Social Security in Independent Ireland, 1922-52 by Adrian Kelly, M.A. Submitted to the Department of Modem History, St Patrick M
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L.O. Social Security in Independent Ireland, 1922-52 by Adrian Kelly, M.A. Submitted to the Department of Modem History, St Patrick’s College, Maynooth in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Ph.D. August 1995 Head of Department and Supervisor of Reseach: Professor R. V. Comerford Table of Contents Page List of tables v Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 From poor law to social security: British foundations of the 17 Irish welfare state The introduction and functioning of the poor laws in Ireland From poor law to social security Chapter 2 The context of social welfare legislation 3fL The Catholic church The role of social democratic politics Chapter 3 A decade of stalemate: the Cumann na nGaedheal years. 1922-32 68 Nationalist ideology and changes to the poor law Relief of unemployment National health insurance Old age pensions Widows’ and orphans’ pensions Chapter 4 ‘The poor man’s government’: the first decade of Fianna Fail in power. 1932-42 J07 Old age pensions Unemployment Assistance Act, 1933 National health insurance: ‘a new epoch’ Widows’ and orphans’ pensions Food vouchers and cash allowances Chapter 5 Beveridgeism in Ireland: new beginnings in social policy 147 The Beveridge report and its influence in Ireland The Dignan plan: ‘something big and memorable’ ‘The new half crown’: the introduction of children’s allowances The establishment of the Department of Social welfare Unemployment: a perennial problem Chapter 6 Consolidating social welfare. 1948-52 211 The Social Welfare Act, 1948 and the dissolution of the National Health Insurance Society ‘Principles of modem thought’: the 1949 white paper The Social Welfare Act, 1952 Chapter 7 Comparative contexts and perspectives 255 Finland Norway Denmark Summary Conclusion 297 Bibliography 313 List of Tables Page Table 3.1 Weekly rates of Contributions to Unemployment Insurance 78 Table 3.2 Weekly rates of Unemployment Insurance benefit 78 Table 3.3 Retail prices in Irish towns of 500 inhabitants and upwards, as averaged from returns collected by post offices, 1914-25 94 Table 3.4 Number of recipients of old age and blind pensions, 1914-26 95 Table 4.1 Predominant retail prices in pence of certain everyday commodities, 1931-40 113 Table 4.1 .a Cost of living index in February of each year, 1931-40 114 Table 4.2 Numbers registered as unemployed at employment exchanges and branch employment offices, 1931-4 117 Table 4.3 Number of persons receiving benefit or employment at state expense, 1933-7 123 Table 4.5 Number of beneficiaries under widows’ and orphans’ pensions acts at 31 Dec. each year, 1936-43 138 Table 4.6 Numbers in receipt of widows’ and orphans’ pensions, 1936-43 141 Table 4.7 Dates of commencement and cessation of various supplementary income services 145 Table 5.1 Births and birth rates, 1941- 1952 186 Table 6.1 Persons in receipt of old age pensions on 31 March of each year, 1943-9 224 Table 7.1 Population and political statistics form Finland, Norway and Denmark in comparison with Ireland 265 Table 7.2 Proportional size of agricultural population as % of economically active population in Ireland, Norway and Denmark 268 Table 7.3 Percentage support of major parties in Finland at every second general election, 1922-51 271 Acknowledgements The writing of a dissertation is only made possible through the unfailing encouragement and assistance of a number of kind and supportive mentors, friends and colleagues. Without such support, this work would have never reached fruition. My supervisor of research over the past three years was Professor R. V. Comerford. No perfunctory words of appreciation can sufficiently express my gratitude to him for the dedication and patience with which he guided my work and my academic development. Never imposing a standard approach or discipline, he rather prompted and encouraged originality of approach and of thought. I am deeply grateful to him. A number of other members of the teaching staff of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, have offered both encouragement and advice. I am indebted to the members of the History Department who have been unstinting in their assistance. I also wish to express my gratitude to Professor Sdamus 6 Cinndide who sowed the original seed of thought in my mind which eventually blossomed into the present work. During the course of researching I was awarded the Michael Devlin Scholarship by the Maynooth Scholastic Trust. I was also funded by the European Commission under the ERASMUS programme. The financial support received from both sources was most valuable, and I owe my thanks accordingly. Having spent one academic year researching at the History Department of the University of Helsinki, Finland, I find myself in the debt of a number of people. My deepest and warmest thanks are due to Professor Matti