The Minister was in possession when progress was reported on the last occasion.
Public Business. - Labourers Bill, 1935—Committee (Resumed).
Debate resumed on amendment No. 11:
Before Section 17 to insert the following new section:—
(1) When there is due in respect of rent arising out of the occupation of a cottage a sum exceeding the amount of the weekly rent of such cottage multiplied by thirty and the Board of Health considers it expedient to include in a purchase scheme any cottage which if no rent were due by the tenant of such cottage would be so included it shall be lawful for the Board of Health at their discretion to do either of the things following, that is to say:—
(a) remit the amount of the rent due, or
(b) provide in the purchase scheme that the amount of the rent due shall be deemed to be a sum due in respect of the annuity payable in respect of such cottage.
(2) Whenever a board of health determines in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (b) of the immediately preceding sub-section of this section to regard as a sum due in respect of the annuity payable in respect of a cottage the rent due arising out of the tenancy of such cottage the said sum shall be payable as part of the annuity in equal weekly amounts spread over the whole period during which such annuity is to be paid—(Deputies T. J. Murphy and D. Morrissey).
I had finished speaking. I said I would give consideration to that part of the amendment which dealt with funding.
Then I withdraw the amendment.
Mr. P. Hogan (Clare):
Before the amendment is withdrawn, there are some considerations I should like to put to the Minister with reference to what he described as qualms of conscience regarding the morals of the question. Certain references were made to my county in regard to arrears of cottage rents, and it is only right that the position should be put as to how these arrears accrued. It may be accepted, or it may be denied, that for some years past, in fact a good few years past, there was an idea abroad that any money likely to find its way into the coffers of the British Government should not be paid. Acting upon that a certain number of people did not pay their cottage rents. I know that that was the attitude adopted by a great many people in my county, and I know it was the attitude adopted by other people besides cottage tenants. I know that other arrears of rent accrued and that there were no great qualms on the part of those who forgave three years' rent to other people and funded the remainder.
I think there is no reason why there should be differentiation between the cottage tenants and those other people. There should be no such difference. Collateral with the list that the Minister gave us of those people who have not paid rents for their cottages in various counties, I think the Minister ought to have given us an estimate of what it would cost to put those cottages into repair. There is a difference between the boards of health and the cottiers in arrears, because the boards of health refuse to put the cottages into a proper state of repair, and the tenants refuse to pay their rents in consequence. I think they are justified. There is a kind of see-saw going on as to who is responsible in this matter. The Minister must be aware of that when he issued a letter in my county pointing out that the repairs were not at all what they should be. For instance, one tenant had to bring the board of health into court, and I think 15 guineas was the amount of damages awarded in that particular case. The Minister says he has qualms of conscience about giving these tenants special consideration. But before cutting them out entirely, and before concluding that they are not entitled to consideration, he should consider fully where the responsibility lies for all that propaganda, and also whether responsibility does not lie on the boards of health for allowing these cottages to get into such a state of disrepair. The surveyor in my county pointed out to the board of health the amount it would cost to put these cottages into a proper state of repair, and the result was that he simply amazed the board of health. On these grounds I put it to the Minister that he should reconsider his attitude on this matter. The Minister ought not to consider that it is the cottiers who are responsible for the present condition of things, but rather, in many instances, that it is the board of health themselves that are responsible.
I quite agree with the last speaker that a precedent was set in the case of the farmers getting arrears over three years remitted. I voted against the farmers getting any remission. I am opposed to anybody who has contracted an obligation to purchase, for ownership or otherwise, having a right to break away from his contract. It is creating a precedent that as time goes on will know no end. I think it was one of the greatest blunders of the present Government to have remitted annuities under the Land Act of 1933. There might be something to be said for funding, but more could be said for total remission in the conditions then and still obtaining.
Deputy Hogan talked about arrears in Clare, and argued that there should be remission. If there is such remission, is that remission to come out of Clare funds or national funds? If it is to come out of national funds, then every other county with no such high percentage of arrears as exist in Clare is going to resent it, because the taxation to make up the amount due by people in Clare who have not paid their rents will not be voted by the people of Clare and will have to be paid by Dublin and other countries who have already paid their rents and rates.
Mr. Hogan
What about the remission to the farmers?
I opposed that remission, and the Deputy supported it.
Mr. Hogan
I am still consistent.
Yes, but I am not much concerned about consistency in that matter. The Deputy voted to have the remission given to the farmers. I think a better case could be made for the labourers than for the farmers. As the matter now stands, other counties who have paid their way will object, and rightly object, to whatever remission or easement in the matter is given to counties that have not paid. With regard to putting the cottages into proper repair, I think there is an obligation in this Bill that before they are taken over by the tenants, under a scheme of purchase, the local bodies have to put them into a proper state of repair. I suppose the local bodies will see that a proper standard of repair will be fixed and that it will be an obligation on the part of the boards of health to hand over these cottages in good condition.
