Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1976 > Committee of Public Accounts > Report - Appropriation Accounts 1973 - 1974

MIONTUAIRISC NA FINNEACHTA

(Minutes of Evidence)

Déardaoin, 26 Feabhra, 1976.

Thursday, 26th February, 1976.

The Committee met at 11 a.m.

623. Deputy Governey.—I move: “That Deputy H. Gibbons take the Chair.”

Deputy Griffin.—I second that.

Question: “That Deputy H. Gibbons take the Chair”—put and agreed to.

DEPUTY H. GIBBONS took the chair.

Mr. S. Mac Gearailt (An tArd-Reachtaire Cuntas agus Ciste) called and examined.

VOTE 5—COMPTROLLER AND AUDITOR GENERAL.

Mr. M. Jacob called and examined.

624. Deputy C. Murphy.—What is the position as regards staff vacancies? Could I inquire if these have been filled? Are there still some vacancies?

—The position in 1973-74 was that in the entry grades we had, on average, six or seven vacancies throughout the year. At present all these vacancies are filled.

The witness withdrew.

VOTE 17—STATIONERY OFFICE.

Mr. J. F. Harman called and examined.

625. Chairman.—On subhead A.—Salaries, Wages and Allowances—it is pointed out that the saving was due mainly to vacancies and filling vacancies by staff at lower pay points and the estimates show that you had 172 staff in 1972-73 and the same in 1973-74. How would the vacancies arise?

—They would arise during the year due to transfers, resignations and promotions elsewhere within the civil service. There is always some delay, not through anyone’s fault, in filling vacancies.

626. Deputy C. Murphy.—On subhead E.—Paper and Publications—it must be difficult with the increased costs of paper and so on to estimate as closely as that?

—Yes. At the moment prices are relatively steady but in the last few years there had been a tremendous increase. Naturally, the estimate going through the Department of Finance, has to be put in in advance of the year and there are often variations.

627. On subhead F.—Office Machinery and other Office Supplies—I notice there is an increased use of copying machines. Are these machines on hire or have they been purchased yet?

—They were all on hire. As from the 1st January the usage of these machines is no longer the business of the Stationery Office. It was decided that it was better to have the copying machines and the rental charges handled by each Department. At that time the Stationery Office did handle it. One of the difficulties is that some of these firms do not wish to sell; they prefer a hiring charge.

628. Deputy Governey.—On Appropriations-in-Aid—Sales of Publications—are they sold without a profit?

—In fact, they are really sold below cost because in a sense their publication is to some extent regarded as a public service and there is a problem of how to price them. Last year we got the agreement of the Prices Commission to an increase of 100 per cent in prices but there had not been an increase since 1959.

629. Chairman.—On the question of free copies of official publications issued, you do not issue any of those to the universities in Ireland?

—We only issue what people ask for and what the Department of Finance gives sanction for. The relevant note shows the authority. We can only do it under authority.

The witness withdrew.

VOTE 48—HEALTH.

Dr. B. Hensey called and examined.

630. Chairman.—Paragraph 66 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reads:

“Subhead Q.—Appropriations-in-Aid

Article 51 of the Treaty of Rome provides that the Council of the EEC shall adopt such measures in the field of social security as are necessary to provide freedom of movement for workers and that to this end it shall make arrangements to secure for migrant workers and their dependants (a) for the purpose of acquiring and retaining the right to benefit and of calculating the amount of benefit, the aggregation of all periods taken into account under the laws of the several countries and (b) the payment of benefits to persons resident in the territories of Member States.

The relevant regulations made to this end by the Council came into force in Ireland on 1 April 1973 and provide that responsibility for an insured person’s social security benefits rests with the Member State in which that person is insured even though he may be resident in another Member State. The regulations prescribe that benefits provided by one Member State on behalf of another shall be fully refunded and that the refunds may be on the basis of lump-sum payments. They also prescribe that two or more Member States may waive all such refunds. I understand that an agreement for refunds on a lump-sum basis is at present under negotiation between this country and the United Kingdom. Pending completion of this agreement, a payment on account, £1,500,000, was received from the United Kingdom in respect of the estimated net liability of that administration for 1973-74 and brought to credit of subhead Q (Appropriations-in-Aid) of this Vote.”

