Vol. 4 No. 12
I beg to move Amendment 1 as follows:
"In Section 1 (4), page 3, lines 33 and 34, to delete the words "Sinking Fund payments in respect thereof" and to insert in lieu thereof the words "sums required for redemption of Land Bonds in accordance with the foregoing provisions"; and in line 35, after the word "Fund" to insert the words "established under this Act."
This is merely verbal and consequential on the amendment introduced on the Committee Stage.
I am accepting this amendment. It was agreed on the Committee Stage, and Deputy FitzGibbon suggested that these words should be inserted. The Dáil agreed, and I gave an undertaking that on recommittal these words would be inserted.
I beg to move:—
"To add at the end of Section 9, page 5, a Sub-section as follows:—
The Purchase Annuity or any part thereof at any time outstanding may be redeemed in whole or in part by the person liable to pay that annuity by payment to the Land Commission in cash of such amount as shall be ascertained in accordance with Rules made by the Minister for Finance."
This amendment gives the purchasing tenant the option of redeeming his annuity which he was entitled to do under the existing Acts.
This amendment is also accepted. It is probable that without this amendment the provisions in regard to redemption in the previous Act would apply, but to make assurance doubly sure a sub-section has been added, providing for redemption of an annuity under the Act in the event of any tenant wishing to redeem before it is paid off in the ordinary way.
I beg to move: "In Section 10, line 30, page 5, to delete the word "dividend" and to insert in lieu thereof the word "interest." This is merely verbal.
This amendment is really to meet Deputy Johnson's suggestion that "interest" looks nicer than "dividends." Personally, I do not think that it makes any difference.
If the Minister's aesthetic views are considered in this matter I do not wish the Dáil to accept the amendment if that is the only question, but it is a question of verbal accuracy.
I beg to move "In Section 11 (2), page 5, line 56, after the word "thereof" to insert the words "together with the addition (if any) in respect of compounded arrears of rent added to the purchase money." This is to cover cases in which the arrears instead of being paid in cash are added to the purchase money.
I am accepting this amendment. There is an amendment at a later stage suggesting that a half year's rent be added to the purchase money which I propose to accept. I do not know if the Dáil will accept it. Possibly the Farmers' Party will not.
In anticipation of the Dáil accepting that amendment, it does not in any way prejudice the question on the following amendment. It merely provides an addition, if any, in respect of the arrears to be added to the purchase money. It does not specify compounded arrears. That question is open.
I beg to move:—
"To add a new paragraph (c) after Section II (2) (b), page 6, as follows:—
(c) On the nominal amount of all bonds issued for contribution to price and for the Costs Fund from the date of the issue of such bonds until the same shall be certified by the Minister for Finance to have been repaid.”
That amendment is also accepted. It speaks for itself.
I beg to move the following amendment:—
"To insert a new Sub-section after 11 (2), page 6, line 7, as follows:—
(3) The Land Commission shall pay to the Land Bond Fund in respect of Sinking Fund five shillings per cent. per annum.
(a) On the nominal amount of all bonds issued for the price of sporting rights and fisheries purchased by them under this Act from the date of the issue of such bonds until the same shall be certified by the Minister for Finance to have been repaid.
(b) On the amount of advances made by them to proprietors of parcels of untenanted land in non-congested districts counties and of parcels purchased under the Land Purchase Acts for the redemption of Fee-farm or other rents, superior interests and charges from the date on which land bonds shall be issued in respect of such advantages until the advances have been repaid.
This amendment provides the machinery for the necessary financial adjustments between the Land Commission and the Ministry of Finance.
That amendment is also accepted. It is a necessary financial amendment in order to perfect the machinery.
There are cases where fisheries have been let to tenants by the landlords as part of the farm. Will the tenants be entitled to buy these fishing rights, inasmuch as they have already rented them?
No, they will not, if it is merely a letting from year to year. No one, except a tenant in fee-simple, has fishing rights. If a man is a farmer and a fisherman as well it is a most unlikely contingency that in the first instance the usual procedure would be adopted in the case of fishing rights bought from a landlord. It would be for the Land Commission to say whom the rights would be let to. If a farmer is a genuine fisherman the Land Commission would treat him as such and let him the fishery as the landlord did. The Deputy will have to remember that there are no such things as fishing rights appertaining to land.
I am talking of a landlord letting to a tenant. Will the State step in and prevent the tenant from buying? There are several cases to my knowledge in which fisheries have been rented as part of the farm. Am I to understand that these fishing rights will be acquired by the Land Commission? What will be the result? Will the rent be reduced accordingly or will the tenant be deprived of these rights altogether, or can the tenant step in and buy?
We want to be clear about what the Deputy means. He does not suggest, does he, that any judicial or present tenant has any tenure of fisheries similar to that which he has of his holding? I can imagine a present tenant or a judicial tenant getting yearly lettings of a fishery appertaining to his land. The present tenant would have no tenure. The landlord would take the rights up at the end of the year and, as far as I know, there is no case in existance where the present tenant has a certain amount of rent appropriated to fishery rights. There is no holding that I know of or that exists where the rent of a holding is, say £50, and where the landlord of a present tenancy, or where the Land Commission has fixed £10 of that in respect to fisheries. The rent of a present or judicial tenancy is purely in respect of land, and the tenure of fisheries is a separate thing. The landlord who owns the fisheries lets them to anyone, not necessarily to the tenant, but often to fishermen and outsiders, such as rich men who like to come down to fish. He may, in an odd case, rent them to a tenant, not by reason of owning the land but on conditions on which any outsider would take them.
They will be vested in the Land Commission and paid for separately by them, and it will be for the Land Commission to say who is best entitled to those fishing rights afterwards. Take the first and usual case where fishing rights are appurtenant to land on the Shannon, or on any other big river and are being let to fishermen, and not to men who own the adjoining river at that spot. In that case the Land Commission will let them to men who are making their living out of them. Take the case Deputy Gorey suggested where the tenant took them as a separate letting. It will be open to the Land Commission to consider his title as against any other man in the neighbourhood making his living out of them. In that case the tenant will have no grievance because he never had any tenure.
There are other tenancies besides judicial ones that will be covered with this Bill.
I said judicial and present.
I know. There are small farms where a man is renting fishing rights as part and parcel of the holding. Will the Minister accept proof of that if cases be cited?
Certainly.
Under those conditions, then, he would be entitled to buy the fishing rights?
No. I do not believe there are such cases, but I am open to correction.
Most people are open to correction, even Ministers.
I do not think it is likely that any tenant would have fishing rights and would pay a fee for them with the holding at an inclusive rent. Does the Deputy suggest that?
I understand there are such cases.
That the rent fixed covers both the fishing rights and the rent of his holding?
Yes.
I never heard of a case of that sort. It would be most unusual. If such a tenant were a present tenant and went into Court the only rent that could be fixed would be purely and simply the bare rent of his holding. If the Deputy takes the case he has in mind and traces the matter to its origin he will find that the inclusive rent now had a distant origin. Part was rent of the land and part of fishing rights, and it is a matter of convenience to pay all the rent on one receipt. I am perfectly certain no one has the same tenure of fishing rights, as he has of a present tenancy. These fishing rights would be paid for separately. If you have a case where a very small farmer is making his living out of fishing it will be open to the Land Commission to let the fishing rights to him when he makes application for it.
I know of a case in the River Blackwater where the tenant got the right of fishing along that river.
We are at cross purposes. I am sure Deputies know cases where tenants have the right to fishing. My point is if they have the right to fishing, they have it as a separate taking. They might have a holding adjoining the river and might also have got from the landlord, fishing rights, but they have not it in connection with the holding; it is a different tenure. There is no difference between the case of a man having fishing rights and having his holding near by, and the case where a man has fishing rights on the river, and lives 20 miles away. Does the Deputy suggest that the fishing rights are part of his holding, and that he has the same tenure as he has of his holding—namely, that it cannot be taken from him?
Yes.
It satisfies me.
I do not think that is so.
Have we the Minister's word that he will consider the case of genuine fishermen when giving out the fishing rights—one man one job? You cannot have a farm and fishing rights at the same time.
He cannot be a Deputy and on the railway at the same time.
I move, in Section 11 (6), line 19, page 6, to delete the word "dividends," and to insert in lieu thereof the words "interest and sinking fund."
I move Amendment 8: To delete Section 12 (2), page 6, and to insert in lieu thereof the following Sub-sections:—
(2) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in the Provisional Government Transfer of Functions Order, 1922, all sums collected after the 31st day of March, 1923, in respect of Purchase Annuities in repayment of advances made or to be made in Saorstát Eireann in pursuance of Purchase Agreements under the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891, or any later Land Purchase Act other than this Act shall so far as not already paid into the Exchequer be paid into a Fund entitled "The Purchase Annuities Fund" to be established under the control of the Minister for Finance, and there shall from time to time be paid thereout by the Minister for Finance to the appropriate authority for the credit of the Land Purchase Account or the Irish Land Purchase Fund as the case may be an amount equivalent to the purchase annuities accruing due in respect of the aforesaid advances.
For the purposes of this Section purchase annuities shall be deemed to include interest payable in respect of an advance as aforesaid.
(3) The provisions heretofore applicable for making good any deficiency of the Land Purchase Account or of the Irish Land Purchase Fund shall apply as from the 1st day of April, 1923, in the case of the Purchase Annuities Fund in accordance with regulations to be made by the Minister for Finance.
(4) The Minister for Finance shall have power to make any adjustments rendered necessary by this Section in relation to the Exchequer and the Purchase Annuities Fund and the Guarantee Fund in the case of transactions during the period from the 1st day of April, 1923, to the date of the passing of this Act.
This amendment is necessary. It is providing merely a new name for the funds so as not to confuse the funds into which the annuities under the old Acts are paid with the Land Purchase Fund.
I move Amendment 9: To insert before Section 15, page 6, a new Section in Part I. as follows:—
(1) The provisions of Sub-sections (1), (2), and (3) of Section 39 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, providing for the payment to the public trustee of the sum of £5,000 per annum for the account of Trinity College, Dublin, and for the application of the said moneys shall cease to have effect and in lieu thereof the following provisions shall apply:—
(2) There shall be paid to the College out of moneys to be provided by the Oireachtas the sum of £3,000 per annum.
(3) The investments representing accumulations of the moneys so paid to the public trustee which were not required to make good loss of income to the College and accrued interest thereon shall be transferred to the Minister for Finance and such officer of the College as shall be nominated for the purpose by the Governing Body of the College.
(4) The dividends and income arising from the investments so transferred shall be applied by the College in such manner and for such purposes as to the College may seem proper.
(5) The investments so transferred may be varied from time to time with the consent and approval of the Minister for Finance.
This amendment was already debated. Trinity College was entitled to £5,000 a year under the Irish Land Act as compensation for any losses which it might sustain by reason of the redemption of head rents. It would sustain further losses under this Act, because head rents will be redeemed, and the arrangement as set out in the amendment is perfectly equitable. It provides that the sum of £3,000 a year should be paid to Trinity as well as the interest on the money which they are entitled to under the old Act.
I beg to move Amendment 10, to insert before Section 16, a new Section as follows:—
"All moneys standing to the credit of the Ireland Development Grant Account at the time of the passing of this Act, shall be paid into the Exchequer."
This amendment is also accepted. The Ireland Development Grant is not to be voted in future. Any money required for the service will be voted directly by the Dáil, including any money required by the Guarantee Fund. There is no occasion now to earmark money for any special provision like this, whereby a special amount of money would have to be set aside for purposes of this sort. Any money required will be voted by the Dáil, and will be subject to the criticism of the Dáil, and any changes that take place the Dáil will be able to take into account, and make the necessary adjustments. I think the Dáil will agree that that is sound in the new circumstances that exist.
