I move that leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled An Act to remove doubts as to the liability of the Guarantee Fund under the Land Purchase Acts for recoupment of deficiencies in the Purchase Annuities Fund, and to define such liability and provide for certain matters relating thereto.
Land Purchase (Guarantee Fund) Bill, 1935—First Stage.
Minister for Finance
We propose to oppose the First Reading of this Bill and, therefore, I suggest the Minister should give us some information as to the nature of its contents.
If you are going to oppose it will you tell us what it is about?
Does the Minister decline to give information as to the contents of the Bill?
Why are you opposing it if you do not understand it?
Let Deputy Davin keep out of this for a minute or two and he will here all about it.
When the First Reading of a Bill is opposed, the usual procedure is that the Minister or the Deputy advocating it makes a brief statement and one brief statement is allowed in reply.
The purpose of the Bill is fully set out in the title. It is a Bill entitled an Act to remove doubts as to the liability of the Guarantee Fund under the Land Purchase Acts for recoupment of deficiencies in the Purchase Annuities Fund, and to define such liability and provide for certain matters relating thereto. I do not think there is anything I could say in amplification of that which would help the House beyond this, that the doubts which may exist are not, in our opinion, valid but, nevertheless, from the point of view of public credit, it is essential that they should be removed at the earliest possible moment.
Leave it in the courts.
The action which the Government contemplates in introducing this Bill has no precedent since the foundation of this State, and it is further evidence of the mentality that is spreading throughout the Government Party at the present time. We had a case a couple of days ago in which it was our duty to draw attention to the fact that the Minister for Industry and Commerce had set himself up as judge, jury and jailer of an individual citizen through what was, in our submission, a gross misuse of the Revenue Commissioners. To-day we have a proposal from the Minister for Finance, not only to supplant the courts, but to defy the courts and deliberately to set them aside and render nugatory proceedings which are at present engaging the attention of the courts. We have the Minister for Finance, under the protection of this House, doing something which, I have no hesitation in saying, would involve any private citizen in proceedings for contempt of court and imprisonment until he had purged that contempt.
The history of the matter is shortly this. The local authorities in different parts of the country came to the conclusion that the attempt of the Government to withhold parts of the Agricultural grant wherewith to recoup the Land Bond Fund or the Guarantee Fund was illegal. They took that view on grounds which I will shortly elaborate. In defence of that view they started proceedings in the courts to get a declaration that such conduct was illegal. After the proceedings had been brought within the jurisdiction of the courts, and proceedings are well under way, the Government intervened to say whatever the legal rights of the local authorities are at this moment, they would take such legislative steps as may be necessary to rob them of these rights and render the legal proceedings nugatory. There is no precedent for that in the legislation of this country, and it is something against which we propose vehemently to protest.
On the merits, this Bill is designed to facilitate the Government in collecting from the local authorities and the rates such sums of money as they themselves are unable to collect from the land annuities. While the land annuities did constitute payments in respect of principal and interest on the purchase price of the farms, the system whereby the Guarantee Fund was recouped was unobjectionable; but since the land annuities have been turned into revenue, as they have been by the Land Act of 1933, there is no defence for the Government requiring the local authorities to collect revenue for the Central Exchequer, and that is what this amounts to.
When this matter came before the local authorities last year and the rates were being struck, every council in the country protested against this; every council on which there was a Fianna Fáil majority and a Fianna Fáil chairman pointed out that the thing was wholly inequitable and they protested against it emphatically. One council of which I have personal experience, which has a Fianna Fáil majority and a Fianna Fáil chairman, refused to make any provision to meet the deficit that will arise from the deductions that were made by the Government last year and which they intend to make under the Bill they are introducing now; with the result that when the rates were struck last year there was a sum of over £500,000 unprovided in respect of such deduction as the Minister intended to make in this Bill when he came to introduce it. At the end of this year we may look forward to a sum, at least as great, and to that must be added £100,000 which the Minister for Finance deducted from the Agricultural Grant in the Estimate he introduced some days ago. So if this Bill passes, at the end of the financial year, we shall have a deficit of £1,100,000 for which no provision of any kind is made.
The consequences of this Bill will be two-fold: First, a precedent will be set up, in this State, which lays it down that any persons going into court to assert their rights against the Government, will have these rights taken away from them by ad hoc legislation introduced while the case is going on. That is a disastrous and shocking precedent to establish. The second consequence will be that the local authorities are going to be turned into a revenue collecting system for the Central Government; and if they fail to achieve the purpose the Government has in mind, in getting in revenue for the Government, they will be allowed to go into bankruptey, with disastrous results to the social services of the country. These are quite adequate grounds upon which to urge the House to the immediate rejection of the Bill, and accordingly we oppose its introduction.
I wish to ask——
There can only be one speech on each side on this occasion.
I do not intend to make a speech; I only want to ask for information. I understood it was the practice of this House that when any matter was before the courts, and while proceedings were going on, no reference could be made to it in this House. On the motion, No. 14, on the Order Paper, I understood you had already ruled that that motion could not be discussed until disposed of in the courts. I want your ruling on this matter.
The motion to which the Deputy refers is quite a different matter. This is a Bill; and the Legislature is entitled to introduce such measures as it thinks desirable. The Legislature is surely entitled to do that. I am putting the question:—
"That leave be granted to introduce the Bill."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 47; Níl, 29.
Tá.
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- de Valera, Eamon.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Flinn, Hugo V.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Kissane, Eamonn.
- Little, Patrick John.
- McEllistrim, Thomas
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Walsh, Richard.
Níl.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Bourke, Séamus.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Burke, James Michael.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Dolan, James Nicholas.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Sir Osmond Grattan.
- Finlay, John.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Good, John.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Keating, John.
- Kent, William Rice.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGuire, James Ivan.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Morrisroe, James.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Nally, Martin.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Reidy, James.
- Rowlette, Robert James.
- Thrift, William Edward.
Tellers:—Tá, Deputies Little and Smith; Níl, Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Ordered, that the Second Stage be taken Wednesday, 4th December, 1935.
Question declared carried. Bill read the First Time.