Mr. Mac Gearailt.—This paragraph draws attention to the fact that the responsibility for social security benefits in the case of an insured person resident in a Member State of the EEC rests with the State in which he is insured. Refunds of such benefits may be made on a lump-sum basis and I understand that the agreement providing for refunds on this basis was signed in September, 1975, between Ireland and the United Kingdom.

—This was a regulation of the EEC which existed when we entered and it was adapted to provide for the new members. It had the effect of providing, more or less, a windfall from the United Kingdom because the number of United Kingdom pensioners and visitors here is much higher than the number of Irish pensioners and visitors in the United Kingdom.

Deputy C. Murphy.—Does the £1,500,000 refer to that?

—It does.

It is quite a sizeable sum.

—It is and it is being increased in the present year to £2 million, which is a provisional sum. It may be higher than that.

631. Chairman.—I take it that it is the place where the person was last insured that matters, in other words, somebody leaves here having worked here and paid insurance and goes to Britain and returns here that he is the responsibility of Britain?

—Yes. If the person has entitlement here and, say, two pensions, one from the United Kingdom and one from here, then it is our responsibility. But in the case of an Irish person who has worked most of his life in the United Kingdom and has come back here to live on his pension the United Kingdom authorities are responsible for the cost of the health services.

632. What about the person who comes back to work?

—If he comes back to work here and becomes an insured person, I should imagine that his pension would become payable here and he would be our responsibility.

From the point of view of health services?

—He would be our responsibility as he was before we entered the EEC.

633. On subhead C.1, I take it that those allowances to Registrars have become payable now?

—There was a delay in the arrangement for paying the allowances and in fact they were paid in December, 1974 (with effect from 1st April, 1973) so that payment falls into the account for the following year.

634. Deputy Moore.—On subhead C.2, regarding the microfilming of records, is there any system used which could be secret so that nobody who should not have access does not have it?

—The records in question are not secret records. They are the records of the registers of births, deaths and marriages which are open to inspection by anybody. These are just microfilms of the records and are used for easy access to the records.

635. Chairman.—On note 3, under Appropriations-in-Aid, who funds the General Medical Services (Payments) Board?

—It is funded by the health boards. At that time the health boards were in the course of being established. During that year they were taking over from the Department work which related to the payment for the general medical service which had been done directly by staff of the Department. The Payments Board is now funded by the health boards but it is arranged at present that the Department pays the Board direct on behalf of the health boards and apportions these payments between the eight health boards.

636. Deputy Governey.—There is a note on sums due by two health boards. I take it that they were received afterwards. The amount owed was £11,517.

—They were not actually received but they were deducted from payments due to the health boards the following year so that they were in effect received all right.

637. Deputy C. Murphy.—I want to raise a general point on the Vote with regard to the difficulty about certificates for those who pay a voluntary subscription of £12 a year to be covered by the Health Act. There seems to have been a considerable amount of difficulty in that the people pay this £12 and would feel that they are covered. Then, if illness strikes, some form of investigation takes place and they find that they have been excluded. I believe that there is some arrangement between yourselves and the tax people in this regard. Is that correct?

—The Revenue Commissioners are involved in this only in so far as self-employed people are concerned. For the employed workers it comes with the social welfare stamp. The Commissioners assess the payment of health contributions on the information they have. Incidentally, it is not a voluntary contribution; it is compulsory. Normally, if the person has paid it, it is accepted as being correct. In certain cases a person could pay this for the purpose of getting the health services and at the same time his income could be above the level. The fact that the person has paid it does not necessarily entitle him to the services. He could be refunded the £12 and told that he had paid in error.

638. I had a case in mind where people at the beginning of a year made the initial application and paid this £12 which they reckoned to be compulsory and, possibly, ten months later they find that their financial situation would have changed and they would not have this cover.

—The situation in the case of self-employed persons is that the eligibility in any year is related to the income tax return for the previous year. If the Deputy would let me have particulars of this case I would look into it. I cannot see how that anomaly would have arisen.

