition I have given.

Mr. Lemass: I stand over it.

Mr. Murphy: I confess I was somewhat surprised that Deputy Lemass took that line. On the other hand, I was not in the least surprised at Deputy Flinn's outburst. There are Deputies in this House from West Cork who know that Deputy Flinn was born into that tradition. There are Deputies in this House who know there are certain people whom Deputy Flinn knows about who were always able to get 1/11 for their 1/-, and if Deputy Flinn wants any proof of that fact he will find many persons in West Cork who will give it to him.

Mr. O'Kelly: Will you tell us how he did it?

Mr. Murphy: Ask himself. He has certainly not improved the situation by the apology that we have heard to-day. I suggest that in future when speeches are to be made in this country about the Fascisti and the new Mussolinis, that Deputy Flinn should advocate that doctrine. His strong policy and his extremely strong voice suit him eminently for that purpose. When it comes to wiping out these abominable trade union restrictions, and when it comes to rooting out the ruthless capitalists Deputy Flinn speaks for in this House, and the people who stand for the imposition of out-of-date trade union restrictions, Deputy Flinn will be able to do an immense service to his own class, indeed. I notice that Comrade [1304] Cooney is strangely silent in this debate. He was slobbering here last week about the unemployed people in Dublin. He came in here with a catch in his voice and he asked that a deputation would be received. Deputy Cooney refused to vote yesterday for giving relief to people except they were two years living in Dublin. The one Deputy who continually slobbers over the brotherhood of man in the world and the International workers of the world, has not a word to say when Deputy Flinn makes a statement that I hope will become historic in this country.

Deputy Flinn is entitled to get any comfort he likes out of the fact that up to the present the workers have been foolish enough to vote for people like him. I am quite sure that a number of the unfortunate workers in Cork were responsible for sending him here. I hope they enjoyed his views on this question when they read them in the newspapers this morning. He need not fear that this game is going to continue much longer. There are signs all over the country that people like Deputy Flinn are being found out, and the reaction that is going to come will come a great deal more quickly because we have got this question out in the open, and because we have the admission that relief work can be offered at any price, and that Kaffir conditions can be advocated not alone in the public boards or elsewhere, but in the Parliament of the country, that men can be got at any price. Why not employ people at 30/- a week, with others trying to get in at 20/- a week? Why give them anything at all, but only offer them food, and you will have prosperity in the State? Deputy de Valera pays lip service, and I am quite prepared to admit honest service, to the right to work on fair living conditions, but there is a falling away and we have got the brutal truth, and we can thank God that we have got it so soon.

Mr. O'Kelly: Before the amendment is put I wish to say a word or two. I do not want to follow [1305] this debate into the various bypaths into which it has travelled in the last 24 hours, but I want to say that there is no Party in the House, including Deputy Murphy's Party, that on its record as a Party has done more for the workers or given more help to them than the Party with which I am associated here. Not all the members in the Party, great or small, on the Labour Benches have done more as a Party than we have done or hope to do; or than they hope to do, for the workers, whether they are destitute or whether they are in constant employment. Deputy Murphy referred to Deputy Lemass as being opposed to the principle of trade unions. The words quoted by Deputy Murphy do not, to my mind, put Deputy Lemass against trade unionism in any way, in any shape or form. It is worthy of note—and Labour members ought to bear this in mind—that when there were in Dublin some good Labour men, even with national records, put up for election, the workers of Dublin City, North and South, voted for the Fianna Fáil candidates against the candidates put up by the Labour Party.

Mr. Morrissey: More shame for them.

Mr. O'Kelly: That is the Deputy's opinion, but it happened. You could not get a candidate in when you had Fianna Fáil men standing whose records the workers could examine, and did examine, and they knew whom to vote for.

Mr. Davin: Men like Deputy Flinn.

Mr. O'Kelly: I am speaking of the city of Dublin. You did not get your men in in Dublin City, and you certainly will not get them in on the next occasion, whatever chance you had before.

Mr. Davin: I will have an even-money bet with you on that.

Mr. O'Kelly: I will meet you on that again and again. What has struck me is what Deputy Murphy [1306] has called the strange reluctance to see what this amendment aims at. It is strange that the mover of the amendment made no attempt to explain its terms. In fact, he threw cold water on his own amendment, and went so far as to suggest that if the Minister would agree to bring in an amendment which he would draft for Deputy Morrissey that Deputy Morrissey would withdraw his amendment, showing that he had no confidence in his own amendment, whoever drafted it for him.

Professor Thrift took the Chair.

Mr. O'Kelly: When the Deputy does not understand the amendment himself, and when his Party has made no effort, good, bad or indifferent, to explain what its terms mean, what can he expect from the House? They do not know what it means. They do not know its implications. That is what I believe. I know that it has been stated that it was put in deliberately vague terms for the purpose of enabling the Labour Party to put everybody else in the House in a difficulty——

Mr. Morrissey: Oh!

