Irish Social Services: a Symposium - Addendum to the Symposium

Abstract

So much excitement has been worked up over the Beveridge Report in Great Britain that we here may tend to exaggerate its importance. In the first place, even if the Report were applied in full (which is by no means the intention of the present British Government), it would not bring about the social revolution. Its proposals are of two kinds: (1) Simplification and unification of existing social insurance schemes —an administrative "streamlining"; and (2) an extension of the scope of social insurance, a removal of some but not all anomalies, and an adjustment of contributions and benefits. The plan entails an appreciable redistribution of income; but it does not entail any change in the ownership of property or in the organisation of the national economy. In the second place, the Report was written in and for another country; its proposals are obviously designed to meet the needs of a highly industrialised and urbanised country the great majority of the people of which depend for their livelihood on wages or salaries. The presumption is therefore that they will not suit us rather than that they will do so.