Deputy Hogan referred to part of these arrears having occurred when there was actual reluctance on the part of the people to pay money to the British Government. Do I understand from Deputy Hogan that part of the arrears at present outstanding on cottages in Clare arose in the time of the struggle between the Sinn Fein Government and the British Government? If that is so, it reflects very gravely on the local authorities in Clare. Surely a position of that kind should have been cleared up between the tenants and the landlord in the interval. I think what Deputy Belton said about writing off arrears requires qualification. There was no greater evil in the old landlord and tenant days than the "hanging gale." I think there should be a fixed period beyond which owners of property need not tolerate the continuance of arrears. I suggest that if a person gets into arrear for a protracted period, either the tenancy should be terminated or the landlord should make up his mind that after a certain time he would not be able to recover more than a fixed sum. I think the ordinary practice is that no one should recover more than six years' arrears.
The State and the local authorities must make up their mind that they have got to reach finality with their tenants some time. I think that that ought to be done now. Otherwise, this business of arrears will persecute and complicate the local administration indefinitely. The Minister ought to notify the local authorities that he will not permit them to collect an arrear in excess of six years and, in order to give this scheme a good start, he should recommend the funding of six years arrears and then a definite fixing of a rent within the capacity of the tenant to pay, with a proviso that where tenants of municipal houses meet with unavoidable reverses, such as unemployment, they will be exonerated from the payment of rent.
Has the Deputy ever been a member of a board of health?
I am a member at present. Let us explain what happens. We set a cottage to a man with a wife and seven children. That man is earning a modest income and pays his rent regularly. He falls ill, or becomes unemployed, which may be even worse. He has no income and he cannot get work. The relieving officer comes to us and tells us that this man is in need of outdoor assistance. We examine into the circumstances of his family and we satisfy ourselves that the case is a genuine one and that the family require outdoor assistance. Ten minutes later, the rent collector comes before us and asks for authority to evict that man because he cannot pay his rent. We have just decided that that man, with his wife and family, are threatened with starvation, through no fault of their own. Our invariable reply to the rent collector in a case where a man is genuinely suffering from an affliction for which he is not himself responsible is that we are not going to put him out on the road and that we will allow arrears of rent to accrue. That is merely pulling the wool over our eyes because it is highly unlikely that a man with family commitments of that kind will ever be able to catch up with the rent arrears. We ought to have power— this I admit would require a carefully devised scheme in order to avoid abuse——
That is the trouble. Put up a scheme.
There is such a scheme operating in part of Cork County at present. Particulars of that scheme are to be circulated. We say that we will not allow arrears to accrue but we do because we know we cannot collect the rent. In that way, we get ourselves into a ridiculous position. We have a pile of arrears which nobody is able to collect and which nobody wants to collect because there is no moral justification for collecting them. We have no proper authority for pursuing the course we all recognise that circumstances sometimes compel us to pursue. I should sooner face that and make provision for giving people a right to continue their tenancy without paying rent in circumstances of adversity. We should require, however, in those circumstances, a much more stringent attitude on the part of local authorities in regard to persons who are able to pay their rent and simply will not. For that, you would want the support of public opinion. I should not hesitate to ask for the support of public opinion in evicting ruthlessly undeserving persons who culpably withheld from the local authority rent they were well able to pay if, at the same time, we had power to leave in possession a person who was unable to pay his rent through no fault of his own. On these grounds, I think that the Minister ought to consider, in connection with this Bill, the fixing of a six years term and the wiping out of all arrears behind that. I shall not go into the question as to whether it was the leaders of from 1918 to 1921 who advocated the withholding of rents or whether it arose out of Mr. Ruttledge's circular warning all and sundry to pay nothing to the Government in office at the time. It would lead us into highly undesirable lines of investigation if we were obliged to go back and sort out all those matters. Accepting the six-year term which, for good or ill, is the law governing an ordinary contract-debt, funding arrears up to that period and wiping out all arrears behind that, let the Department invite the local authorities to adopt a scheme whereunder deserving persons unable to pay their rent will be entitled, within the terms of the regulations, to receive consideration. That done, let the Department require the local authorities to exercise a very much sterner supervision over the payment of cottage rents by those in a position to pay and then let us start de novo. If you do that, this Bill will have made a far more valuable contribution to this housing problem than it can hope to do in its present form. It is quite impossible to get local authorities to do this without the assistance of the Department. Deputy Belton put the difficulty in a few words when he said "Put up a scheme." I think that all local authorities would agree with me in principle but when they come to work the matter out they find themselves at a loss.
They will not do their duty when it comes to the point.
The Deputy and I might hold them up to odium if they did not do their duty when they had the power to do their duty properly. I do not think they have that power now, for lack of a scheme, and I do not think that a single local authority has the machinery or the time——
That is the whole trouble.
They have not the time to work out a scheme of this character. The Department is the only authority competent to foresee the kind of difficulty that would arise in the administration of such a scheme. The Minister has his reports coming in from all parts of the country and from all kinds of local authorities operating in different areas. I ask him to evolve a scheme along the lines I mentioned on his Estimate and to which I now refer. I ask him to recommend the local authorities to write off any arrears of more than six years, to fund the six years' arrears, and then to require local authorities to take up a much sterner attitude in regard to the collection of rents and to regard it as part of their essential duty to carry out their cottage-rent collection accurately and properly. If they do not do that, he should consider what steps are requisite to compel them to do so.