Mr. O'Kelly: ——and to have it defeated.

Mr. Morrissey: Oh!

Mr. O'Kelly: To have it defeated. Therefore the Labour Party could go with their chests out and say: “We are the champions of trade unionism and you know what the other fellows are.” I do not suggest that Deputy Morrissey and all the members of the Labour Party had that in mind, but some of them certainly had. They made no effort to explain what the amendment means.

Mr. Davin: If the Deputy is going to vote, as his Leader said, for the amendment, surely he understands it and will explain it?

Mr. O'Kelly: I accept the effort we made to put an interpretation on it as expressed by Deputy [1307] de Valera, and we will try and unravel the incoherent phraseology of the Labour Party and put in words what, at any rate, is in our mind when the Report Stage comes on. We were anxious to safeguard trade union principles in so far as they could be safeguarded in this Bill. We were not anxious—I do not know whether the gentlemen opposite were anxious—as Deputy Murphy suggested, to use the money available under this Bill for the purpose of introducing slave conditions, Hottentot conditions or coolie labour in this country. I believe that nobody in this country would allow them to do it. They would not be allowed to do it even if they wanted. That is not our intention. Our intention is to stand for trade union principles. We were anxious to vote for an amendment which would safeguard those principles, and for that reason we said that we would wait until we heard Deputy Morrissey indicate what the amendment meant. It was not clear from the words. He did not give us any help, but, having put our own interpretation on the words, we will vote for the amendment, hoping to clarify it later.

Deputy Corish was, I think, the only Deputy of the Labour Party who gave one illustration of the class of work that could be done by boards of guardians. He said that he would take it on himself to say that the clearing of sites for houses might be done, and Deputy Morrissey, I think rather reluctantly, agreed that that type of work could be done, but no other suggestion was made. Deputy Morrissey has been pressed to give an indication in a general way as to the class of work that could be done, but he failed to do so. No other member of the Labour Party helped the House in that respect. That is not fair to the House if they want the House to bind themselves by passing this amendment. It is not the first time that we have had to help the Labour Party out of difficulties, and I suppose it will not be the last. We will [1308] try to draft an amendment which will safeguard trade union principles, for which the workers have suffered so much, and introduce it on the Report Stage.

Mr. MacEntee: I would like to ask Deputy Morrissey whether it is his purpose, in putting down the amendment, to secure that when work is required in exchange for relief the man who is taken into employment will not displace another man who normally would be employed by doing work which would ordinarily be done within a certain period. I am putting that question definitely.

Mr. Morrissey: That is not the full purpose.

Mr. MacEntee: It is one of the purposes?

Mr. Morrissey: One of the purposes.

Mr. MacEntee: Then I suggest that the amendment should have been worded in this way: “which is not work that, but for the provisions of this section, would ordinarily be done by persons within the two or three years”—or whatever period the Deputy likes—“immediately subsequent to the date upon which such relief work is started.” I believe if the amendment had been put down in that form, and if there were any other reservations which Deputy Morrissey might have wished to put on the conditions on which relief work was being offered, there would not have been half the bother about it. If it is more or less with a view to securing the principle I have stated, that the relief work will not displace men who are now employed, and that the idea is that relief work will to a certain extent be in anticipation of work which normally would not be done for three or four years, I see no objection in voting for the amendment, and I shall vote for it with the idea of having it clarified, in some other form of words, on the Report Stage.

Mr. Morrissey: I do not for a moment believe that the members of the Fianna Fáil Party are puzzled [1309] as much as they pretend to be over the amendment. The object of the amendment is quite simple and I shall try to put it as briefly as I can. I want to make sure that work which, if this Bill were not passed, would be performed by workers recruited in the ordinary way, at the standard rate of wages and under standard conditions, will not be performed, as could happen under this Bill, perhaps, at half the wages and half the conditions. Let me put it briefly again. We want to ensure that work which would be performed, if this Bill were not passed, by workmen recruited in the ordinary way at trade union rate of wages, standard rates and conditions, will not, consequent on the passing of this Bill, be performed at half or any figure under the standard rate of wages.

Mr. de Valera: That is clearly a reference to a rate of wages, but [1310] there is not a single word in the amendment about rates of wages.

Mr. Morrissey: The object of the amendment—and I think that the Deputy ought to know it—is to ensure that this Relief Bill is not going to be used, as it might very well be used, for the purpose of keeping out of employment men who could get employment at standard rates and under standard conditions.

Mr. MacEntee: Cannot the Deputy see that in its present form the amendment is much too general?

Mr. Morrissey: Oh, no.

Mr. MacEntee: It does not qualify your restrictions in any way.

