§ Colonel Lord HENRY CAVENDISH-BENTINCKasked the President of the Local Government Board why the addition to the old age pension is not yet available for those persons qualified to receive it?
Mr. McKINNON WOODAs I explained in reply to a question on the 9th instant by the hon. Member for Dublin Harbour, over half a million pensioners have already applied for additional allowances, and some time must necessarily elapse before the pension authorities can decide the whole of the applications. This will not, however, affect the date from which the allowances, where granted, will be payable, such date being governed by the date when the application was preferred. Payments of the allowances that have already been granted are being made.
§ Mr. JOHN O'CONNORasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he will state why an application for an old age pension by John Nowlan, of Rathbride, Kildare, duly perfected, dated, and handed by applicant to the pension officer at Kildare on 2nd October, 1916, has not been submitted by that officer to Naas South Old Age Pension Sub-Committee for their consideration and decision; if he will see that the application in this case is submitted to the old age pension committee aforesaid without further delay; if he will state whether the sub-committee approved of a grant of 5s. per week old-age pension to John Nowlan on the 15th June, 1914, against which decision the pension officer at Kildare appealed, on the ground that John Nowlan had not produced the satisfactory evidence of age, with the result that on the 16th July, 1914, the Local Government Board disallowed the pension; whether his renewed application of 2nd October last was supported by a memorial signed by a clergyman of long standing, magistrates, county and district councillors, as well as a number of ratepayers representative of Kildare and adjoining districts certifying their convinced belief that John Nowlan was over seventy years old and entitled to a grant of old age pension; whether this memorial will be accepted as supplying the want of a baptismal certificate, seeing that John 1259W Nowlan was born in 1843, a time of much difficulty and distress in Ireland when many births and deaths necessarily passed unregistered; and, in view of the fact stated by John Nowlan that his mother died of hardship when he was very young and that his father also died before he had attained the years of much reason, that he can remember being borne on his father's back from place to place, that he cannot remember where he was born, and the exceptional circumstances of his case, will he receive the most favourable consideration?
§ Mr. DUKEThe reason why John Nowlan's fresh claim to an old age pension has not yet been submitted to the local pension sub-committee is that inquiries, which necessarily occupied some time, had to be made with a view to ascertaining whether some additional evidence of age could not be obtained. These inquiries have now been completed, and the claim will be submitted to the sub-committee at an early date. The facts as to the disallowance of Nowlan's previous claim, in the absence of satisfactory evidence of age, are as stated. It will be for the sub-committee or (if an appeal is entered) the Local Government Board to determine whether, on the evidence now available, Nowla'n can be regarded as having attained the statutory age; but I may point out that a search of the War Office records has shown that when he enlisted in 1879 Nowlan stated that he was then twenty-four years of age.