If we look at what is sticking out under our noses with regard to arrears of cottage rents, we shall see that there is very little use in making plans of a superficial character with regard to arrears. The arrears of cottage rents on the 31st March, 1932, amounted to £34,500, of which £10,300 was due in the County of Kerry. After two years, they had gone up by £22,000. The Minister told the House in June that on the 31st March, 1935, £2,000 had come off that sum. We have had no information as to how cottage rents have been paid in the meantime. But we have had some information regarding South Tipperary which has a bearing on the question as to whether local authorities are doing their duty in connection with cottage rents. In South Tipperary, the administration has been in the hands of a Commissioner, sent down by the Minister for Local Government to replace the local body. His rent collector reported that he could not collect some of the cottage rents because some of the tenants are in receipt of home assistance, others are in receipt of unemployment assistance, while some are receiving a sum of 8/- per week as agricultural labourers. There is little use in talking about matters that are past if that is to be the position in regard to cottage rents in the future. There is a question as to how much is to be wiped out for the current year. Is that the problem for the local authorities and, if it is, what prospect is there of seeing even the current year's cottage rents paid, apart altogether from reducing the amount of arrears? The Minister could give us some information at this stage as to how cottage rents have been paid up to the 31st March, 1936.
In the absence of any information as to how cottage rents stood on the 31st March, 1936, I do not know that we are going to make very much progress by blaming anyone, or making any suggestions as to what should be done with the arrears of five, six or seven years ago, or even with the arrears of three years ago. Whatever the arrears were in the first year of Fianna Fáil administration, they had gone up in two years by £22,000. In 1932 they were £34,000, and of that amount Kerry was responsible for £10,300.
Deputy Dillon's remarks were all right generally, but when you come down to administration, anyone with experience of the work of the boards of health knows that what the Deputy said is all wrong. There are many powers that boards of health and county councils have not got that I should like them to have, but the powers they have in this matter should be confined within certain definite limits, and be under the strict supervision of the Department of Local Government, regardless of the political tinge of the boards of health or of the Government of the day. Members of boards of health are on the spot and are mixing with local people. But they are birds of passage, having to make their own living, and they administer the business of these boards in their own time. Even with the best intentions in the world—and without saying anything on that question we know very well that they are not animated with the best intentions— why should they make enemies of their neighbours, seeing that they are only birds of passage on these boards for a few years? There would be substance in Deputy Dillon's argument if there was a paid manager connected with every board of health, an official appointed by statute to do his job, and caring for no one. As to the case that Deputy Dillon depicted, that of a man out of employment, who he said should not be asked to pay rent during that time, I say the assistance that man gets should be given on the basis that he is out of employment, but that he had to pay the rent. Give the right to no one to say that a man must not pay rent. If necessary, increase the assistance, but make him pay the rent. If a man earns £5 a week, and another man has nothing, it is easy to decide what is to be done. We have to remember the pull that would be exercised in these cases. The position of the members would be intolerable. I hope members of boards of health will never have such powers as have been suggested. I believe in administering each service on the conditions obtaining, and administering it thoroughly. Boards of health are also boards of assistance in some counties, but not in County Dublin, and it would be ridiculous for a board of assistance to hand out money and for another board to take some of that money back as rent. I would rather do that, however, than be called upon to decide whether tenants should be relieved from paying rent. I believe in giving assistance when it is required, but in allocating that assistance I would have in mind that a tenant of a cottage would have to pay 1/-, 2/- or 3/- back as rent. I see no other way for efficient administration, even of a well-formulated scheme. I believe the principle I men tioned must be embodied in any such scheme. I hope the Minister or his successors will never think of giving such discretionary powers to local authorities, the members of which are only birds of passage.
I want to congratulate the tenants of labourers' cottages in Leix-Offaly on their record in this respect. The Minister gave us figures of the arrears in the different counties and I was glad to see that the tenants in Leix owe no money. I want to congratulate these tenants on that position. The 25 per cent. reduction proposed in the Bill does not meet with my full approval.
The Deputy must remember that we are now on amendment No. 11, and not on the Bill in general.
I will not go far. As farmers got a reduction of annuities of 50 per cent.——
The Deputy is proceeding to deal with reductions of annuities, and must not travel too far.
I agree. I do not see why tenants of labourers' cottages should not be entitled to the same concessions regarding their holdings as the farmers got. I agree as regards the funding of the arrears, but as Deputy Belton pointed out, each county or each constituency should be liable for its own debts. I do not see why people in Leix-Offaly should pay the debts of other counties.
On a point of correction, I only dealt with remission and not funding.
I agree, but why should the tenants in Leix-Offaly pay for other counties? We have a clear sheet as far as arrears go, a state of affairs with which I am very pleased. It shows that we are obedient to our Government. As we are not in debt, it looks as if we are all Government supporters. I agree to remissions. Deputy Hogan said that in Clare they were in a bad way but that a good deal was due to what occurred during the British régime.
Mr. Hogan
The Minister said that.