Amendment agreed to, and added to the Bill.
SECTION 17 (NEW).
I beg to move Amendment 11. To insert before Section 17 a new Section as follows:—
"For the purposes of this Part of the Act and of the Schedules attached to the Act, rent, whether on a judicial holding or otherwise, shall be understood to mean any abated rent accepted by a landlord for a period of at least 5 years previous to the first gale day of the year 1921, provided that such abatement was not given by way of payment for services."
I suggest to the Deputy and to the Dáil that as this amendment deals with the question of what is rent, whether abated rent, or actual original rent, and as the same question arises on arrears, and in the Schedules, and as there are three or four amendments on arrears and on the Schedules to which exactly the same consideration applies, I suggest that his amendment ought to be adjourned until we come to the others when we might take all together.
That is, to deal with the matter on the Schedule; that would seem to me to be a proper thing to do.
Would it not be better to have this question of rent defined now?
We will have the same thing on the Schedule.
If we were to postpone this amendment until the Schedule, would it then be possible, at that stage, to come back and introduce this amendment here in this particular clause. Supposing the amendment were agreed to on the Schedule could we then come back and make this amendment here?
With the consent of the Dáil, I take it we could. Exactly the same consideration applies to the Schedule as arises on the Deputy's amendment here, and also in regard to arrears.
They are all rent.
Yes, and in connection with arrears it raises the question what exactly is rent, and the same with regard to prices.
I think if this amendment were discussed it would define the whole question of rent, and govern the whole of the other amendments; because there are rents other than judicial and non-judicial rents. There are agreed rents—rents where reductions were permanently given, not extorted or forced, previous to 1921, but reductions mutually agreed, and these have always been the basis of future purchasing. I think my motion comes in at the right place, and will decide the other amendments.
I agree this will decide the whole question, but you have amendments Nos. 51, 52 and 53 which raise, not exactly the same point, but points within these points dealt with here, and my suggestion was that instead of taking Deputy Gorey's amendment now we should take it at No. 50, and deal with 51, 52 and 53, which all raise somewhat the same point. It would be impossible to deal with one without the other.
It occurs to me that the Minister is pre-supposing the other amendments will be defeated. The question arises whether it would be in order to go back to Clause 17 for the purpose of introducing this new amendment after we had passed on to the Schedules. The object of the Minister would be quite well attained if, on the discussion of amendment 11 he dealt with the arguments affecting the other amendments, and then they could all be discussed later.
That will suit me. The Deputy is wrong in suggesting that I am pre-supposing that they will be defeated. I am quite willing to have them all gone into now.
If this were merely a definition it could come on later, but I see now that it is a great deal more than a definition.
It is a definition of the word "rent."
Yes, but it would come under a separate section rather than in a definite section, a section which gives a number of definitions, and for this reason it requires a good deal of discussion, and I do not think it can be inserted in the Schedule as it stands, and, therefore, it would be necessary to go back. If we go on to the Schedule, we could not go back to Clause 17.
If that is so, that finishes it.
In so far as the arguments are relevant to amendments 51, 52 and 53 they can be used now.
In moving my amendment now I only propose to deal with this particular one and I leave the others to their merits, because they are all minor matters or side-issues of the same question. I ask the Minister to accept this new sub-section because where it has been the custom between landlords and tenants for both mutually to agree to an abated rent, or a first term, then that rent is held to be the second term rent, or if the first and second term rents are fixed and afterwards a mutual arrangement is made and an abated rent is agreed by both parties, then that stands as a third term rent. So, in the case of non-judicial tenants where the owner thought that the tenant would not go into court and where the landlord and tenant mutually agreed to a reduced rent, that reduced rent had to be the basis of purchase, and also with regard to arrears, purchase, and abatement in lieu of rent. This is quite a reasonable and sensible business suggestion. On any properties that I know of, and I know several, especially the estate on which I live, the abated rent was the basis of purchase; the landlord never questioned it; it was a non-judicial estate where the tenants received substantial reductions on the condition that they did not go into court as a supplement to getting a fair rent fixed. That abated rent was the basis of purchase, and in every case I knew it has been the basis of purchase, and the landlords having agreed to it through the abated rent, are not going back to the original rent as the basis of purchase or arrears or in lieu of rent.
An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair at this stage.
We will have to deal with the amendment as it stands, and to deal with it in connection with the clause to which it has reference. At present we are dealing with arrears and payments in lieu of rent, and we will come to the question of prices afterwards. The Deputy's intention is to ensure that where-ever there was a genuine agreement for an abated rent, that that shall be the rent, but his intention is defeated by his own amendment. His amendment reads: "For the purposes of this Part of the Act and of the Schedules attached to the Act, rent, whether on a judicial holding or otherwise, shall be understood to mean any abated rent accepted by a landlord for a period of at least 5 years previous to the first gale day of the year 1921, provided that such abatement was not given by way of payment for services."
Now, apart from the question of payment for services, I suppose any number of specific reasons could be given as to why a landlord reduced a rent and gave an abatement. The landlord gave an abatement, as the Deputy pointed out, for services rendered. A tenant's holding perhaps may have adjoined a piece of untenanted land, and a landlord may have come to the owner and said, "If you drive in my cows every morning, I will allow you a shilling in the £ off your rent." That, I hold, is not a genuine abatement of rent. Then, there might be a case where you had a reasonable landlord who had been on good terms with a tenant. Let us suppose that the tenant died, and that the landlord went to his widow and said, "I will allow you a 50 per cent. reduction on your arrears if you try and pull up a bit." That, I hold, would not be a genuine abatement either.
In any case it would be quite impossible to cover, by any general rule, the reasons or circumstances under which abatement of rents are given, and it will be quite impossible to provide directions for the Land Commission which would enable them, without having recourse to a judge, to say, in every case, whether abated rent was the real rent or not. Deputy Gorey's amendment states that an abated rent "shall be understood to mean an abated rent accepted by the landlord for a period of at least five years previous to the first gale day of the year 1921, provided that such abatement was not given by way of payment for services." The five years to the first gale day referred to in the amendment would cover the years 1916 to 1921. There were very few abatements in these years; in fact I think abatements were taken off during that period. On the other hand, a man might have got an abatement for 10 years, and yet his rent would not be a real rent; there might be a case of a man who only got an abatement for one year, and in that case the abated rent might be a real rent. It all depends, I say, on circumstances, and whether there was an agreement between the landlord and the tenant for a new rent, an agreement based on the value of his holding for rent purposes. Deputy Gorey's amendment would rule out hundreds of genuine cases, and would let in hundreds of bogus cases. Amendment No. 18 on the Order Paper, in the name of Deputy Hennessy, covers the point much better than Deputy Gorey's amendment, and covers it in the only way in which it can be covered. I am accepting Deputy Hennessy's amendment. Before I read the amendment, perhaps I ought to read the Section. The matter is dealt with in Section 20, Sub-section (3): "Any question arising between a tenant and a landlord regarding the accuracy of any particulars furnished pursuant to this Section shall be determined by the Land Commission in accordance with rules made by them, save that in the case of a holding subject to a judicial rent the record filed in the Land Commission shall be final and conclusive in all matters appearing thereon, except that where the judicial rent was fixed before the 1st day of April, 1899, the adjustment provided for by Section 54 of the Local Government Act, 1898, shall be taken into account in determining the amount of rent."
Deputy Hennessy's amendment, dealing with the matter, reads:—"In Section 20 (3), page 8, line 58, after the word `rent' to insert the words `and save that any question as to whether an agreement for an abated rent was in fact an agreement for a new rent or any question as to the amount from which the deduction of 25 per cent. is to be made in ascertaining compounded arrears of rent and payment in lieu of rent shall be determined by the Judicial Commissioner, whose decision shall be final.' "
That enables the High Court Judge to take the circumstances into account, and to see whether in any particular case the abatement was given by reason of services rendered, or was given gratuitously by the landlord, or as an admission of the fact that the old rent was too high, and that the new rent should be fixed. This is the only possible amendment that would cover all the cases, and that would do justice in all the cases. It would be quite impossible to provide a form of words in an Act of Parliament that would cover all cases, some of which may be extremely complicated and varied. There is no way of doing it except to leave it to a judge to say whether the rent is an abated rent or a real rent. I am accepting Deputy Hennessy's amendment. I could not accept Deputy Gorey's amendment, because it does not carry out the intentions which both of us have in mind, that where there is a genuine agreement for a new rent, that that shall be the new rent.
This is not a question of a genuine agreement. There are cases where you might have genuine agreements without at the same time having them in writing. You could, for instance, have an agreement that had become the practice between the landlord and the tenant for years, and although there was no written document to show that such an agreement was in operation, the agreement would none the less be a genuine agreement. Deputy Hennessy's agreement does not meet my point, because, in my opinion, it is a bit too technical.
Deputy Gorey's amendment reads that the abatement granted in each of the five years preceding the year 1921, is to be taken as the abated rent, and to be the rent of the holding. In one year the abatement might be twenty per cent., in another year fifteen per cent., and, perhaps, in another year twenty-five per cent., but suppose the landlord had, in fact, accepted the abated rent, but that the amount of the abatement had not been the same in all of these five years, the tenant, under Deputy Gorey's amendment, would not be entitled to get any abatement in the rent at all, because there would have been no abatement that would have lasted over the entire period of five years. Under Deputy Hennessy's amendment it would at once become open to the Land Commission to fix what was a fair rent, and the proper abatement to be granted in such a case as that. If Deputy Gorey's amendment became the law of the land, I am afraid the Court that would have to decide a case would say that there had been no abated rent for five years, and, therefore, would refer to the original rent and say "We cannot deal with it in the equitable manner in which we would be entitled to do if Deputy Hennessy's amendment had been accepted." Therefore, to meet Deputy Gorey's view, it seems to me that his amendment would require some alteration in the wording if it is to carry out the intentions he has in mind.
I make the Deputy a present of the particular case he has made. I never heard of such a case in my life, and I do not think that one is likely to arise in the future when this question of the fixing of rents will take place.
The point I made was this, that if an abatement of 25 per cent, were granted in the first four years, and that in the fifth year an abatement of only 20 per cent. was granted, it seems to me that under this amendment the tenant would not be entitled to get any abatement at all.
The real trouble is that Deputy Gorey is under the impression that there is some catch in my amendment.
I am always very suspicious.
The real trouble is that Deputy Gorey thinks no one but himself has the interest of the tenants at heart. I am not accepting this amendment, because it would be unfair to the tenants. I am not accustomed to exhibit my particular love for them in the Dáil. Anyone who thinks about this would see that the five years from 1916 to 1921 would be obviously unfair to choose, as practically all the abatements were taken off. There are hundreds of cases where you would have a genuine agreement, and the Deputy should not jump to the conclusion that the agreement must be in writing. These agreements are never in writing. I venture to say there is not one single agreement in writing in Ireland. The new rent agreement is on the face of the receipt That is the only evidence of an agreement that you have. I should not say evidence of an agreement, as it is not the only evidence, but it is the only writing in connection with this question that you have got. There is never an agreement in writing in these cases. The only writing in connection with the abatement would be on the face of the receipt. So it is not a question of an agreement in writing. As I said, there are a great many reasons for abatement peculiar to every landlord and every tenant. There are a very large number of tenants who have got genuine abatements by reason of the fact that the landlords admitted that the rent was too high, not by reason of the fact that they had performed some service was continuing, or by reason of the fact that a man had met with some misfortune.
I did not refer to these at all.