639. I have heard it discussed with health boards and local health advisory committees and there seems to be a difficulty in it where people automatically continue to pay the £12 year in year out and feel that they are covered, possibly because of lack of knowledge or information on their own part, and they realise that their financial position has put them outside the limit. They would get a refund of the £12 for that particular year. In actual fact it might appear that if illness does not strike they could continue paying this £12 for four or five years. In theory they feel that they are covered whereas in practice they are not, even though they paid the money they would not have had cover. You would not make some form of repayment of £12 for each of the years in which they would not have been covered?

—We would leave that to the Revenue Commissioners. They assess the error and refund the £12 to a person who was not eligible. I presume that the person can apply to the Revenue Commissioners, just as if he overpaid his income tax, and get a refund.

For a reappraisal?

—Yes.

Your accounts do not come into this as such?

—We would not know of these cases. These would be assessed by the Revenue Commissioners and the claim for the services if a person went to hospital would go to the chief executive officer of the health board or one of his staff. It is at that level that they would be determined. We would not know of individual cases at all unless they were brought to our attention specially.

The witness withdrew.

VOTE 47—SOCIAL WELFARE.

Mr. F. A. Hynes called and examined.

640. Chairman.—Paragraph 63 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reads:

“Subhead H.—Children’s Allowances

EEC Regulations 1408/71 and 574/72, which apply to Ireland and the other acceding countries from 1 April 1973, deal with the application of social security schemes to insured persons and their families moving within the Community. The regulations prescribe that liability for the payment of family benefits rests with the Member State in which a person is insured. An administrative arrangement under the regulations was entered into by Ireland and the United Kingdom under which the Department of Social Welfare pays children’s allowances to families, residing here, of persons in the United Kingdom, and obtains a refund from that administration. Prior to 1 April 1973, when this arrangement became operative, such allowances remained a charge on this Vote.

Unlike the Irish children’s allowances scheme, which provides for payment to families of one or more qualified children, the United Kingdom scheme provides for payment to families in respect of two or more children. Following increases in the rates of allowances here with effect from 1 July 1973, payments for families of two and three eligible children under the Irish scheme exceeded the corresponding United Kingdom payments.

With the concurrence of the Minister for Finance the full Irish allowances are paid to such families residing here but only the appropriate United Kingdom allowances are recovered—£37,174 so recovered from the United Kingdom in the year under review was credited to the subhead. On the other hand in cases where the payments under the United Kingdom scheme exceed the corresponding payments under the Irish scheme any excess amounts recovered from the United Kingdom are paid over to the families concerned.”

Mr. Mac Gearailt.—Paragraph 63 is for information and I have no further comments to make.

641. Chairman.—This is the case of where the parent remains in England and the family is sent to Ireland.

—Where the family stay in Ireland. We will say the mother and the children remain here while the father is working in England. Under the EEC regulations the British are responsible for paying family allowances in respect of that kind of family. In the normal case the allowances are greater than ours so therefore it is to the advantage of the family. The British do not pay child allowance for the first child and therefore if the family remaining here had only one child it would get nothing if we continued to follow the EEC regulations absolutely, so we had to get the agreement of the Department of Finance that we would continue to pay one-child families in those circumstances. This will disappear in 1977, as the British are going to pay for the first child in all those families and after that we will not be paying in these cases. Where we are paying we will continue to pay to avoid a break in payments and the British can withhold the money and if there is any balance over we will send the money on to them. The Minister can even things out with the British authorities. It has worked out satisfactorily in the past.

642. Deputy C. Murphy.—Would there be a large sum of money involved?

—There are about 100,000 one-child families in the country as a whole. There are not many of the kind with parents working abroad and the amount of money involved would be about £1,300 in a year.

643. Chairman.—I take it it is the same situation if the parent sends his family home to Ireland, having started to rear his family in Britain?

—Yes, the same situation arises. The question is where the parent works. If he works in England they are responsible.

644. Then there is a third situation where the father and the whole family come back. They are covered by the Irish situation?