You repeated the Minister's words and I will repeat yours. We had Deputy Corry saying that labourers went into cottages on which there were arrears of £15 or £20. I have been a member of Leix County Council for 18 years and I never heard of such a case. I never heard of labourers becoming tenants of cottages with a debt of £18 or £20 hanging over them. I could hardly believe that. Even if Deputy Corry came from Cork 40 times, I could hardly believe it.
It is a fact.
Why should a tenant take over a cottage with a debt of £20 hanging over him when his wages would be anything from 10/- to 24/- a week? There would be no meaning in a man going into a cottage under such circumstances.
Mr. Hogan
No.
A tenant could not pay that debt. As the tenants in Leix and Offaly have such a clean record I want to congratulate them, and I think I am justly entitled to do so.
This question of arrears is one of very great interest, and if Deputy Belton is correct in his view, that it would be practically impossible for local authorities to exercise discretion of the type I suggested, it is certainly time that the Minister considered seriously the introduction of a managerial system into local bodies.
The Deputy cannot go into that now.
I shall not travel so far as that, but all I can say is——
I do not think I would be so terribly against that view, but I did not say that.
I cannot agree with the view that local authorities are quite unable to do substantial justice between their tenants on their merits. I want to put this view very strongly to the House, because I can see the attractiveness of the method adopted by Deputy Belton for keeping the rent-roll in order, that is, by giving extra relief and taking it back again by way of the rent. Propagandists against social order are always trying to make the case that the poor are downtrodden and oppressed. Deputy Belton or I, on our respective boards of health, have to consider, say, the case of a man with a large family, and perhaps a delicate wife, who is receiving home assistance, and Deputy Belton and I decide what is the limit of outdoor assistance he should get or what the board can afford to give. Mind you, it is likely to be a most unsatisfactory sum when you consider that himself, his wife and his family have to live on it. Having decided on that, Deputy Belton's scheme is that we ought to add 2/- or 2/6, whatever the rent may be, to that sum and let the collector take back the 2/6 or 2/-, leaving the man with the amount of assistance that we meant him to have. Let us suppose that the amount of assistance we determine that he should have would be 6/-, and the Deputy will realise that in many respects——
I am not going to intervene in this discussion if amounts are to be mentioned, because I am not going to have it thrown in my face that I said that 6/- per week was sufficient for a man, his wife and his family. Let the Deputy deal with it in an algebraic way. Let him call the amount X, but do not put a figure upon it.
I am speaking from experience. I can quite see that the Deputy may have had a different experience in County Dublin, because different conditions operate here, but as a matter of fact any sum between 6/- and 10/- per week, under many rural boards of health, would be considered a very substantial sum for outdoor assistance. If, however, the Deputy feels any delicacy on the matter, we can call the amount X and add 2/- for the rent. X plus 2 would still be regarded as an unsatisfactory sum to maintain a man, his wife and family, and the propagandist can come along and say: "Here is Deputy Belton, the Chairman of the Dublin Board of Assistance, extracting from a man with a wife and seven children, out of the miserable pittance of X plus 2 that he is receiving by way of outdoor assistance, the last penny of the rent due on his cottage. Was there ever a Shylock or a tyrant more oppressive who, enjoying a fine income himself, expects an unfortunate family with its miserable income to pay rents as they fall due?" Or he may say: "Here is Deputy Dillon, with his fine income, wallowing in comfort. Look at him, threatening with eviction the unfortunate man with seven or eight children who is getting only X plus 2 per week." Does the Deputy think, from the social point of view or from any other point of view, that that is a desirable state of affairs? Does he not think that such propaganda, dishonest as it may be, may carry conviction to the people at large? Does he not think that we shall appear before the more gullible section of the community, at any rate, as tyrants from whom these people should be protected? Should we not consider that a man so circumstanced is as much entitled to shelter as he is to water, food or fresh air, and that we believe that it is better to give the family shelter under the family roof rather than do as the Victorians did, bring them into the workhouse——
That does not arise.
If you evict a family in receipt of outdoor assistance they must either go into the gutter or the workhouse.
If they receive X plus 2 per week and that the 2 is the rent, will they not have that amount to pay the rent collector every week?
The Deputy can take the view that these people may be left in the house if needs be. He thinks that we must keep "the money going round and round and watch it come out here." I take the view that it is far better to face our responsibilities before the people, and if we are not competent to do it, if on local bodies we find local pressure so strong that we are dragged into making concessions to people to whom we should not make a concession——
I do not think we will.
If that is the reason that induces him to travel this step further it is not one that commends itself to me. Deputy Belton, an expert administrator, and I have some experience of this matter. I sympathise with his apprehensions. But if we are not able to overcome that difficulty, then I have no hesitation in saying that it is the Minister's duty to step in and take the function from us, either by supervision or by direct intervention and make it a reserved service for some kind of independent official. Suppose that a board of health has accepted as a tenant a person who does not conform to the requirements of the Ministry. We may accept that tenant, but the Minister can intervene and ask us to accept some other applicant for the cottage who corresponds to departmental requirements. If a somewhat similar provision is not sufficient in this case, then the time is coming to withdraw the question of cottage tenancies from the purview of a local authority and put it in the hands of some kind of semi-independent official.