This would cover it. There might happen to be decent landlord who would say that he would let the tenant off forty or fifty per cent. of the rent for the next five years. It would be most unfair in a case of a decent landlord with a good tenant who had met with some misfortune, and whom the landlord let off with fifty per cent. of the rent for the next three or four or five years, that we should come in and purchase on the basis of the fifty per cent. It would be most unfair and unjust. It would be punishing decency and good treatment. There are hundreds of cases where an abatement for five years went on for a number of years, and it was not a genuine abatement. There are hundreds of cases where an abatement could have only been given for the first time last year, where it was a genuine abatement, and where the tenant would be entitled to have the abated rent regarded as the new rent. The Deputy in putting down these five years, and confining it to any abated rent within that time—except the abatement is in consideration of services—would do gross injustice between tenant and tenant and would rule out a very large number of tenants who would be entitled to come in. I am refusing this amendment, because it would be most unjust to the tenant, and, incidentally, to the particular decent landlord who gave an abatement in the sort of cases I have mentioned.
I am not impressed by the Minister's arguments. The language of Amendment 18 is very precise. It says: "Any question as to whether an agreement for an abated rent, was in fact an agreement for a new rent." In the absence of an agreement for a new rent, how does this apply?
The Judicial Commissioner is to say.
Then the Judicial Commissioner is to have a permanent job? He could do it in one stroke under the amendment that I suggest. Now, you are to have a Commissioner doing the work all over the country for years. I do not see the point of the amendment at all.
If I could find out what is in the Deputy's mind, I would answer it. He has stood up now and made two interruptions which convey nothing to me. What point is he making in regard to the words?
I did not stand up to make an interruption. I stood up when the Minister sat down. My opinion is that he is just as fertile in interruptions as I am.
Not quite; almost.
We will shake hands over it.
Oh, no. I want to know what objection he has to "any question as to whether an agreement for an abated rent was in fact an agreement for a new rent?" What is wrong with that?
I purposely used, in this amendment here, the words, "was not given by way of payment for services," in order to exclude anything like abatement for services rendered. I was not taking into consideration the very exceptional case which the Minister refers to, where a man dies and the landlord is very compassionate in the case of the widow. Such a thing may have happened, but I have not heard of it—not since before 1921. It is really an exception if it has happened. I did not refer to any of these cases that were not genuine reductions. I meant that a genuine case of an abated rent should stand as the ordinary rent.
The real point is that the Deputy's own amendment does not carry out that. He has not attempted to meet Deputy FitzGibbon's point. There are a great many cases in which tenants have only an abatement for two years, which would be entitled to be regarded as a new rent.
Considering the Minister's majority, I withdraw the amendment.
For the same reason, I suppose, I can withdraw the next amendment also?
You can.
But I am not withdrawing it.
Before the Deputy moves the amendment, I must say that I can only accept part of the amendment—namely, "To delete the figures `25,' and to substitute therefor the figures `35.' " The remaining portion must come out, because we cannot make consequential changes in Sections we are not dealing with.
I beg to move:—In Section 17 (2), page 7, line 19:—"To delete the figures `25,' and to substitute therefor the figures `35.' " This amendment deals with the question of arrears. An amendment has been put down on the part of the Government later on, adding one-half year's rent to the purchase money in cases where three years' arrears are due. It is only in exceptional cases that there is three years' rent due. Of the 70,000 unpurchased tenants there might not be 2,000 in that position. The men who owe two and a half year's, two years', one and a half years', and one year's rent have paid their rents up to these periods. In my opinion, and in the opinion of the tenants all over the country, the provisions of the Bill in this respect are grossly unjust and unfair. The man who owes three years' rent ought not to be put in a different position from the men who owe two and a half or one year's rent. There is a bigger reason. Certain of the representatives of the unpurchased tenants—myself principally—gave an assurance to the unpurchased tenants, when this Bill was being discussed, that the terms would be raised either by giving a direct cash reduction or by adding so much to the purchase money as would have the same effect as raising it from twenty-five to thirty-five. When I gave that assurance to the unpurchased tenants, I had very definite reasons for doing so.
What were they?
I was not going to refer to them, but if the Minister asks me I will tell him. The Minister's distinct and emphatic assurance was that this 25 per cent. was not his last word at all; that he would be forced up on amendments from our party to 35 per cent., either as a direct cash reduction, or by adding so much to the purchase money, that it would have the same effect. Perhaps the Leas Cheann Comhairle may have some personal knowledge of this question.
On a point of order, if the Deputy has any further knowledge on this question he should speak out openly now in the Dáil, and not be making suggestions.
Time enough when it is needed.
I prefer it now. The Deputy has made a statement about me which is, shall I say, absolutely inaccurate. I prefer when he is making statements that he would not give any hints but state what he has to state openly.
I have made a certain definite statement. I went to the Unpurchased Tenants' Convention, and on the strength of an assurance, I assured the Convention that these terms would be carried out. On the strength of that assurance the Bill was accepted by the Unpurchased Tenants. They now find themselves, and I find myself, in the position that what I believed to be a definite assurance, and what the tenants believed from me, has not been carried out. That is one reason, but the main reason, apart altogether from this promise, is that of justice and equity. It is no reason because a man has paid two years' rent during the last three years, and only owes one year's rent, that he should be deprived of this benefit. It is also no reason because a man owes 2½ years' rent that he should not get this benefit, while a man who owes three years should have a half a year added to the purchase money. People who owe three years' rent and who get a half-year's rent added to the purchase money are thanking the Minister for little or nothing. It is really only throwing dust in their eyes in an attempt to seem generous when he is not generous at all. The Minister has denied that he made this statement or gave me to understand as much. He says that it is inaccurate. I say, distinctly, that the Minister's statement is inaccurate.
Apart from this promise or otherwise, of which I know nothing, as I got no promise, the Bill on these terms I say is unjust to the tenants. Considering the present state of agriculture, the Minister should do all he could in the case of these arrears. Where the amount of rent owing is one year or two years, such tenants should receive some benefit under the circumstances. As to the inaccuracy or accuracy of the statement that has been made, I know nothing. I heard it from no one else. It may be true or it may be false, but as far as the majority of our party are concerned, we know nothing about it. Apart from that I believe myself that the Minister is entitled to give 35 per cent. on the present arrears, people do not find so much fault with any other part of the Bill as with this. They consider such tenants should be dealt with more liberally under this Section, and that at least 35 per cent. of the arrears should be allowed.
I support this amendment and would ask the Minister to change the figures from 25 per cent. to 35 per cent. If the Minister agrees he will be doing a generous turn to the people on behalf of whom the change is urged. Since the last Stage of the Bill, in parts of the country that I visited, and where the tenants were not able to pay rent for the past three years, they seem to be completely up against the Minister of Agriculture on this point. Probably if the Minister accepted the amendment it may do a little justice to such tenants, over and above the justice that the Bill does to the landlords. Take the case of a small farmer who is in possession of an uneconomic holding, the landlord of which requires a really excessive rent. At a time when everybody else in the Free State was fighting for freedom, such tenants adopted the only means they could of fighting the landlords, by ceasing to pay the rent that was demanded. Where some of these people are not able to pay, the Minister could advise the Minister for Defence to send down military who will probably seize the stock that may be grazing on the holding. That was done recently near Mullingar where three cattle belonging to Mr. Flanagan of Tyrellspass were taken away and sold for £2 a head. I take it that the object was simply to recover the amount that was owing, but as a result this man lost all his stock. Every Deputy is entitled to his opinion on these matters, but it is nearly time that something was done for tenants who are asked to pay excessive rent. As Deputy Gorey has pointed out, the acceptance of this amendment will mean a little justice to the tenants, and I can assure the Minister for Agriculture that the people will be satisfied with it until such time as they will be able to compel the Dáil to give them perfect justice.
The case for this reduction is that there will be a reduction in the rent of 7/- in the £. Having regard to the bad times agriculture has had for the last two years, and to the tremendous disturbance that occurred in various parts of the country, the people were deprived of markets and it was impossible for them to pay their way or turn their produce into cash. The amendment will place, for the last two or three years, those who owe rent in the same position as the Bill will place tenants in the future. That is the whole object of the amendment, and if the Dáil wishes to do justice to the landlords, or enable them to pay their debts, perhaps the Minister for Agriculture would apply the 10 per cent. bonus retrospectively for these two years, in order to enable them to settle this question. That is the sole object.
I want to emphasise what Deputy Wilson has said. The actual terms of the Bill and the question of annuities for the future are not the questions that are exercising the minds of the unpurchased tenants at all. They view that more or less with equanimity, but the fact remains that in many cases they owe three years' rent at the moment, or two and a half, or two years' rent. There is also the fact that annuities under the Bill will be due immediately, or soon. This question of arrears is a greater stumbling block at the moment, seven times greater, than the question of purchase and of annuity. I could not, if I were speaking for half an hour, emphasise it sufficiently, because the people are more or less agreeable to the terms—at least I cannot say that they are agreeable, but they accept them, more or less —but I have heard nobody yet accept the arrears. This is a burning question, a much more burning question than the question of annuity. It will inflict more hardship upon, and will bankrupt the people at the start of the Bill, and in fact it will shake the stability of the State.
It may be that the time is approaching when the State will have to shoulder the responsibilities that they are inflicting in the Act. I think that the State and the Government will be wise to be a bit more just to the tenants on this question of arrears than they have been. It may, perhaps, be a hardship on landlords, but not on many. There may be a small percentage of the landlords who owe mortgages, and owe interest on mortgages, but they are a small number. But you inflict a hardship on a big body of the general community by this question of calling up three years' arrears now. If it could be made something like the terms of the Bill I think the people would meet it agreeably, but if it cannot be met I see nothing but trouble in front of the Government.
It is perfectly obvious that, as the Unpurchased Tenants' Association were unable to quarrel with the terms in regard to the price, in order to justify themselves, and with an eye to the next election, they had to quarrel about something and be in a position to say, "We have got some valuable concessions on the Bill." That is perfectly obvious, and hence we are debating on this question, and we have a campaign on the question. The forces are obviously concentrated on this particular question. I do not intend to pursue Deputy Gorey's statement. I just make one remark. Deputy Gorey's statements are inaccurate, as I said before, perfectly plainly——
To those who believe it, they are perfectly plain.
I will not pursue it any further.
Better not.
I do not believe in this recrimination. I invite the Deputy to bring forward any evidence of that, any evidence he has got, and as he has gone so far, to come forward with the rest of it. I content myself at the moment with saying that his statements are inaccurate Probably there are differences of opinion in the organisation itself.
Not a bit.
On this question of arrears I want to point out first that as far as the tenants who pay three years' arrears are concerned, they are better off by this provision which adds a half-year to the purchase money than if their rent was brought up to 35 per cent., as a simple calculation will show.
Better off than if the three years were not in arrears?
Order.
I said with regard to the tenants who owe three years' arrears. The Deputy always suffers from the disease that he is not able to listen. That is the cause of a great many misunderstandings and of confusion on his part. With regard to the tenants who owe three years' arrears, these are better off under this provision of a half year added to the purchase money than if their rent were brought up to 35 per cent., that is to say, that they pay less down. Let us take an example. Take £100 rent; deduct 35 per cent., which is £65, and that leaves it £195. That is what would have to be paid. The other is £187 10s. By reducing the rent by 35 per cent. instead of 25 per cent. the tenant has to pay £195 on his £100 rent, and a half year's rent added to the purchase money. But the payment down is £195. By reducing it by 25 per cent. and adding half a year to the purchase money he has only to pay £187. Let us get to business on this question and drop politics in regard to it. I would like this question to be discussed strictly on business lines, and not with a view to the next election.
On a point of personal explanation, I do not think this question of elections ought to be introduced at all, because if the Minister insists on introducing this question of the elections, he will hear more about it before he is finished.