An Ceann Comhairle resumed the Chair.

Amendment put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 62; Níl, 73.

Tá

Aiken, Frank.

Allen, Denis.

Anthony, Richard.

Blaney, Neal.

Boland, Gerald.

Boland, Patrick.

Bourke, Daniel.

Brady, Seán.

Briscoe, Robert.

Buckley, Daniel.

Carney, Frank.

Carty, Frank.

Cassidy, Archie J.

Clancy, Patrick.

Clery, Michael.

Colbert, James.

Colohan, Hugh.

Cooney, Eamon.

Corkery, Dan.

Corish, Richard.

Corry, Martin John.

Crowley, Fred. Hugh.

Crowley, Tadhg.

Davin, William.

Derrig, Thomas.

De Valera, Eamon.

Doyle, Edward.

Everett, James.

Fahy, Frank.

Flinn, Hugo.

Fogarty, Andrew.

French, Seán.

Gorry, Patrick J.

Goulding, John.

Hayes, Seán.

Hogan, Patrick (Clare).

Houlihan, Patrick.

Jordan, Stephen.

Kennedy, Michael Joseph.

Kent, William R.

Kilroy, Michael.

Lemass, Seán F.

Little, Patrick John.

Maguire, Ben.

MacEntee, Seán.

Moore, Séamus.

Morrissey, Daniel.

Mullins, Thomas.

Murphy, Timothy Joseph.

O'Dowd, Patrick Joseph.

O'Kelly, Seán T.

O'Reilly, Matthew.

O'Reilly, Thomas.

Powell, Thomas P.

Ruttledge, Patrick J.

Ryan, James.

Sexton, Martin.

Sheehy, Timothy (Tipp.).

Smith, Patrick.

Tubridy, John.

Walsh, Richard.

Ward, Francis C.

Níl

[1311]Aird, William P.

Alton, Ernest Henry.

Beckett, James Walter.

Bennett, George Cecil.

Blythe, Ernest.

Bourke, Séamus A.

Brennan, Michael.

Brodrick, Seán.

Byrne, John Joseph.

Carey, Edmund.

Coburn, James.

Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.

Cooper, Bryan Ricco.

Cosgrave, William T.

Craig, Sir James.

Davis, Michael.

De Loughrey, Peter.

Doherty, Eugene.

Doyle, Peadar Seán.

Duggan, Edmund John.

Dwyer, James.

Egan, Barry M.

Esmonde, Osmond Thos. Grattan.

Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.

Good, John.

Gorey, Denis J.

Haslett, Alexander.

Hassett, John J.

Heffernan, Michael R.

Hennessy, Michael Joseph.

Hennessy, Thomas.

Hennigan, John.

Henry, Mark.

Hogan, Patrick (Galway).

Holohan, Richard.

Jordan, Michael.

Kelly, Patrick Michael.

[1312]Keogh, Myles.

Law, Hugh Alexander.

Leonard, Patrick.

Lynch, Finian.

Mathews, Arthur Patrick.

McDonogh, Martin.

McFadden, Michael Og.

Mongan, Joseph W.

Mulcahy, Richard.

Murphy, James E.

Murphy, Joseph Xavier.

Myles, James Sproule.

Nally, Martin Michael.

Nolan, John Thomas.

O'Connell, Richard.

O'Connor, Bartholomew.

O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.

O'Higgins, Thomas.

O'Leary, Daniel.

O'Mahony, Dermot Gun.

O'Reilly, John J.

O'Sullivan, Gearóid.

O'Sullivan, John Marcus.

Redmond, William Archer.

Reynolds, Patrick.

Rice, Vincent.

Roddy, Martin.

Shaw, Patrick W.

Sheehy, Timothy (West Cork).

Thrift, William Edward.

Tierney, Michael.

Vaughan, Daniel.

White, John.

White, Vincent Joseph.

Wolfe, George.

Wolfe, Jasper Travers.

Tellers: Tá, Deputies Anthony and Cassidy; Níl, Deputies Duggan and P. Doyle.

Amendment declared lost.

Mr. Cassidy: I move:—

In sub-section (1) to delete all words after the word “person,” line 6, to the end of the sub-section.

It is stipulated under Section 4 of the Act that work may be required from persons receiving outdoor relief. At the same time a stipulation is made that “the assignment of such task to a person receiving relief shall not be deemed to establish the relationship of master and servant or any contract of service between the Board and such persons.” Further on it is stipulated that the Minister will have power to acquire land and machinery for the purpose of putting these people in receipt of outdoor relief to work. I am moving my amendment with the intention of clarifying the section in regard to unemployment benefit, national health insurance, workmen's compensation, and compensation under the Factories Acts in relation to people who may be in receipt of outdoor relief and who may be engaged on cer