Deputy Finlay, in his usual pleasant style of communication to this House, said that he gathered from the readiness of tenants of cottages in Laoighis to pay their rents that they must be all supporters of the Government, a most interesting conclusion for more reasons than one, because I take it that Deputy Finlay will agree that if that thesis is true, the opposite is also true, namely, that in counties in which the rents are not paid there must be a conspiracy to overthrow the national Government and the national leader.
I would not mind what you believe.
If that be true President de Valera is in for a very troublous period because the arrears in County Clare have gone up from £4,000 to £12,000 in the last three years. Between 1932 and 1935 in County Kerry the arrears have gone up from £7,000 to £35,000. Has there been a landslide or is it possible that our friend is mistaken and that the fact is that the supporters of the Government are sometimes found a little remiss in the matter of paying rents, because if he goes down through the counties where the Government has an unquestionable majority, such as Clare and Kerry, he will discover to his amazement that these are the counties, and the only counties, which present a really serious problem in the matter of cottage rent arrears. They are the only counties in which the local authorities seem to be able to make no impression on the growing tide of arrears for some time back.
They present a serious problem to you from a political point of view.
Perhaps I should say in justice to County Clare that the figure I mentioned of £12,000 relates to another matter. Figures of this character are difficult to follow with strict accuracy. I wish now to correct myself, and to say that the arrears in Clare have gone up from £2,800 to £4,100, which, I admit, presents a different picture from the one that I have given. However, in Kerry the arrears have gone up from £10,000 to £14,000. It now seems that the figures I was quoting earlier relate to another schedule, but at the same time they indicate the trend in these two counties, and dispose of the statement made by Deputy Finlay that it is only the supporters of the Government who pay their rents, and that the supporters of Fine Gael do not. My figures were taken from a schedule which, unfortunately, did not apply to the matter to which I was at the moment referring. I agree that they presented a somewhat exaggerated picture, but I can assure the House that the tendency for the arrears to rise was somewhat similar to that indicated by the somewhat exaggerated figures which came under my notice at that juncture and which, I admit, did not actually represent the condition to which I was referring.
Mr. P. Hogan (Clare):
I am half inclined to agree with the Minister for Industry and Commerce when he says that Deputy Dillon would deduce anything from figures. From the figures given to him now, he thinks that he can discover what are the political predilections of cottage tenants in any particular area.
I was merely commenting on Deputy Finlay's observations.
Mr. Hogan
The Deputy ought not to take the figures that Deputy Mulcahy shoves under his face as being always strictly accurate. In any event, I am not going to enter into a political debate on this matter because it is one that has no relation whatever to politics. The question is whether these people are entitled to get a remission of certain arrears and a funding of certain other arrears. We can base our arguments on what has happened before. I have stated on previous occasions—the statement has also been made by other Deputies—that there is no difference whatever between the remission of three years' annuities to the farmers and the remission of a certain amount of arrears to the tenants of labourers' cottages. As to how the arrears accrued, there is no difference either between these two sets of people, except perhaps that the hardship is greater in the case of the cottage tenants than in that of the tenant farmers. If there is any margin as to the side on which the greater claim for justice lies, it surely is on the side of the cottage tenants. It was said some time or other in this House that I advocated the non-payment of cottage rents. I never did anything of the kind, nor did I ever hear anybody advocate the non-payment of cottage rents.
The Cumann na nGaedheal Party did.
Mr. Hogan
The Minister may know that, but I do not. I do not know of anybody who ever advocated the non-payment of cottage rents.
I want to say that there is no foundation whatever for the statement made by the Minister.
Resolutions were formally passed by branches of the Cumann na Gaedheal organisation telling the tenants not to pay their rents. Such resolutions came before the Ard-Fheis of Cumann na nGaedheal, but were not passed. The people were advised not to adopt resolutions of that character.
Mr. Hogan
So far as I am concerned, when matters of this kind were put before me, I have always advised the tenants that as far as it was within their power at all they should pay their rents. I have incurred some displeasure because I advocated action of that kind. Therefore, it cannot be said that we came in here to advocate the non-payment of cottage rents. We have come in to ask for a remission of the arrears due. We realise that these arrears accrued because of a certain position which arose in the country when it was decided to keep from the British Government certain revenues which were going to it, and also because people went into the occupation of cottages and incurred liabilities that they were not able to meet subsequently. In some cases you had sums varying from £5 to £9 due as rent on cottages when the tenancy of them was made available by the board of health. We all know that a man with a wife and family is prepared to take any risk in order to get a roof over his head. There were many who incurred a liability of £5 and £6 in order to get into a cottage, and then found that they could not discharge it, the most they were able to do being to pay the current rent.
Was it their intention to pay the £10 or whatever sum was due when going into the cottages?
Mr. Hogan
Was it the intention of the farmers to pay the rents of their holdings in respect of the three years during which arrears accrued and were then remitted? Is a poor man who goes into a cottage to be suspect because he did not pay the rent which had accrued in respect of a former tenant? There is no use in suggesting that this should be made a local matter. Other remissions that have been given have not been made local matters. They were made national matters. You cannot put these liabilities into water-tight compartments. The arrears of cottage rents bear a very close relationship to the question of the repair of cottages. I know myself that, in my own county, there are cottages in respect of which arrears have accrued, and they have been in a scandalous state of repair for years. There has been a see-saw argument going on between the board of health and the tenants as to who is going to put the cottages into repair, the tenants arguing that they are not going to pay the rent until the cottages are put into repair. Whatever the reason be, the board of health is not putting the cottages in repair.