I have extremely good hearing and I invite the Deputy to let me hear anything he likes. I do not want politics in regard to this, and it is obviously politics, as I will show you. I want this discussed as a business proposition, and I point out here and I challenge Deputy Gorey, or any other Deputy who has a knowledge of mathematics—and I believe there are some great mathematicians here—to show that I am wrong, that the payment down by a tenant who owes three years' rent, the payment in cash, if we give him a reduction of 35 per cent. instead of 25 per cent., would be £195, whereas the payment down in cash, if we gave a reduction of 25 per cent. and add half a year to the purchase money, is only £187 10s. There is no doubt about that.
On a point of explanation, what is to prevent the Minister from giving a reduction of 35 per cent. and still adding the half-year on?
That is not a point of personal explanation. The Deputy can speak afterward on the matter.
Let us drop this nonsense. I hope the time has come when we can discuss land purchase, like any other problem, without going back to the old days of the seventies and the eighties and the nineties. The proposition that was put up was to give a 35 per cent. reduction. Now, I am pointing out that as far as the particular tenants who owe three years' arrears are concerned my proposal is better, and I want to hear any answer to that, and that will give the Dáil a measure of the sincerity of all this thunder. That is number one. Based on my proposition it is £187 and on Deputy Gorey's it is £195 for third year tenants.
But where is he going to get it to pay?
Further, it is open to the Land Commission to give time to a tenant in any case. They have an absolutely free hand. If a tenant for any reason is unable to pay they can give him such time as they like. Take those two circumstances together and tell me whether my proposal for the tenant who owes three years is better than Deputy Gorey's in regard to this amendment. That is the man who owes three years. Now, there is, no doubt, a hardship, an unusual hardship, in regard to the tenant who owes two years' arrears. The Dáil should, I think, approach this in some responsible way. If a landlord is not entitled to rent for these three years, say so. It is open to the Dáil to decide that the landlords should not have got rent.
I would give them nothing.
There is one Deputy who is quite honest about that. There are other Deputies who think that no one should get rent except in a few cases where there are landlords who are extremely anxious to have arrangements made in this Bill by which the people of their own class who happen to be landlords in the old sense of the word, should be purchased and their rents should be redeemed, and the State credit should be used for that purpose.
The thing is a joke. In any event, to come back to the point, let the Dáil decide decently that the landlord should not get rent, and that he is not entitled to it, and that he should not have got it for the last three, five, ten or fifteen years, and go and take his land off him. But do not, in any casual, irresponsible, haphazard fashion, decide that the landlord is entitled to a certain amount of rent, looking at it from the point of view of the tenant solely, and say it does not matter twopence about the landlords; "we will put down this figure." If the landlord should have got any rent he has certain rights in the matter. If he should have got one penny rent he has certain rights, and these rights should be respected. That is not politics, I know, but I find myself saying a lot of things for the last three weeks which are not good politics, and it does not give me much trouble. If the landlord has any right to the land at all this right should be respected, and the question should be decided after examining the whole proposition in a business way, and taking the circumstances on one side and the other into account. In the case of the tenant who owes two years' arrears, it is not as easy for him, as I have pointed out, to pay this two years' rent down as if he paid his rent every year, but we all have to suffer a certain amount of hardship, more or less. Also, the tenants who owe 2½ years' annuity have to suffer a certain amount of hardship. I am just wondering how many tenants withheld their rents for the same reason as the tenant purchasers withheld their annuities. The real objection against the arrears question is not from the small tenant, but from the big tenant. Everyone knows that it was the farmer of 60 or 70 acres who did not pay his rent. He knew the value of money and was doing well.
Politics.
I would advise the Deputy not to draw me on that question.
I am trying to draw you.
Take the farmer whose rent is £20 a year, and that is much above the average of the farms we are dealing with. It is a nice farm, a good, economic holding. The valuation of a £20 holding would be anything between £25 and £30. He has to pay two years' rent, and he gets 25 per cent. reduction, that is a reduction of 5/- in the £ or £5. He pays £15 down, and he has paid nothing for two years. I put it to the Dáil— was there ever such a farce as to pretend that the farmer with a holding of £20 valuation is going to be broken because he makes a payment of £15, and in view of the fact that he made no payment for two years? Is there any reason why there should be all this heat about it, in view of the number of big problems we receive here with a certain amount of quietness and equanimity. It is a farce. To put £15 on the man who has a £30 valuation holding, and who has not paid any rent for years is not a hardship, and no one knows that better than Deputy Gorey. He has another year, or a year and a half, to pay the other £15, and I suggest it would be no trouble to such a tenant to pay £20 down, and he will only have to pay £10 then. These are the reasons, you see, why this is not such a hardship as is pretended in regard to people who owe two years' rent. It is nothing like the hardship that is predicted for the small farmer, and certainly not like what it is for the big farmer, for the bigger the farm the bigger the hardship, but to the big farmer also the hardship is not anything like what is pretended. I have dealt with the case of men who owe three years' rent and I have shown as far as their case goes that my proposal is better than Deputy Gorey's, so far as paying the money down is concerned. That is the hardship to the tenant. I have only one other thing to add with regard to this; we all remember people six months ago who owed 2½ years' annuity, and they were under the impression they need never pay anything again. They took the first opportunity of withholding their annuities, but they did so knowing perfectly well they were making it impossible for us to complete land purchase. But when the Enforcement of Law Act was passed it was not necessary to send the Sheriff to two per cent. of them. There was hardly a case in each county. They all paid it right away, and none of them, so far as I know, got into the Bankruptcy Court. The Farmers' Party, of course, have made a tremendous case of the terrific hardship which existing tenants are suffering as compared with tenants who have purchased. They point out that the purchased tenants were better able to pay. Let us take our old friend with the £20 valuation holding again. I do not know whether the Farmers' Party are interested in that, but let us take the man with the £20 valuation holding. That man was paying £20, and his rent was reduced by £5 a year from 1914 to 1920. This was the year of the strike. His neighbour who did not purchase was paying £20, and he had the same sort of holding, a difference of £5 a year during the war. This difference of £5 a year during the war, to a man who would spend it on pitch and toss at the cross-roads, was supposed to be the terrific hardship they suffered. I want the Dáil to approach this question in a business-like way. These are the figures. Tall talk is easy, but these figures give you the measure of the reality there is in this campaign about the arrears of rent. That is one side. Before I leave that I have this to point out; the Dáil will agree with me that the Land Bill is a contentious Bill, a measure that interests the country pretty largely. I have not seen a Press campaign against the arrears, not even in the local Press.
Who controls the Press?
I do not know.
The landlords!
I do not know either.
The landlords, someone said. That may be the reason, I do not know as much about the Press as Deputy Gorey, but that may be the reason of it. I have got the local papers, everyone of them, and the Deputy knows as well as I know—he has been more around the country—that there is not an honest tenant in Ireland who would not jump at these terms. The only letters I have seen are in regard to this question of arrears. There are, I understand, two Unpurchased Tenants' Organisations. You will find a letter one day in the paper abusing the Land Bill, and abusing the Farmers' Party for not getting better terms for the farmer, and if you think a little you will know where that comes from—from a gentleman, I will not mention his name, who is running the League of Unpurchased Tenants. A few days afterwards you will find another letter coming from the opposite source, pointing out that the arrears terms and the price terms were not as good as if the Farmers' Party were in power, but that at the same time they had done their best to make it better. I am serious about this. These are the only classes of letters I have seen.
Everyone in the Dáil knows the Land Bill is contentious, that all the small tenants of Ireland are interested in it, that all the local papers are interested in it, and if there was to be this tremendous campaign about arrears or prices, then we would have the papers filled with letters. We have had none; we have had no protests. It was admitted by the Deputy, in a moment when he was off his guard, that the price was right.
I did not say the price was right. They accept it because they cannot get anything better.
It is admitted generally that the price is more than fair. What is the price? It is an accepted fact—I do not think even Deputy Lyons will deny it—amongst the tenants themselves that the price is absolutely fair.
Provided you wipe out the three years' arrears.
The tenants' reduction is 35 per cent., bringing the amount to £65. There is a ten per cent. contribution to the price, and that brings the landlords' income to £67 14s. 0d., just exactly two-thirds of his former income on his second-term judicial rent. Of course any man who has any sense of responsibility would not think of bringing it lower than that by reason of the fact that the Trustee Acts empower Trustees who hold money and who have to invest it, to invest it in Irish rents up to two-thirds of the amount. That is the amount the Trustee Acts set out, which is considered to be absolutely safe. We have gone to the very border line. I need not argue the case, because the tenants admit that it is fair. I am tired pointing out that the landlord will get his purchase money in bonds. Say, for instance, he gets £10,000; he will get interest on that at four and a half per cent. That will be 67 per cent. of his previous income, roughly two-thirds.
Net.
Roughly, two-thirds, net.
That would be more than two-thirds of his net income.
It would be. There is the point again. The reason the Trustee Acts and other Acts prevent a Trustee from investing money without being covered up to the full value of his security, is that they make allowance for things of that sort—for cost of collection in the case of rents, and allowances for any possible expenses and anything they cannot forsee in the way of cutting down the rents either by purchase or otherwise. Take it that the purchase money is £10,000; the landlord gets four and a half per cent. on that. His income, therefore, is 67 per cent. of his previous income. That is the price. In the event of £5,000 worth of that, representing the redemption price of the mortgage, on that £5,000 he receives four and a half per cent. and he pays, probably, five or six per cent. or more. As I explained before, he gets over that difficulty the minute he gets his purchase money by paying off the mortgage. Until he gets his purchase money he must pay his five or six per cent., and if he only got 67 per cent. of his rents he would be only able to pay four and a half per cent. on his mortgages. I think that is perfectly clear. Hence, if the price is fair, we must give him some more. If the price was calculated at £65 in the £100, a reduction of 35 per cent., and if the payment in lieu of rent and arrears were the same, the Bill would be, on the face of it, unfair and unjust. If the price is right, we must give better terms to the landlord in regard to arrears, because until he gets his purchase money, he is paying a higher rate than 4½ per cent. on his mortgages. How much higher are we giving him? We are giving the tenants a reduction of 25 per cent. We are collecting the rents and stopping the cost of collection, which takes five per cent. or thereabouts on an average from the landlord. We are bringing him down to £30, so that the only margin left to him is the difference between £30 and £33. That is the business side of the proposition and I invite the Dáil's attention to it. I invite the Deputies, in the first place, to examine the real size of the problem from the tenants' point of view, and see what difference there would be between my terms and the terms the Farmers' Party suggests. If they do, I think they will find there is nothing in them which would put them into the Bankruptcy Court. I invite them to look at the other side and if they do I think they will find we could not have left a smaller margin, in justice, to enable the landlord to pay the extra interest. Under no circumstances can I accept the amendment, and I will not accept it.
The Minister talked a good deal about figures and he talked a good deal about the benefits he was going to confer on the men with three years' arrears of rent. He did not talk about the benefits being conferred on the men who owed two and a half or two years' arrears. I will take a very fair rental, much more than an average rental, in order to make it more simple.
I thought so.
Take a £50 rental, for instance. If the tenant owes three years' arrears the amount is £150. The Minister proposes that he pays only £125, and that he adds £25 to the purchase money. If he got a reduction of the added ten per cent. on £150, it would be £15. It would mean the difference between £25 and £10 in actual payment at the moment. The Minister, however, refrained from indicating what that would mean to the tenant at the end of the period.
It is 4½ per cent—a little more than £1 per year.
It would work out at £85 6s. 10½d.
Compound interest.
No, plain interest. Perhaps the Minister would be able to contradict these simple figures.
There is no necessity.