Klinge, Head of Department. I am equally indebted to the department’s International Relations Planning Officer, Ms Martha Norrback, who not only looked after my academic well being but who ensured that my move to Finland was as pleasant and rewarding as possible. The final chapter of the present work could not have been written were it not for the long hours of consultation and unstinting assistance of Dr Henrik Meinander and Professor Henrik Stenius. Through their immediate ‘adoption’ of one Irish student, they at once personified the great heart and generosity of the Finnish people. There are a number of other Finns from whom I learned a lot about history and life. My warm thanks to Harri Jokiranta, University of Tampere, and to his family for the advice on comparative studies and for the number of trips to the lake district in central Finland. My thanks also to my friends in Helsinki, especially Lauri, the Korkmans, Ellen and Slide. Back home in Ireland, I am most grateful to the staff of a number of institutions where I consulted documents, including the National Library, the National Archives, the Labour History Museum, and the Archives’ Department of University College, Dublin, and the John Paul II Library, Maynooth. For their support, particularly in the final stages of writing, I am most grateful to Enda Delaney and Bill Tinley who accepted with apparent enthusiasm the job of going through the final draft of my work. Bill has greatly honed my writing skills while Enda has been continuously helpful in suggesting new angles of approach and in offering alternative interpretations. I look forward to repaying my debts to both of them in due course. Finally, I wish to express gratitude to my parents who encouraged me in my pursuance of this work and who instilled in me the great freedom of education. Epic I have lived in important places, times When great events were decided, who owned That half a rood of rock, a no-man’s land Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims. I heard the Duffys shouting 'Damn your soul’ And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen Step the plot defying blue cast-steel - ‘Here is the march along these iron stones’. That was the year of the Munich bother. Which Was more important? I inclined To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin Till Homer’s ghost came whispering to my mind. He said: I made the Iliad from such A local row. Gods make their own importance. Patrick Kavanagh INTRODUCTION The raison d'être of this work is to provide an historical analysis of the rise and subsequent co-ordination and consolidation of the Irish welfare state by focusing on income maintenance legislation in independent Ireland up to 1952. Originally undertaken as a project in social history, the completed work is a synthesis of social, economic, political and administrative history, discussion of all these areas being necessary to understand fully the timing, pace and extent of social welfare legislation. This introductory chapter will outline the structure of the work, and will analyse the historiography of the theme in Ireland. Before moving to these issues, however, it is necessary to define the terms ‘welfare state’, ‘social welfare’ and ‘social security’. In the broadest sense, ‘welfare’ implies ‘well-being’, the welfare state being concerned with the social and therefore the economic well-being of its citizens. From this ‘basic requisite’1 comes a vast array of definitions and categories of welfare state. This diversity has its origins in the impetuses behind and influences on the rise of a set of policies which allowed the term ‘welfare state’ to be applied to any given political system. Its development was ‘essentially a process of compromise and adjustment’,2 a point clearly illustrated by the development of the Irish welfare state. Nordic social scientists and historians, who more than any other group of academics have examined the philosophical, theoretical and practical aspects of the welfare state, agree that there can be no one trans-national or trans-cultural definition: it is ‘a multi-dimensional 1 Nicholas Reseller. Welfare.: the social issues in philosophical perspective (Pittsburgh. 1972). p. 4. 2 Joan Higgins. The poverty business: Britain and America (London. 1978), p. 19. phenomenon composed of several dimensions of values’.3 Its content ‘varies with time and space’.4 The term is also culture-bound: the concept of what constitutes welfare in Catholic west European countries varies from that of the Lutheran north European countries, welfare being ‘dependent on the values of a particular society’.5 There are ‘fashions’6 in welfare legislation both trans-nationally and within individual states: the concept is an organic one which, historically, is more often than not in a state of flux. It ‘does not designate a definite system’.7 Despite this complexity associated with defining the term ‘welfare state’, there are a number of basic ingredients and a generally accepted historical genesis.