I think you want a commissioner down in Ennis.
Mr. Hogan
The board of health have failed in two respects, first, in failing to provide cottages for the tenants who require them, and, secondly, in keeping the old cottages in repair. In neither case is the board showing any sense of the responsibility that lies on it. On this question of the remission of arrears, it has been said that the people who have paid their rents would not be getting fair treatment as compared to those who had not paid them. It was said that if a remission was given to those who had not paid, that would not be dealing fairly with the others who had paid. A precisely similar situation arose in the case of the tenant farmers. There was no remission for those who had paid their annuities, but there was for those who had not paid. I suggest, therefore, that you cannot have one thing for one set of people and something else for another set, the circumstances in both cases being the same.
There has been no case whatever made against this, and the Minister need have no qualms of conscience as regards the morals of it. If the morals of it were good on the previous occasion, they are good on this occasion, and, therefore, he ought to give this section of the community the same consideration as both the previous Government and this Government have given to another section of the community.
I should like to say that I have great sympathy with the case made by Deputy Hogan, but there is a difference between a remission or funding in the case of labourers' cottages and in the case of farmers. In the case of farmers, the national authority has been responsible for carrying the purchase through, for the collection of the annuities and for meeting the charges consequent on the purchase. Therefore a remission of funding in their case would not be dealt with on anything but a national basis. In the case of the Labourers Acts, the county health area authority, whatever it may have been—the rural district council or the county board of health—was the authority responsible for borrowing the money and paying back the charges on the loan within their area and within no other area. Therefore, if this matter is to be considered by the Minister on the basis of remission to a certain extent or of funding to another extent, I suggest to him that he should consider it on the basis of each county health area carrying their own babies.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 12:—
In sub-section (2), (d), page 8, to delete lines 40 to 44 (both inclusive) and substitute the following:
"one and one only of the following purposes, that is to say:
(I) for the purpose of the accommodation of the purchaser or the purchaser and members of his family,
(II) on the death of the purchaser, for the purpose of the accommodation of a person, who is the widow, child or other relative of the purchaser and was resident in such cottage at such death, or such person and members of such person's family,
(III) the purpose of the accommodation of an agricultural labourer or an agricultural labourer and members of his family."
This amendment is put in to enable the family of a purchaser to remain in the cottage after the death of the cottier tenant, notwithstanding the fact that no member of the family may be at the time an agricultural labourer.
Might not my amendment No.13 be taken with this? The amendment is as follows:—
In sub-section (2) (d) (ii) (II), at the end of line 43 after the word "widow" to add the words "child or other relative and the members of such person's family."
It seems to me to be consequential on No. 10, which was not moved.
It is covered by No. 12.
They are on the same principle.
It seems to be covered by No. 12, but that is for the Deputy to decide.
My suggestion is that this amendment is an extension of the principle embodied in the Minister's amendment. From my experience of those matters I think that all boards of health are anxious, in the case of a family which has been in the house for years, that a representative of that family should get the tenancy when the house becomes vacant. As I read this, even according to the Minister's amendment, we would be precluded from considering an application from the son or daughter of the deceased if he or she were not living in the cottage at the time the tenant died. That is specifically in the Minister's amendment, paragraph (ii) of which reads as follows:
On the death of the purchaser, for the purpose of the accommodation of a person, who is the widow, child or other relative of the purchaser and was resident in such cottage at such death, of such person and members of such person's family.
My amendment No. 13 embodies all that the Minister has said, except that it does not require that this relative should be resident in the cottage at the time the old tenant died. I would ask the Minister to accept this amendment of mine; it is merely an extension of his amendment. I am thinking of one specific case where the brother of the deceased tenant was living in the cottage. That brother was not married, and was not, generally speaking, the sort of man who would get married and settle down and keep a home. Because of that, the deceased brother kept him in the house. There was another brother, with a wife and four or five children, living in a hovel nearby He was an industrious, hardworking man, and wanted a house. Obviously, that man was definitely more entitled to the house than the other brother. Under the Bill, with the Minister's amendment, we could not select the good man and we were bound to put in the other man. I have that specific case in mind. If the Minister wishes, I will tell him about it privately. I think he even knows the family. However, it is not a question of a family; it is a question of the principle which is at stake. I would ask the Minister if he is now prepared, on the evidence I am putting up to him, to consider and accept this amendment. I think any members of the boards of health who are members of this House will support the view I am putting forward. In practice, you will always come up against trouble in regard to the members of a family who are looking for a cottage, and I think the board of health should be at liberty to select the member whom they consider to be the most deserving, and would make the best tenant. I would suggest to the Minister that if he does not see his way to accept the amendment now he should not turn it down but should consider it at a later stage.