The Minister refrained from saying what he was adding to the annuity, or what his payment on 68½ years meant. He was not honest with us in dealing with the matter. He was talking politics. He was trying to throw dust in the eyes of the average men outside by talking of the benefit he was conferring on him. He was talking politics— gross politics, his style of politics. I know there is no use appealing to the Minister on this measure. I know the Minister's view. I know his view of his own Bill. I know what he calls it. Confiscation is what he calls it. The Minister says this Bill of his own is confiscation, and he says he has been forced to it by the action of the unpurchased tenants and their organisation.
Politics!
The Minister has called for politics, and he has got politics. He began in politics and he will end in politics. I do not know whether it is a private matter between the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and myself and my Party; it is a question of a conversation——
I think we had better clear that matter up. The Minister for Agriculture gave me no assurance whatsoever that he would go further in the way of reduction of arrears than what was suggested in the amendment proposed by Deputy Seumas de Burca. I discussed this matter with him, and he said that was the limit that he could go. I do not think that I gave Deputy Gorey or any other member of his party to understand anything else.
The whole matter is this: Deputy O'Máille assured me and the members of our party that the Minister would meet us in those amendments if they were reasonable.
Better consult your party and be sure you are accurate.
He told us the Minister would go a long way to meet us. When the Committee Stage was over, I asked Deputy O'Máille why did not the Minister meet us, and he said the Minister could not rule his party—could not rule the Government—and that he was only speaking for himself.
I made no such statement whatsoever.
You made no reference to it?
Deputy Gorey's memory must be altogether at fault.
It is always at fault.
The Coalition!
Do I understand Deputy O'Máille to say that he never mentioned the matter at all?
I spoke about the matter, but not in the sense you have mentioned.
You did not say that the Minister for Agriculture could not make arrangements for this matter—that he was not allowed to go the distance he wanted to go?
I did not make any such statement.
Very well. There is no use in carrying it very much further. The Minister for Agriculture and the Government may think it a very easy and quite a simple matter to recover these arrears, and they may think that the people who owe them are in splendid financial circumstances, and will be able to meet these bills——
Come to the figures.
The Minister refrained from mentioning the material part of the only figures we have had—the figures in connection with what the landlords owe. The Minister for Agriculture has always held that no money-lender lent, or should have lent, on an Irish rental more than two-thirds of that rental, that anybody who lent more than that was taking considerable risk. He has never given us any figures in connection with the landlords who had their property mortgaged. I have asked before how many of these landlords had their property mortgaged, how many landlords there are whose rent is in trust for the moneys they owe. We never got these figures. But because a few do happen to have mortgages, the whole body of landlords, who represent the richest element of the community, is going to be paid money that may cripple and bring misery and starvation to a big proportion of the 70,000 tenants. These may be the Minister's figures, but they are not my figures, and they do not fit in with my sense of justice. It is all very well to talk about recovering three years' rent and two and a half years' rent. The Minister can talk very glibly about it. The Minister has other means of living besides the land, and he has not to live on a £16 or £17 valuation. I am glad of that, but it is quite a different case with the men with these small valuations, and I will promise the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Defence and all the rest of them a pretty stiff job in recovering these arrears——
You are very much interested in the small holders.
The Minister should not interrupt.
You have a job to try to keep the Minister in order, and sometimes I have the same job with myself when I am sitting down. In all the previous Bills that we have had only two years' arrears were taken into consideration. In this Bill you propose to take in three years—a thing the people have not got. Because they have not, they will not give it to you. I hope they will not give it to you, and I hope you will have the trouble you are looking for.
The Deputy has never attempted to meet a single one of my figures.
Your figures are too ridiculous to meet.
And he has not attempted to meet my point that my suggestion was better for the tenants who owe three years' rent than what the Deputy is proposing.
I beg to move: In Section 17 (2, page 7, line 19), after the words "cent." to insert the words:—"Provided that any payments made by the tenant after the second gale day in the year 1920; shall be appropriated to the rent which accrued since the first gale day in that year."
I am accepting this amendment. In the congested districts especially there are amongst smaller tenants a large number of hanging gales. That is to say that for years, even from the time of the tenant's father, the rent is paid half-yearly, but appropriated two or three years back. You may have a man paying three years' rent during 1920, 1921 and 1922, and yet he owes three years by reason of the fact that the payments during these years were appropriated to a period before 1920. That state of affairs exists in the Congested Districts especially and amongst small tenants, and it is to meet that, that this amendment is accepted.
I beg to move: To delete Section 17 (3), page 7, and to substitute the following:—
"Compounded arrears of rent shall be discharged as to so much thereof as does not exceed 75 per cent. of the annual rent, by the addition of same to the Purchase Price, and as to the balance, if any, by payment on such date or dates before the appointed day as may be prescribed by the Land Commission."
This is an amendment which seeks to give justice all round. It is not a big demand, but an attempt to go some way, at least, to specify the time of the people who have paid rent and who owe rent. It means the adding of one year, or if a lesser amount is owed, the adding of it to the purchase price. It was not an extraordinary thing at all under the previous Acts that a certain amount was added in voluntary purchase agreements, to the purchase money by agreement. This Bill only provides in a later clause for the adding of one half year, and in its first draft it did not provide for the addition of any at all. For the last twelve months a good many landlords have accepted voluntary reductions of 50 per cent., 45 per cent. and 40 per cent., and if it was a question of a voluntary agreement again between landlord and tenant there would not be any hesitation on the landlord's part in adding that year's purchase price. I think it would be done voluntarily. Therefore I ask the Minister to make this small concession.
I will not accept the amendment, and I will not comment on the statement that landlords have accepted voluntary payments of 50 per cent. during the last year. There is an amendment already down in the Bill providing that half a year be added to the purchase money, and, secondly, that any rent payable within the period 1920 and 1923 shall be appropriated to that period, even though the receipt on its face sets out that the rent was to be paid for the previous year. That does not interest Deputy Gorey, because this concession will not affect large farmers; it will only make a difference to the small tenants in the congested counties. All over the congested districts in counties like that of Mayo and elsewhere the small tenants owe for a long time. There are hundreds of cases where the small tenant pays his rent half-yearly, but gets his receipt dated back for two or three years. This relieves him straight away, and provides that any payments made shall be appropriated. That is as far as I will go. That meets the equities of the case. The Deputy himself stated that previous Bills added two years only. We are adding a half-year. We are making this concession. There is no question about it, the non-payment of rent during the last three years was due not primarily to the tenants not being able to pay, but as a protest against non-purchase. That is the distinction between the question of arrears we have now and the arrears owed in 1881 and subsequently.
I beg to move Amendment 15: To add to Section 17, Sub-section (3), the following:—
"Provided that in any case where not less than three years' arrears are due and the tenant so requests in the prescribed manner, one half-year's compounded arrears of rent shall be added to the purchase money and repaid by means of a purchase annuity calculated at the rate of 4¾ per cent. on the amount thereof added to and consolidated with the standard purchase annuity for the holding."
I propose to resist the prevailing tendency or temptation to make an electioneering speech upon this point. I think the amendment is the best solution of this very vexed problem that has been offered so far.
I accept this amendment.
We agree to this amendment, which is in accordance with the promise made by the Minister on the Committee Stage.
I beg to move Amendment 16, to add to Section 17 the following new sub-section:—
"Where any money has been levied or recovered by a landlord after the 28th day of May, 1923, under or in consequence of any judgment or decree in any proceedings against the tenant of a holding to which this Act applies for the recovery of rent or in ejectment, then:—
(a) If such money shall have been levied or recovered prior to the 3rd day of July, 1923, and so much thereof as consisted of rent exceeds the sum to which compounded arrears of rent would have otherwise amounted, or
(b) if such money shall have been so levied or recovered on or after the 3rd day of July, 1923, and the entire amount thereof (including rent, costs and expenses) exceeds the sum to which compounded arrears of rent would have otherwise amounted,
the difference between such levy or such entire amount (including rent, costs and expenses) as the case may be and the sum to which compounded arrears of rent would have otherwise amounted shall be set off against the moneys to become payable by the tenant in lieu of rent as hereinafter provided, and the equivalent payment by the Land Commission shall be proportionately reduced."
I do not need to say much in favour of this amendment, except that I want to make an amendment in the amendment. The word "levy" in the last paragraph is a misprint for the word "rent."
Yes, the word "rent" was in the original amendment, and I would suggest that we have the leave of the Dáil in making this amendment.
Is this the Minister's own amendment?
I accept the amendment with the change. We discussed the whole question on the Committee Stage, and it was more or less agreed that an amendment upon these lines should be introduced. It was Deputy McGoldrick who spoke upon this particular section, and suggested this amendment. I have only one thing more to say. The Dáil will remember we debated this before for three hours, and that Deputy Gorey said on that occasion that I had promised him that any law costs and expenses levied by the landlord would be set off against arrears of rent due under the Bill, and payments due, under the Bill.
I said nothing of the sort. I said that any rents that would be recovered since the introduction of the Bill would be made good, and that the Minister promised that, but I did not say that the Minister promised me to recover on the question of costs. I said that was the impression I took away from the Minister's attitude, but I never said that I got a definite word from the Minister that he would accept or reject the suggestion.
I ask the indulgence of the Dáil to point out that I have already been accused of being inaccurate, and I now wish to give a line as to the value of these accusations. The Dáil will remember that, on the Committee Stage of the Bill, I got up and accepted the proposition that rent recovered should be set off against rent due either in respect of arrears or in respect of payments in lieu of rent under the Bill, and I put that to Deputy Gorey as a sporting offer. He answered by charging me with having promised him both rent and costs.
I did not say costs.
Will you please let me finish? In answer to his charge I agreed on that occasion to set off costs as from the 3rd July. He refused to set them off except as from the 28th May. That is within the recollection of every Deputy in the Dáil, and I would like to know what is the recollection of the other members of the Farmers' Party sitting there.
We accept this amendment as carrying out the promise you made on that occasion.
I am not talking of that now, but what I am doing is just pointing out to the Dáil that on the last occasion this matter was debated the Deputy charged me with having promised him that I would include costs as well as rent. The Dáil will now notice that that charge is no longer made.
I did not make that charge. On a point of personal explanation, I desire to say that I do not think the Minister for Agriculture has any right to misrepresent what I said.
I do not think it is desirable that we should go back on what happened when another stage of the Bill was under discussion.
I agree, because I do not think the Minister's memory on the point is very good.
I would like to know, then, what the Deputy did charge me with. I am simply making a statement of what occurred.
On a point of explanation, what the Minister said was that he definitely refused this question of costs. He never gave me a definite refusal, but at the same time he never gave me a definite promise, and in the remarks I made at the time I made that quite clear and distinct. He never gave me a refusal and never gave me a promise. The only thing he said was that it would not be quite fair to prevent a man taking advantage of the law because he had the law to avail of.
The Deputy admits, then, that I never gave a promise.
I never said you did.
I would ask Deputies to look up what Deputy Gorey said; he practically called me a liar. I would ask Deputies to look up what he said on that occasion and to take that as a measure of the accuracy of the statements he makes.
What I said was that the Minister never gave me a definite promise.
There is no necessity to go into this matter now; it is all past and gone.
My words on the last occasion hold good.
I beg to move Amendment 17: In Section 18(1), page 7, line 41, to delete the figures "75" and to substitute therefor the figures "65," and to make the necessary consequential amendments throughout the Bill.
The same ruling will apply on this amendment as on the last, that is, as regards making the necessary consequential amendments throughout the Bill.
This amendment refers to payments in lieu of rent. I suppose the Section is copied from previous Acts, but I am sorry the Minister has not copied more closely some previous precedents with regard to the terms. The previous Acts made a difference of one-quarter per cent. more in payment in lieu of rent than they did in the case of actual annuities to be paid. That operated under the Wyndham and Birrell Acts. Where there was money to be paid in lieu of rent until such time as the vesting order came along one-quarter per cent. more was charged for the money than on an actual annuity under the Wyndham Act. The same also applied to the Birrell Act. There is a bigger distinction made under this Bill, and I would ask the Minister to accept the amendment.
