asked the Minister for Local Government and Public Health whether he is aware that two occupiers of cottages provided by the Irish Sailors and Soldiers' Land Trust at Seafort Gardens, Sandymount, for disabled ex-Servicemen were recently summoned by the rate collector for sums amounting, with costs, to £7 13s. 6d. and threatened with seizure of their goods by the sheriff unless an immediate payment of the full sum was made, and whether his attention has been called to the fact that the whole of these unpaid rates were due by the preceding occupiers of the cottages and not by the present tenants, who had no knowledge whatever of the debt stated to be due, and if he can state whether any effort had been made to recover the unpaid rates from the previous tenants before the cottages were vacated, and whether he proposes to introduce legislation to prevent present tenants from being mulcted for debts wholly due by their predecessors.
CEISTEANNA—QUESTIONS. ORAL ANSWERS. - RATES ON SANDYMOUNT COTTAGES.
The facts of this case have been brought to my notice. The rates due are poor rate, for which, in case of non-payment, the subsequent occupier is liable under statute. It is not proposed to alter the existing law, which has been in force since 1849. The Trust would have been well advised to have made the usual inquiries as to whether the rates had been paid before the new tenancies were created.
Will the Minister answer the portion of the question as to whether any efforts have been made to recover the unpaid rates from the previous tenants?
The usual efforts have been made.