The Irish Hierarchy and the Insurance Bill

New Zealand Tablet, 10 August 1911, Page 1519

The Irish Hierarchy and the Insurance Bill

„. At the meeting of the Irish Hierarchy at Maynopth College on June. 20, the following resolutions with regard to Mr. Lloyd George's Insurance scheme were passed: ~- ._ , ,'. .', '"'.. While we regard the National Insurance Bill as a great, and beneficient provision for the needs of the large . industrial population of .: England and Wales, of which 78 per cent, are" urban and only 22 per cent, rural, and of which the vast bulk both in town and country subsist on daily wages, we consider the measure inapplicable to Ireland, which is, in the main, an agricultural country, of whose population only 28 per cent. are urban and 72 per cent, rural, and only a mere fraction either in urban or rural areas are wage-earners, the immense majority being workers on their own account as farmers, shopkeepers, and others, who neither receive nor pay wages. The clause which compels parents both in town and country (except farmers under £2O valuation) to insure their sons and daughters over 16 years of age, who do any work in their houses, on their farms, or at any other business or trade, and to pay for them the two-fold contribution of employer and employed, would, in our opinion, cover the majority of all those to be insured, and would generally be unnecessary, and in most cases grievously opprsssive for the totally inadequate benefit of free medical attendance and free medicine without sick pay or disablement pay. Of the wage-earners to be insured a great proportion are boarded and lodged by their employers, as female domestic servants, shop assistants, farm hands, and artizans' apprentices, and would be ineligible for sick pay and disablement pay, and could receive only free medical attendance and free medicine of the very same character which they now receive through the existing dispensary system. The cost of this Insurance scheme would be a heavy burden on many of our small struggling industries, and would, in our opinion, increase unemployment, whereas a great need of Ireland is more employment and better wages, and not a provision designed for the wounded members of a wealthy and powerful industrial system. ; Therefore, we request the Chancellor of the Exchequer not to extend the Bill to Ireland, and to set aside the State contribution necessary for financing this scheme to the credit of Ireland, either for an Insurance scheme specially devised for the needs of this country, or for some other purpose that may be deemed more beneficial to the general" welfare of our population ; and we ask the Irish Party to urge this policy in Parliament.