I am not accepting this amendment. Deputy Gorey knows this is not interest in lieu of rent. There is no interest-in-lieu-of-rent period under this Bill, because from the date on which an agreement to purchase is entered into the tenant is deemed to be paying for the redemption of his holding. I want to draw the attention of the Dáil to this, that Deputy Gorey apparently adopts the 1903 Act where it suits him but that he does not adopt it where it does not suit him. Under the 1903 Act on a £100 holding, the landlord gets £2,200, and under this the sum he gets is £1,500. If the Deputy would be at least logical and suggest that we should still give the landlord £2,200 and should make this difference, that we should have an interest in lieu of rent period, and only make a difference of a quarter per cent., I agree.
It would not matter what capital sum you gave as long as you have interest to balance it.
Provided someone else pays for it.
We will pay for it. Make it seven per cent. and capitalise it accordingly. I throw you that as a challenge.
We cannot have the Minister and the Deputy addressing one another across the floor.
He is continually breaking the rules of procedure.
I beg to move:—
In Section 20 (3), page 8, line 58, after the word "rent" to insert the words "and save that any question as to whether an agreement for an abated rent was in fact an agreement for a new rent or any question as to the amount from which the deduction of 25 per cent. is to be made in ascertaining compounded arrears of rent and payment in lieu of rent shall be determined by the Judicial Commissioner, whose decision shall be final."
This amendment has already been discussed, and I need not waste any further time in discussing it. I put down the amendment because I understand there are many cases in which agreements have been arrived at between the landlord and tenant and abatements have been offered to the tenant in his rent. They were not exceptional abatements. They were granted by the landlord, as he saw there were sound reasons for doing so. I want such tenants to get the full benefits of the present Bill when it becomes law, irrespective of the period. It may be forty years or two years ago when the tenants got those abatements. I think this amendment would cover all such cases.
I am accepting this amendment, which we have debated already.
I beg to move:—
In Section 22 (2), page 9, to insert a new paragraph after paragraph (c):—
"Any parcel of untenanted land which consists of or forms part of land which was purchased under the provisions of the Irish Church Act, 1869, for a sum not exceeding two thousand pounds."
The effect of the amendment is to exclude from the operation of Section 22 any such lands.
I think there will be no discussion about this amendment, which I am accepting. This was an oversight in the Bill. The amendment deals with purchasers under the Irish Church Act of 1869. A certain number of tenants of one kind or another purchased under that Act, and they get the benefits of ordinary farmers, which they are.
I ask leave to withdraw the following amendment, which stands in my name:—
In page 9, line 42, Section 22 (2) (d), to add after the word “ground” the words “Provided always that, till the Oireachtas otherwise provides, the status duties privileges disabilities and rights at the option of a tenant of a holding coming under this sub-section shall notwithstanding anything in the contract of tenancy be that of a judicial tenant in and of the holding for a third term with this modification that if any portion or the whole holding be hereinafter required for public purposes or by the local sanitary authority for building or otherwise the price to be paid to landlord and tenant respectively shall be the value of their respective interests in the land as agricultural or farming land.”
I object. I was hopeful that this was one of the amendments that the Minister would be prompted to accept. Am I mistaken?
Oh, yes. It is not really a question of prompting. These amendments which we have down now were envisaged on the Committee Stage and suggested by Deputies of my own Party. This amendment would defeat the Deputy's own purpose. It is making judicial tenants, and our aim is to buy out these tenancies. The effect of the amendment is to make certain tenants judicial tenants. Our aim is to buy them out, whether they be future or not.
My interest in this amendment—I must admit I have not given it careful consideration—is that it might ensure that local authorities would be able to acquire land for building purposes.
The amendment has not been proposed.
I propose it, then. It is the latter part of the amendment that I am concerned with. I was hopeful that it was one of the amendments which the Minister is prepared to accept, and that it was in fulfilment of one of the promises that he might have made. Apparently Deputy McGoldrick has not the assent of the Minister in formulating this amendment. Nevertheless, I think he was well advised in the latter part of it, and I would like some assurance that within the Bill it may be possible for public authorities to obtain portion of a holding, where it is required for public purposes—for building or otherwise—at a price in conformity with the price fixed by the Bill itself. Perhaps Deputy McGoldrick would explain more fully the purpose of the amendment as originally intended, and that then the Minister would explain why it would not be accepted.
I put this amendment on the Paper on account of my knowledge of conditions in a great many cases around large and small towns with regard to lands like these. I was under the impression that the word "holding" in Sub-section (d) meant that if there was a small holding convenient to a town, or even if there was a holding a considerable distance from a town which might abut upon a road which ran from or to the town, and which could be alleged to have potential building possibilities, that holding thereby became a holding that could not be vested in the occupier by the Land Commission on account of Sub-section (d). I came to the conclusion that some town tenants and a good many other small people in towns who occupied or had a little bit of land convenient to the town by which they supplement their scanty earnings and bring up their family and help themselves in that way, were going to be placed at a disadvantage by this Sub-section. I knew that for the last thirty-five or forty years those people have been the backbone of the land war. It was they who fought, or enabled us, in the North at any rate, to keep up an official organisation of any kind to fight the battle of the farming classes. On that account I did not want to see them ostracised by any section of the Bill and prevented from becoming the vested owners of their little bits of land. That was the specific reason for which the amendment was put down. But the Minister has given me to understand, after a critical consultation, that what is set out in Sub-section (d) does not mean that that portion of a holding which is not regarded as eligible for building purposes is going thereby to be ruled out of court, but that it is going to be purchased and vested the same as if it had not any building possibilities. The other proviso as to land becoming useful and necessary for the development of towns and for local sanitary purposes was meant to be fair to all parties. It should be really the agricultural value of the land to the landlord and the tenant that should be taken into account when local authorities want to obtain land for the development of a town or to improve the sanitary condition of the town. The reason I put down this amendment was to serve these two objects. I am led to believe by the Minister in charge, and I assume that the Land Commission will interpret these things in a fairly friendly spirit, although when the trained judicial mind comes to interpret these things it is generally guided by the literal legislation. Such officials interpret Acts of Parliament very strictly, and if this came before a very conscientious official there is a liability to have the legislation interpreted in a way that was not the intention when it was passed. We must trust to the assurance that is being given. With regard to the second part of the amendment, perhaps we might hope that the new Land Commission, in dealing with such matters, will do so in a spirit that will give satisfaction that was not given in the past.
Deputy Johnson wants to provide that a local authority which already has power to take land compulsorily shall take it at a certain price. That is the only effect of the amendment from his point of view. I find it difficult myself to understand the amendment, but I think that is the point of view that the Deputy put forward. The Bill already provides that building ground shall be excluded, or land suitable for building. That is only right, as any other course would be a grave hindrance to the development of towns. It is only right, and I think will be admitted that land suitable for building should be excluded, that no tenant should be made owner of it, and especially a future tenant, who is, in 75 per cent. out of 100 cases, a big shopkeeper in the town who has taken the land any time for the last 20 years up to the last three or four years and who is merely a future tenant should not become owner in fee-simple. It would be grossly unfair if he did. The only purpose served by this amendment is to ensure that if the local sanitary authority want this land afterwards they shall pay for it the value of the land as agricultural or farming land. I do not want to express any opinion whatever on that subject. This is a Land Purchase Act. It professes to deal with agricultural land, and I think it will be generally admitted that the definition of agricultural land and agricultural tenancy is pretty wide. We deal with all agricultural land except certain specified exceptions which we have put down in writing. We have left nothing in general or vague terms. We deal with all genuine tenants, whether present or future, judicial or nonjudicial. This Bill is to deal with agricultural land. It is to take land from one party and give it to another. Where land is not agricultural it is excluded. If it is building ground, or ground suitable for any other purpose, appropriate legislation directed to dealing with that particular problem will have to be invoked. I could not undertake in this Bill, which is intended to deal with the price of land as agricultural land and to exclude land used for other purposes, to lay down a price at which such land shall be taken later on in the event of its being taken under existing legislation, or in the event of an Act being passed to take it for some other purpose. It would not be a sound principle to act upon. I think we have done our duty in this Purchase Bill by excluding such land. We will have to leave it to the laws regulating the acquisition of property compulsorily by a local authority to say what will be the price paid for it. Where land is taken for building purposes the local authorities do not take, I should say, 25 per cent. It is the private owner who does it. This not only safeguards the local authority, but safeguards the private owner who is going to build, which is a matter of policy and good for the State and good for the towns. I see no way out of that position.
I agree with a good deal that has been stated by the Minister, and I realise that what I am mainly interested in in this amendment is not quite fitting in this Bill. I would like it to have been possible to embody it, but it is not being so embodied. I thought perhaps there was an opportunity of doing so in Deputy McGoldrick's amendment, but in view of the statement made by the Minister I beg leave of the Dáil to withdraw Deputy McGoldrick's amendment.
I have only one thing to say, that before long I will probably have a Bill before the Dáil for the purpose of taking land for building near towns. It will apply not only to landowners, but probably to some of the land of large farmers, and in view of the statements that have been made here we will probably be able to get the land at a very cheap price.
The Minister may not be in office then.
I move Amendment 21: "In Section 22 (4), to delete the word ‘landlord's' and insert in lieu thereof the word ‘owner's.'" The effect of the amendment is that the condition shall apply whether the owner of the particular type of land referred to is the landlord or is not.
I am accepting this amendment. It should be "owner," because it might be an owner who, technically, would not be the landlord.
I move: "In page 9 to add a new paragraph after Section 2 (2) (e), as follows:—
"‘Any glebe, as defined by the Act of 38th and 39th Victoria, Chapter 42, which now is, or hereafter shall be, held or occupied by any "ecclesiastical persons" as by the same Act defined.'"
I think that this particular class of land was probably omitted from the exceptions through an oversight. The reason of it is this. Under the Church Act, when the Church was disestablished, the Representative Church Body was allowed to purchase back from the State a limited quantity of land to be attached to the residence of the person who was called an "Ecclesiastical person." He could be a person or a curate or a dean or a bishop, but a strictly limited amount of land was permitted to be purchased from the State as an attachment to these ecclesiastical residences. Cash was paid to the State for it, and that land is occupied now by persons who hold it under leases, and therefore it is plainly tenanted land under the Act. But the present tenants would be put into perpetual occupation of their holdings and would be compelled to purchase under this Act—these particular ecclesiastical persons who happen to hold this land on lease, from their own ecclesiastical superiors. It is extremely improbable that any of them desire to purchase, and it would be very hard, if any of them desired to give up their present callings and take up farming, that they should be allowed to take up these holdings, subtracting them from the Representative Church Body, which holds them more or less in trust for the whole Church, and to take away whatever ecclesiastical residence there was on the holding. I think that this matter was plainly omitted there and is an oversight, and I suggest that this should be accepted.
I have no objection to the amendment at all, but I would like an explanation of one particular portion of it, which we may have an objection to: "Any glebe which now is or hereafter shall be held." I can follow it up to "which now," but what does "or hereafter shall be" mean?
It will be let as tenanted land to other people. Supposing that the particular person who happened to occupy some glebe land were to die or to resign to-morrow, that land would again be let to his successor, and would then again become tenanted land. There is also some of it which may be untenanted land at present owing to a vacancy, and which will be let, as soon as the vacancy is filled, to the future occupants, and therefore, you see, it is pretty clear that the words "hereafter may be" are necessary. They are also taken from the exceptions in the previous Land Acts, and they cannot apply to any land except glebe land, defined by the Act, 38th and 39th Victoria. That glebe land was defined as the land that was bought by the Church Body from the State at the date of Disestablishment.
