If there is no objection I would move for permission to introduce the Damage to Property (Amendment) Bill, 1923, so as to leave the road clear. It is a Bill to amend and extend the Damage to Property Compensation Act of 1923. It will be within the recollection of the Dáil that the date which was fixed determining the liability of the State in respect of the Damage to Property Act was the 20th March, 1923. Some objection was made at that time by certain Deputies, and I think by one County Council, as to limiting the date to the 20th March. There has not been very much damage done, relatively speaking, since the 20th March, but a case was put up by more than one Deputy that it should be extended to the 31st March, and some suggested a still later date. It is generally the view that it is scarcely fair to charge a local authority in the area of whose jurisdiction damage has been done from that date until things became normal with the cost which is generally accepted as a national liability. It is proposed to insert the date the 12th May in the Amending Bill. I do not think it is likely that any case will be made against that particular date. It was suggested here on the last day that we might make it the 20th April. Altering the date to the passing of the Damage to Property Act at least has this advantage; it was certainly a much more normal time, and it is a generous acceptation of the case put forward. I formally move for leave to bring in the Bill.
DAMAGE TO PROPERTY (AMENDMENT) BILL, 1923.
I beg to second.
On behalf of the farming element, and of the ratepayers in general, I may say that we quite agree that there was no case at all for fixing such an arbitrary date as the 20th March. As events have turned out, it was found necessary that the date should be advanced. I am very pleased to see that the Minister for Finance has advanced the date to the 20th May. We have to pay the taxes and the rates, and it will be easier for us to pay in taxes for damage rather than to pay in rates. On that account we appreciate very much the Minister's efforts to relieve us. We hope there will not be occasion to further advance that date.
I would like to remind the Deputy that it would scarcely have been good politics or good business to have put down a future date. The 20th March was the date of the final reading of the measure, and it could scarcely have been within the competence of the Minister for Finance to contemplate further damage being done.
If the Dáil is agreeable I would be prepared to take the second and remaining stages after No. 2 on the Order Paper has been disposed of.
Second Reading ordered for a later hour same day.