If I were to put amendment No. 12, amendment No. 13 could not be moved. Technically, it could not be moved, but I am allowing the point to be raised in connection with amendment No. 12. If amendment No. 12 had to be put, the lines to which amendment No. 13 refers would have been deleted.
This amendment deals with the class of person who may buy a house in the event of the actual tenant dying. I want to ask the Minister this question. Is it his intention, when examining the purchase scheme submitted to him for approval, to require that there shall be some restraint on alienation of the house after purchase is completed by the agricultural labourer? I have no objection whatever to anyone buying a house from the municipal authority if he pays the municipal authority the full value of the house, but I see no reason why we should subsidise housing out of the rates—rates which are being collected from small farmers, whose weekly income is very often not in excess of £1 or 21/-, and make cottages available to a very considerable number of persons who under the modern interpretation of the Labourers Act are agricultural labourers, but who in fact are industrial workers working in rural districts, and who may themselves be earning £3 or £4 per week. Suppose you have a genuine agricultural labourer living in one of those cottages referred to in amendment No. 12, and a purchase scheme is devised whereunder he will be allowed to purchase the cottage. In the course of time that purchase price is founded on an uneconomic rent. It is founded on the assumption that a purchaser will not pay the full market value of the cottage to the local authority, but will pay a fictitious value, founded on the amount of rent he had been paying heretofore, and in many cases, these rents are uneconomic inasmuch as they will not recoup the local authorities for their original outlay.
While I would be prepared to stand for that if the scheme were designed to convey the cottage to the agricultural worker working on the land, and to restrain him and his family from alienating to somebody with a considerable income who would want to buy it from him, after he had completed the purchase, I strenuously object to a scheme of that kind if it is going to become possible under this amendment for the son of an agricultural labourer, who is perhaps a national school teacher, or an industrial worker earning a comparatively large weekly wage, may come into this agreement, carry it through, and wind up as the owner of the labourer's cottage for an uneconomic price. Therefore, I ask the Minister to provide that if a person, other than an agricultural labourer working on the land, becomes eligible to purchase a cottage under amendment No. 12, the terms of the purchase agreement shall be revised with a view to securing that the annuity payable by the new entrant into the contract will recoup the local authority for the total cost of the cottage, and that it will cease to have the benevolent character it had when the agricultural labourer working on the land was one of the parties to it. It is not a very easy problem to explain. I went into it at greater length on the Minister's Estimate, and I do not want to delay the House unduly now, but I think the Minister understands what I have in mind.
I understand fully what the Deputy has in mind, and I sympathise with it—that anybody who may afterwards become a tenant or a tenant purchaser of a cottage, who is not an agricultural labourer, should be made to pay the full economic price for the cottage. That I have full sympathy with, and I will try to provide for it.
Will the Minister accept what I suggest?
I think that what Deputy Belton has in mind is fully covered by sub-section (3) of amendment No. 12, and that he can put in the desirable tenant in preference to the other. The sub-section says:
The purpose of the accommodation of an agricultural labourer or an agricultural labourer and members of his family...
That would give him the power he seeks.
I suggest he is ruled out by sub-section (2), which refers to the accommodation of a person who is the widow, child or other relative of the purchaser, and was resident in such cottage at such death. An old couple may be living in a cottage and their son may be married and living in a hovel near-by, and he is excluded.
He is not excluded.
But he is not living in the cottage at the time of the death.
Sub-section (3) widens it again.
You are not giving the line of succession which is given in the Bill in other circumstances.
I am instructed that what the Deputy seeks to accomplish is covered by that sub-section.
If the Minister is so instructed, I am not going to question that instruction, but will the Minister look into it and satisfy himself?
I am advised that that is so, but I will look into it.
I should like to be a little clearer with regard to sub-section (2). "Resident in the cottage at the time of death"—what exactly does that cover? Does it cover a person who would normally live in the cottage and was living there at the time of the death, or a person who went in a week or a fortnight before the death and slept in the cottage, in order to qualify under this?
A person normally resident in the cottage.
Does the Minister think the amendment explicit enough? It may give rise to a good deal of difficulty afterwards.
I am sure there will be many difficulties that will arise. I have no doubt about that.
That is why I suggest the Minister ought to minimise the number of difficulties which are bound to arise.
Where a person comes home in bad health, after working in another county, and dies in the cottage, the Deputy thinks that might give that person a claim. Is that what the Deputy has in mind?
No. "A child or relative of the purchaser who was resident in such cottage at such death." That refers to the death of the purchaser. I think the Minister can see that it is going to lead to a great deal of trouble.
The Minister will accept amendment No. 13 when he considers it, and it will clear away all the difficulties.
I will look into it again.
Amendment No. 12 agreed to.
Amendment No. 13 not moved.
I formally move amendment No. 14:
At the end of sub-section (2), line 56, after the word "plot" to add the words "or the erection of necessary buildings."
I accept the principle of the amendment.
We have some cottages and you could not remove earth from them because there is none there. It is all built on.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 15 is not moved.
It is covered by amendment No. 12.
Section 17, as amended, agreed to.
Section 18 agreed to.
Question proposed: "That Section 19 stand part of the Bill."