If the words are not necessary, I do not think they should be there.
They are necessary.
I accept this amendment. I think it is obvious to the Dáil that these clergymen do not wish to purchase and become farmers. There is no question about it that the amendment should be accepted.
I think it is on this section that I would like to ask for some assurances. It has been put to me that the question of mill holdings is not quite clear, and I am asked to find out—I think it is a reasonable proposition— whether under the Bill the occupiers of mill holdings will have the right to purchase in such cases where they have erected buildings and put in machinery themselves. I think some question on this was raised on the last Reading.
There was.
I am not clear as to what interpretation was given by the Minister.
It is absolutely clear that mill holdings are purchased. Clause (b) excepts “any land which is not at the date of the passing of this Act substantially agricultural or pastoral or partly agricultural and partly pastoral in character.” The usual mill holding is generally bigger than the average-size holding. It was let originally as a mill holding, and at the time it was let milling was a profitable business, and a very large percentage of the profits made out of the whole letting came from the mill, and it was decided that it was not agricultural land. At present milling is not such a good business. Mills are, without any question whatever, agricultural, but they were ruled out by reason of a previous decision, and in order to meet it we simply put in “any land which is not at the date of the passing of the Act.” I think I am perfectly safe in giving the Deputy an undertaking that that will cover the case. Of course, it would not cover a mill which was in a backyard in a town. We assume it is a mill holding in the country.
The case in point is a mill holding which is not more than 1 acre and 12 perches. All the buildings were erected by the present tenants who are the owners of the mill, but although they have been in occupation for 100 years, they are still holding as yearly tenants. They are very anxious to extend a certain local industry, but because of the inability to get any permanence they are precluded. That is one case. I am told it illustrates a considerable number, and the assurance is desired that such holdings may be bought under this Bill, even though they are quite small.
Is the holding in question in a town?
Oh, no; a country holding.
Well, of course, I would not like to give the Deputy a decision offhand, without knowing all the circumstances.
I can quite see that.
But I do know we have ensured that any holding which is even partly agricultural and partly pastoral shall be purchased. We cannot do any more than that, but I think it will cover all the cases of mill holdings that I know.
I think I raised this question of these holdings when the Bill was previously in Committee, and the case I have in mind is not situated near a town. It is probably analogous to the case that Deputy Johnson mentions. If I may, I wish to make a little protest against the Press. It may be due to the bad acoustie properties of this building, but they gave me as saying "milk holdings" instead of "mill holdings." Whatever the Press meant by that I do not know.
Motion made and question put: "That Section 22, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
SECTIONS 26 & 27.
I move: "In Section 26 (2) after the word ‘holding' to insert the words ‘and the additional annuity (if any) in respect of compounded arrears of rent added to the purchase money.'" That amendment is consequential on the amendment that has already been accepted, and is intended to cover cases in which the tenant, instead of paying his arrears in cash, has them added to the purchase money.
I move: "In Section 27 (4), line 23, after the word ‘holding' to insert the words ‘and the additional annuity (if any) in respect of compounded arrears of rent added to the purchase money.'" That is identical with Amendment 33.
"To insert after Section 29 (1) (g), line 29, a new paragraph as follows:—
‘Where the farm of an evicted tenant is in the landlord's possession such evicted tenant should be restored to his own holding, and also where bona fide evicted tenants’ land is in the possession of grabbers who never paid compensation for such holdings, the evicted tenants should be restored to these holdings.' ”
I got this amendment from Deputy Doyle at the last moment. It could not be moved, of course, in the form in which it stands. It would have to be changed if it were to have any force. The word "grabbers," I think, would have to be changed to "persons." I do not know whether the matter is not in itself too vague for any reference in an Act of Parliament, but I will let Deputy Doyle explain himself.
My object in moving this is where a farm is in the landlord's possession unlet, that the bona fide evicted tenant should, in every case, be restored to his own holding. I think the object is quite plain, that where a landlord has evicted a tenant some years ago for non-payment of rent and he still holds that tenant's holding on his own hands, and it is there to be disposed of under the several provisions in the Bill, I do not see any reason why the original owner should not be restored. I know many cases such as I am talking about, where the original holding is in the hands of the landlord, and where if a provision was inserted in the Bill to get back that holding, it would be only a slight concession in the Bill in favour of evicted tenants. The bona fide evicted tenant's holding is in the possession of persons who never paid any compensation to that original evicted tenant or paid anything for the holding. Perhaps it might be five, six or ten years in his possession, and it is still in his possession, and he has had a few fat years out of it. I do not think it would be any hardship to disturb such a man. It was persons such as these grabbing farms who created the land-war, and I do not think they are entitled to any consideration whatever under the Bill. I have, therefore, pleasure in moving the motion.
It will have to be considerably altered before it could be possibly moved, even to get that particular purpose Deputy Doyle speaks of
Provided the Minister accepts the amendment, Deputy Doyle is quite satisfied to have whatever phraseology the Minister suggests.
The purpose Deputy Doyle speaks of could be presumably accomplished, I take it.
Except it would be inconsistent with the previous provisions of the Bill it could be accomplished.
Would it be inconsistent with things already passed if inserted here?
Only to this extent; it suggests that the man should be put back in his original holding, but we may be taking that land for the relief of congestion. In the Bill land can be taken compulsorily for the relief of congestion, and there is priority for that purpose; we might be taking that land for the relief of congestion, taking it compulsorily, and it must be made clear whether it is the evicted tenants' claim or the congests' claim is the first to that land.
On a point of order, I do not think that any congest would have a claim to such land. I think the original tenant should be replaced.
I want to get the amendment worded so that if it passes it would accomplish something, and even if rejected it would be taken as trying to accomplish something.
Supposing we word it this way:—
"Where the farm of an evicted tenant is in the landlord's possession such evicted tenant shall be restored to his own holding, and also where bona fide evicted tenants' land is in the possession of persons who never paid compensation to the evicted tenant for such holdings, the evicted tenants shall be restored to these holdings.”
That would make the meaning clear.
I am satisfied.
Would the Minister accept the principle outside congested districts?
I desire to support this amendment, even though in my opinion it does not go far enough. I think, still, notwithstanding the arguments that were put forward against the case for evicted tenants, that those who were evicted from their lands for non-payment of rent when the land fight was on, have the best right to the land they were evicted from. In many of these cases, as is well known, where tenants were evicted from their holdings, the land from which they were evicted was held for centuries by their people. Now, if the opportunity is there for us to do it, the persons who are best entitled to any of that land are the persons who were evicted from it. They have, I submit, a prior claim, even to the congests, for in their own view, and the general view of the country and of the farming community, they are the persons who have the best title to the farm. In other words, they were the owners. I think that principle ought to be admitted that they have the first claim as they were the original owners of the ground, and they were disturbed owing to the laws that operated at that time, and owing to the rack-rents they had to pay, and to the general system of landlordism. If there is any justice in the case these are the persons who should be put back into their own holdings. Deputy Doyle's amendment only deals with a certain number of those cases where the land is still held by the landlord, but there are other cases, and the Minister has not accepted the principle of putting any of the evicted tenants back on them. This is only a small portion of the matter, but in these particular cases where there will be practically no disturbance he should accept the principle that the persons who were evicted from their farms owing to the landlords of the past and various other causes should be restored to their holdings. These cases could be inquired into by the Land Commission, and their claims met in justice.
I think there is everything in the amendment, especially with the altered wording, that should commend it to the Minister and the Deputies. When speaking the other day on the Flogging Bill, or the Public Safety Bill, the Minister for Home Affairs said he was making a law to meet confiscation with confiscation. I think everybody will agree that the cases of many of the tenants who have been evicted from their holdings were nothing short of confiscation, so that the argument used by the Minister for Home Affairs on that occasion could be applied by the Minister for Agriculture in these cases. I have received communications from evicted tenants, and I will trouble the Dáil by reading an extract from one which I think is provided for under the terms of the amendment, if accepted by the Minister. This is from a man who I believe is a member of Deputy Gorey's union, and in whom in the ordinary course of events I would not be interested, as I do not know the man personally:—
"Our families were evicted (but prior to '80). I remember the eviction myself, from over 200 acres. Firstly, the rent was raised as the then landlord thought my father would not pay the rise, and when he paid the rise of rent at November he was then ordered to leave as the landlord wanted it for himself, and on the 15th of the following month, December, he was on the road without owing even one penny rent, and no compensation whatever, and about the same time my father's father, and brothers, were evicted from another farm after building every house on the place from the ground, roofing and slating; they are there to be seen still within about 12 miles from—— not owing one penny rent, nor never got any compensation."
I think the Minister, even in his wild moments, would admit that is a reasonable case that should be provided for under the terms of this Bill. I just quoted an extract from a letter to show that it is one of the cases that should be met under the terms of the amendment moved by Deputy Doyle. There may be, and I am sure there are, many other such cases. The evicted tenants who have been looking forward to justice under the first Irish Land Bill, will be glad, I am sure, to hear from the Minister that he will make provision for cases of this kind.
As the Deputy has said, in my wild moments I might accept the amendment, but in my sane moments I would not think of doing that. There has been some change of words in the amendment, but as it stands we know the meaning of it. There were more evictions in the congested districts than in any other place in Ireland. We know there were far more. At the present moment, as everyone who takes a real interest in land purchase knows, our difficulty is to find land in the congested districts to relieve congestion. We find thousands of holdings on cut-away bog all over Mayo and Leitrim and every other county which has its congested districts, without any land in the neighbourhood to make them economic, except a certain limited amount of untenanted land. It would be very difficult to get the people to migrate. You can only pick and choose when you are migrating. You have no way in which to deal with the greater number, except to find land in the neighbourhood or the adjoining county. Will anyone suggest that a man living on a holding with a £3 or £4 valuation, who is trying to rear a family and to support his wife and that family, has not a prior claim in equity and justice to anyone else in the neighbourhood? I am surprised at Deputy Davin making such a suggestion.
I quoted an extract from a letter for the purpose of proving that the person who lost a holding has the first right. It is not a case of a person with 200 acres. There are many cases of people with very small holdings.
I understood the Deputy supported the amendment. I am pointing out that under the amendment as it stands the suggestion is that if there were no other land than 200 acres of land in the hands of a landlord, and a farmer had been evicted out of that 30 or 40 years ago, we are to bring back that person now instead of dealing with the congestion that exists in the district. How anyone in his saner moments, not to speak of his wilder moments, could make a proposal of that sort, beats me. That is one aspect of the matter. To take the other aspect, does the Deputy suggest that the man evicted from two or three hundred acres should be put back upon that holding now?
I do not know of any two or three hundred acre holding from which a person was evicted.
I know of such cases, and I think Deputy Davin knows them too.
I know of none. I know of no places where persons were evicted from three, two or even one hundred acre holdings.
Deputies put down amendments having certain specified cases in their minds, and they are utterly oblivious to the fact that the amendments cover cases for which they were not intended. I know, and Deputy Davin knows, of cases of men evicted from two or three hundred acre holdings. Such cases occurred at Leix. It is suggested that those people are to be put back on their holdings, not withstanding that the whole policy of the Bill is to take any land, even tenanted land if we want it, for the purpose of relieving congestion. If these men were never evicted we might be taking the holdings off them under this Bill. These are the practical difficulties against this amendment. First we would be putting tenants back into the only untenanted land available for the relief of congestion; secondly we would be putting them back into holdings of two or three hundred acres. That is what would happen under the amendment. We never intended to, and we never could, right all the wrongs done under the aegis of English rule for the last 30 or 40 years. It could not be done and the Deputies know it. If farmers are entitled to have righted all the wrongs that they suffered, then the same would apply to other sections of the community. I admit there is a special case with regard to evicted tenants, and we will go a certain distance to meet it. We have provided that tenants evicted since 1878 should be dealt with, and where there is land available, an evicted tenant who does not come under those provisions will be considered as a suitable person. That is doing more for the farming class than is done for any other class, shopkeepers, labourers, or any others. Now it is suggested that because they or their fathers suffered under English rule, we are to right every such case at the expense of the State. That is the issue. Now as regards evicted tenants, I met a few deputations.