—If the family remain in England and the father comes to work here then we have to pay. They are covered by the EEC Regulations. The difference between the two countries is not very much in families of up to seven children. We were paying as much if not more than the British rate in such cases but for families over seven children they are ahead of us.

645. There is the case of the man who is already insured here and works maybe four, five or six years in Britain and then comes back to start working here again. Does he come under our insurance?

—He comes back under our insurance then. Once he is employed here he is under our insurance. If a man works in England and has insurance there and comes back here and is unemployed the British pay him until the first day of his employment here, or even a half day. When he gets one stamp on his card he comes under our insurance. We are responsible then.

If he is unemployed without the one stamp, is he entitled to payment from Britain at that time?

—Yes.

Do you draw the attention of the applicant to that fact?

—Usually when he is unemployed or sick he is drawing benefit in England before he comes over here. If he gets employment here, we would be responsible, but they are responsible for him if he has not got employment here.

646. Paragraph 64 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reads:

“Subhead M.—Allowances for Unmarried Mothers

Section 8 of the Social Welfare Act, 1973 provides for the payment of social assistance allowances to unmarried mothers with effect from 5 July 1973. A sum of £505,000 was provided by supplementary estimate and the charge to the subhead, £468,166, represents allowances paid in the year under review.”

Mr. Mac Gearailt.—This paragraph is for information.

647. Chairman.—I take it the allowances for unmarried mothers begin only when the baby is born?

—Yes.

648. Deputy C. Murphy.—There would seem to be delays in payments coming out and quite often a child might be three or four months old. I am speaking of cases that I have come across. Is this because it takes a long time to investigate these cases?

—It should not take any longer than to investigate an old age pension case. The means have to be investigated and the claim has to be made. Very often there is a delay in making the claim. That might explain why the child might be three or four months old before payment is made. Normally when a claim is made it should not take more than a month to get it paid. The investigation of the means can be made fairly quickly and there is no reason why it should take any longer than a normal widow’s pension or an old age pension case. I am not aware that there have been any complaints made that are peculiar to the case of unmarried mothers. There are not a great number of them.

649. I wonder if all positions of Assistance Officers have been filled. It would appear that this is another scheme that is put more or less in the ambit of the assistance officers and I am aware that in the South County Dublin and North County Wicklow area they seem to be over-burdened.

—We are not responsible for Assistance Officers. We only supervise the Home Assistance scheme. They are employees of the health boards or in some cases the county councils. Later this year when the Supplementary Welfare Allowances Act comes into operation they will all become employees of the health boards and they will be recruited by the health boards subject to supervision by our Department as to conditions and so on. This work is not proper to the Assistance Officers at all. It is done by Social Welfare Officers employed by the Department of Social Welfare. They are the people who investigate old age pension claims and the means of widows and who deal with insurance matters. The Assistance Officers are in a different category altogether from Social Welfare Officers.

650. We find that the files are with the local social welfare inspectors and their work load has been increased considerably in the last three years and I wonder if you have recruited extra staff?

—The recruitment of some extra staff was in train during the past year. We have had problems in relation to the requirement that the number of posts would not be increased. We have reschemed our stations, not as far as the staff associations concerned would like, but we have had long negotiation over the past 18 months or two years. They are reasonably happy at the moment and some rescheming is going into effect at the present time and staff have been recruited over the past few months but it takes time to train them before they can be put out on their own in the stations. That is going ahead now and I have no reason to think they are not reasonably happy. I am not saying some are not still heavily burdened but this year there has been no reduction in the pension age. Each year over the past few years the pension age was brought down and that meant a lot of extra work for the outdoor staff and for the Department too. The easement of the means test for these schemes also meant more work. This is the first year since 1973 that we have not had to tackle this type of work. This is a chance for us to consolidate and reorganise.

I know it is a time-consuming job to have to visit people because an officer might find a person only on the fourth visit. I have sympathy for them because I know their work-load is very heavy.

—I know what they have to do because I was engaged in that work 40 years ago. They must keep going around to houses. It is a most frustrating job.