Those evicted tenants put forward the suggestion that was put forward to-day in this amendment, and the suggestion put forward by Deputy de Roiste. One was that any man who had left his holding for any reason whatever whether ejected by the landlord or sold out in any other way should be regarded as an evicted tenant. That is to say if a man were too dishonest to pay for his tea and sugar and was sold out by his creditors that that man was to get a holding at the expense of the State. He was to be regarded as a patriot, a wounded soldier of the Land War. Another suggestion was made. An amendment was produced, and it was to the effect that any evicted tenant whatsoever should be brought in. He deleted the words "twenty-five years, before the Act of 1903," and substituted "heretofore.""Heretofore" was to be inserted to provide that people could go back to the time of Brian Boru. In addition, if any evicted tenant or his representative preferred to take the money to getting the holding that he or they should be paid the money. This would have meant that the Bill would cost about one thousand millions, of which five hundred millions would go to New York and Chicago. I met recently a body of evicted tenants and they put forward these suggestions (1) that they are to go back as far as they liked; (2) that anyone who was ejected from his holding for any reason, should be regarded as an evicted tenant, whether he lost the land as a result of being evicted by the landlord, or that the farm was sold out by creditors or anybody else; (3) that they should get back into their full original holdings. The man who put forward the points I have just mentioned, when questioned by me, admitted to me that he was evicted out of his holding, that there was a certain sum due under a family settlement. He refused to pay this money, and as a result of his refusal his relations took action against him and on his refusal to pay he was finally sold out. The next case was the case of a man who told me that his grandfather had lost something like 300 acres and that he wanted that back. I asked him "did you apply under the 1903 Act"? and he said "I did—my father did." I asked him if he got a holding. He said he did. I asked him "where is it"? and he said "We sold it." The fact is that 50 per cent. of the reinstated tenants under the Act of 1903 have sold their holdings. Everyone knows it. We can do no more for the evicted tenants than we are doing, and we could not accept the amendment.
The Minister has told us of his experiences about evicted tenants. I am not asking one-eighth of that. I am only asking what comes under the twenty-five years. If the Minister is so fond of the congests I leave him the congests and ask him to apply the amendment to the outside districts. I leave him the congests as they are. I do not believe you will have a single application for any 300 acres or 200 acres, or even for 100 acres.
Deputy Davin will probably be giving some information on these points.
The Minister told us a lot that we did not want at all.
The Minister places an exaggrated interpretation on the points and misrepresents the case that I quoted. I read an extract from a letter where an individual was evicted from 200 acres of land, and I did not say what land it was, or in whose possession it is at the present time.
I did not accuse the Deputy of advocating a policy of giving anyone 200 acres at the expense of the State's credit, but I pointed out that that was the effect of the amendment.
That is quite correct.
The Deputy who moved the amendment had so much confidence in the Minister that he was prepared to leave the wording of the amendment to the Minister himself, if he accepted the principle of it. I quite agree that the word "grabbers" as it was in the original amendment is not Parliamentary and would not in any circumstances be accepted by the Minister. Therefore, that is one reason why Deputy Doyle was going to trust the Minister to re-draft the Clause. However, the Minister has placed a good deal of stress upon the position of people in the congested districts. I put it to him that the evicted tenant or representative of the evicted tenant who has a just claim is in a far worse position than the people in the congested area, and that is the real case I put up to him to make provision for such men as I have cited. There are many others I know who were tenants and who have been evicted during a certain period. That is the reason why I ask the Minister to accept the amendment moved by Deputy Doyle.
The Deputy says that the representatives of the evicted tenants are in a worse plight than the congests living in the congested areas. That is probably because he does not come from the congested areas and does not know anything about their privations. Anyone who knows anything about the question knows that that is not so. With regard to the suggestion to apply the amendment outside the congested areas, I cannot do it. There is congestion outside the congested district areas and there would be plenty of cases cropping up. If the evicted tenant gets State credit and an equivalent holding, he is well done for.
If the Minister does not accept this amendment I think he has not much sympathy with the evicted tenant. I hope he does not accuse me of doing this for electioneering purposes.
I have never accused him of any such thing. I have not a terrible lot of sympathy with a lot of evicted tenants.
I think Deputy Doyle means the bona fide evicted tenant. We do not mean men who have not a bona fide status. He means where bona fide land is in possession of grabbers.
That is dropped.
I do not know whether it is or not. It was a good word that everybody understood and attached a certain meaning to.
I do not object to it.
Anybody who had any sympathy with the grabber in this country was never any good and I do not think that he is any good in any country. If there is any sympathy or fair play for evicted tenants, as there was under previous Acts, they would be restored as far as possible in their own holdings. The whole case has not been met. Land could not be found for them before, but now you are finding land for them. I know the Minister's difficulty in congested areas, and in fact it would not be fair to press him on that matter. The evicted tenants are on a different plane from the congests, because these people have had property taken from them through no fault of their own. It was taken because of a certain system and because of the stand they took. I think the genuine evicted tenant ought to be put back, as far as possible, on his own land, whether it is in the hands of the landlord or grabber. This is nothing new to us under the English Acts—to see grabbers taken from the land they grabbed and the original owner planted on that land. Men were taken from county Wexford and put on land in my own county. I do not see why this Government should not do the same. It is only copying from previous Governments, and they did it.
I think one thing is forgotten by the mover of this amendment. If this amendment were strictly adhered to it would put men back on congested and uneconomic holdings. Would that be an indication of sympathy with the evicted tenant? Would it not be better to put him on an economic holding somewhere else? That, I take it, is the procedure which the Minister hopes will be eventually carried out. I think it is unfair to charge him with lack of sympathy towards the evicted tenants.
I did not charge him with that.
No, but it has been implied. If the problems that this Bill purposes to be a solution of are to be met in some sane, effective fashion there will have to be some procedure to find the best economic methods of dealing with them. As was indicated by the Minister at a previous sitting, his procedure was, after the land had been vested, to deal then with the question of congests and after that with the evicted tenants, in so far as can be done. Also an amendment to Section 29 was put in which indicated that the claims of persons to special treatment could go beyond the year indicated in sub-section (c) of Section 29. It is simply a question of dealing with this matter in a business-like manner and doing justice to all, but obviously if this amendment were carried into effect it would be a stumbling block to the securing of that objective.
The frequent reference to the justification of the word "grabber" is rather interesting. I think probably if those who attempt to justify the use of it are right in this, they would be prepared to substitute the word "scab" or "blackleg." It has the same meaning that Deputy Gorey holds in regard to the grabber which other sections of the community hold in regard to the scab or blackleg. I want to ask the Minister— I think this may help to make more harmony on this question—whether the alphabetical order of persons to whom advances may be made under this Section is intended to indicate the order of preference, and is the unit of consideration to be the whole country or to be the estates? For instance, are we to consider that the first persons to be considered through the whole of the area are congests, and only after all the congests have been made holders of economic holdings will the persons under paragraph (c) be considered, and so on? Is the order of preference to be followed by the Land Commission to be in districts? Is the same order to be followed in certain districts or will the people who come under the letter A in one county not be transferred to another county; or will the people who come under (d) in one county have to wait until all the A's throughout the country are fixed in holdings? I think, if that is not the interpretation, there is general agreement. Even Deputy Doyle, I think, has conceded the point that congests ought to be first considered, but, having done that in general and having dealt with those under B, surely it is not to be refused that where it is possible, where there is an evicted tenant to be reinstated or to be given a holding, he should be given a holding on the estate, at any rate, or in the holding where it is possible he was evicted from? You may be evicting the present tenant, but I do not think it would apply universally at all. Personally I would say that some fitness for the job would have to be taken into account, but preference should certainly be given to the evicted tenant for reinstatement in the place he was evicted from, if that place were available. If there can be arrangements made of any kind, even with compulsory eviction of the present tenant if that tenant is not doing full value to the holding, the evicted person ought to be put back into that holding. The claim for the reinstatement into the tenant's old holding is a good one. Where it is possible without doing greater injustice it ought to be conceded, and I would ask the Minister for Agriculture to consult with the Minister for Home Affairs, and to consider whether something in the nature of the Tenants Rent Act, about the greater injustice or the greater hardship, might not be possible in this respect.
With regard to the first point it is stated that congests have the first claim, and that is right. The Land Commission must be sure that they have enough of land to relieve congestion before they give land to anybody else. Immediately congests are dealt with then the other parties come in and there is no particular order of priority. It would vary in every estate according to the special circumstances of each case. A labourer might get a holding as a landless man before an evicted tenant and vice versa on other estates. There is no priority whatever. That meets the first point.
With regard to the second point we could not, of course, put back an evicted tenant on a holding of 100 or 200 acres of land. We could not do it. It is never done and I take it the Dáil does not wish it to be done. Secondly we would not put back the tenant on a congested holding. That also would be the effect of the amendment as it stands. Thirdly, we would not put a tenant back on a holding whether it was inside or outside congested districts if the particular holding was vacant and needed for the relief of congestion, because if the tenant himself were there we might be taking it from him. Deputies must remember where any land exists for the relief of congestion we are to take it. For those three reasons we could not accept that amendment as it stands. It would compel us to do three things which I do not think the Dáil or the Deputy making the suggestion thinks ought to be done. That is No. 1. With regard to the grabber, I know just as much as anyone about him. There have been more evictions in the County Galway than any other county. I know it. There was probably more land law made there than anywhere else. You would have cases like this where a man has been evicted 30 or 40 years ago, and a man came in and took his land. His grandson might be there now with his family and it would be a grave the hardship to make him suffer for his grandfather. I make a present to any Deputies of that argument.
The grabbers breed very rapidly.
I make another point. There were evicted tenants, sons and grandsons in the various counties—not in Kilkenny who were amongst the very best men in the Irish Volunteers during the last war.
Not in Kilkenny.
Not in Galway or Leix.
No. I would like there would be more people like that bred. Before I go from those general statements it would be a grave hardship in a great many cases to put out a man like that, a man whose grandfather had taken the holding under circumstances which we cannot picture now. There have been cases of genuine grabbing where holdings have been taken under shocking circumstances, but other cases which are rather on the border line we must examine. However, when you are talking about the land question for any reason except business purposes you talk about grabbers. Anyone knows that the twelve Apostles would evict some percentage of the tenants. I do not expect Deputy Gorey will admit that but I am in a position to admit it. Every responsible person knows that there is a small percentage St. Peter would evict. What would happen? A very large percentage of the evicted tenants reinstated in 1903 sold their holdings. You would have a case where a man was evicted 30 or 40 years ago and someone took his holding in circumstances more or less deplorable, and his grandson may be there now. He may be a married man with a family and perhaps as good an Irishman as the next. He would be put out and the evicted tenant brought back from New York and put in. He would probably sell the holding after a while—there have been plenty of cases of that sort—he would sell the holding immediately, and, one of the neighbours of the tenant ejected would buy it, and you would have the unfortunate man bred, born and reared there, in some other holding in the neighbourhood, looking out at his holding which is now not in the hands of the evicted tenant but of some other person who had never any claim upon it. It would be grossly unfair and unjust, and I for one see no case for it. I will not have the amendment at any cost.
I move that we now report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
Agreed.