651. Chairman.—Paragraph 65 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reads:

“Overpayments of Social Assistance and Social Insurance Benefits

Sums recovered in respect of overpayments of social assistance charged in prior years’ accounts were:—£36,078 in cash credited to appropriations-in-aid and £30,120 withheld from current entitlements. Overpayments amounting to £16,038 were treated as irrecoverable. Assistance overpayments not disposed of at 31 March 1974 amounted to £154,945 as compared with £153,456 at 31 March 1973. Overpayments of benefits from the Social Insurance Fund outstanding at 31 March 1974 were of the order of £325,000, as compared with £241,000 at 31 March 1973. Sums recovered during the year amounted to £39,472. Ninety-one individuals were prosecuted for irregularly obtaining or attempting to obtain assistance or benefits. Convictions were secured in eighty-two cases.”

Mr. Mac Gearailt.—This paragraph is for information. The total of overpayments of assistance and benefits recorded in the year under review amounted to £227,368. The total of assistance and benefits paid was of the order of £192 million.

652. Deputy Governey.—We have prosecutions in the case of overpayments but would that be in cases where people were fraudulently drawing dole while they were working?

—Yes, or obtaining sickness benefit by fraudulent means while working. That happens even when they are sending in medical certificates. They can sometimes go on for weeks, and even months, before it comes to light. In those cases we prosecute but not in every case. For instance, if a person is suffering from a heart complaint we usually refer that case to our medical adviser to see if it would be safe for that person to be brought to court. We exercise discretion in this matter of prosecution. We do not prosecute in every case.

653. Deputy C. Murphy.—We have all heard of cases of abuses and people obtaining money which they are not entitled to—it is difficult to get actual evidence—but from an accounting point of view is it easier to put up with these abuses rather than to have staff try to track them down?

—No. We have special staff for this and we are looking for more staff. We cannot condone this but, as I said, we do not prosecute in every case. We prosecute in the bad cases. We usually look for a case which will serve as a deterrent. If we find that abuses are prevalent in an area we prosecute in a case in that area if we can. Unfortunately, in the past the courts have not been very good to us. They impose a very light fine, or maybe apply the Probation Act. I have never seen the maximum fine which is £20 being imposed by a justice. There is provision for a three months’ jail sentence but if it is imposed it is usually a suspended sentence.

654. A three months’ jail sentence would mean that another section of the Department would have to pay an allowance?

—We do not pay that allowance unless the prisoner is six months in jail. The State might be paying out more money in a different direction. We are concerned mainly with getting our money back. If the person cannot pay back out of his resources or make some restitution and becomes entitled to benefit subsequently we stop or cut down the benefit and try and recover it over a period of time. We do that in quite a number of cases.

655. You have a tracking section in your Department?

—Yes. We are, for example, supplied with copies of all wills and we check back on the old age pensioners. If they leave a lot of money we start asking questions. We get money back that way. In the 1950s we were getting about £12,000 a year back from the executors of wills and the Vote was much smaller then than it is now.

656. Chairman.—On Appropriations-in-Aid—Receipts from the Social Insurance Fund and the Occupational Injuries Fund— one of the delays in paying occupational injury benefit is due to the fact that the employer does not certify that an accident occurred?

—Sometimes that occurs. It takes longer to determine, firstly, if it was an industrial accident. Meanwhile, we pay disability benefit. Sometimes it takes a bit more time to determine the degree of disablement and the case may go to appeal. There are other factors which sometimes come into it which causes delay. However, during that time he gets disability benefit.

657. Would you think that when the person gets the first certificate from the doctor he should also get a certificate from the employer and send both together?

—If a man is injured and the degree of his incapacity has to be determined it might take some time to determine.

658. That concludes this Vote unless the Accounting Officer wishes to add anything?

—Yes, if I may, correct myself on a reply I gave earlier. With regard to a man who comes back from England unemployed it was sickness benefit I was thinking of. He is paid if he transfers over in that case but if he comes back voluntarily from England while he is unemployed he would not be entitled to payment of unemployment benefit here from the British authorities unless he had been drawing it for at least four weeks in Britain. Otherwise he must get a day’s insurable employment here, that is, at least one stamp on his card. Then we would pay it. He could of course get unemployment assistance.

The witness withdrew.

The Committee adjourned.