With regard to registration and the payment of registration fees, would the Minister indicate by whom the registration fee is to be paid? Is it the tenant or the board of health?
I think the board of health will have to meet that liability.
I do not think that is set out in the Bill. It is a rather important matter and will be very important so far as the tenant is concerned. I should like to have it made specific. Will the Minister look into it?
I will, but I think I am correct in saying that the board of health will pay the registration fee.
Question put and agreed to.
Section 20 agreed to.
Question proposed: "That Section 21 stand part of the Bill.
I should like to hear the Minister on the reasons which influenced him to introduce what I think is quite a revolutionary principle— absolutely prohibiting the charging of a mortgage on a property.
The difficulties in the case of cottage tenants are peculiar. We know what might happen. The temptations will be very great to get into debt, if they could have charges readily available made upon that property. Goodness knows who would advance the money, but, under the Act, if a person did advance money, he could not afterwards become the owner in law. He could become the owner to a certain extent, but he could not become the occupier or tenant. That person might claim the right to decide who should be the tenant, but the Act lays it down specifically that the tenants are to be resticted to certain classes of people, and goodness knows what litigation might arise as between the board of health, the owner in whom the board of health vested the cottage, and the person who took the mortgage on the property. It is to prevent anything of that kind arising that might lead to very great difficulties both for the board of health, and the cottage tenant, as well as the person who gave the mortgage, that we thought it safer for all parties concerned to take this power to prevent the cottier tenant giving way to temptation that might arise.
Surely, Sir, the Minister is labouring under a misapprehension in this matter. The remedy of foreclosure is practically unknown in this country. I do not think a mortgage has been foreclosed in this country for the last 50 years. Nobody ever expects to gain anything by going into court on the question of a mortgage. I foresee that what may arise is that occupants of these cottages—and it cannot be too often emphasised that the occupants of these cottages very frequently are comparatively prosperous people— may contract debts which they subsequently do not want to pay. Now, may I direct the attention of the House to Section 22 at the same time, because it has a peculiar application to Section 21? Let us say that the creditor takes action against the tenant for the recovery of a debt, and that he succeeds in court, whereupon the cottage tenant bids the creditor defiance and says: "You may send the sheriff, for all I care." The creditor is a person living in the community; he is a neighbour, and he does not want to be sending in the sheriff to collect the few sticks of furniture from the tenant; and in any case he knows that if he does so, the sheriff's fees will consume substantially more than the entire furnishing of the labourer's cottage would realise. He has his judgment, of course, but this Section 21 takes away the only remedy that is of any use to him at all. If Section 21 is not passed, he can move in the courts to get a judgment mortgage and have registered whatever property the tenant purchaser has in the cottage. If the tenant purchaser then refuses to make any proposal to pay the debt, by instalments or in any other way, at the end of whatever period the judgment mortgage runs, the mortgagee can move to have it well charged and get the tenant's right in the cottage sold on the open market and thus recover his debt. I know that a specious argument may be made that that remedy should not be left to potential creditors of cottage occupants, but we all know that in practice it is a highly undesirable thing to make it impossible for a tenant purchaser to get credit for anything by fixing all potential creditors with notice that there is no means of recovering a debt due by the occupant.
Section 22 says that:—
...where any instalment of the annuity is not paid on the date on which the same is payable under the statutory conditions, such instalment shall forthwith become due to such board by the owner of such cottage and may be recovered as a simple contract in a court of competent jurisdiction.
But how can you recover if you have not got the power to fix the property with a judgment mortgage and sell out the tenant? You can sue him and get a judgment, and then the sheriff says: "What is the use of sending me down to a labourer's cottage for the few sticks of furniture there, when you have to pay my fee?" Taking Sections 21 and 22 together, and leaving the shopkeeper out of consideration altogether, it seems to me that once you have signed the agreement you can tell the local authority that you will not pay, because, unless they can say, in the last analysis: "Very well then, we will sell the property," there is no need to collect the rent at all.
On those two grounds, I suggest that Section 21 is unnecessary and dangerous. There is a third ground to which I directed the attention of this House time and time again, and that is that in a Bill of this character we are frequently tempted to make a breach in well-established principle, and when the breach is proposed, everybody in the House is reassured that these are most exceptional circumstances, that we fully recognise that it is a departure from the rock of principle on which we hitherto stood, but that these are very exceptional circumstances, and not likely to arise again. So surely, however, as you bring in a statutory limitation on the well-established equitable remedy of mortgage, the whole mortgage system of law is in jeopardy. Once this House proceeds to poke its nose quite casually into a most delicate and elaborate equity structure, Heaven alone knows where it will stop. I mean no disrespect to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, but I do say here, looking around this House, and including myself, and perhaps excluding a distinguished lawyer, like Deputy McMenamin, there is not a single man in the House whose judgment on the question of mortgages is worth two straws. Therefore, I suggest to the Minister that if he is convinced—and I do not think he ought to be convinced—that a section of this kind is necessary, interference with an existing law of this character ought to be done by a special Bill brought in by the Minister for Justice with a very comprehensive discussion on the whole question, and carrying with it the full weight of the opinion of the Ministry for Justice, in order to justify an amendment of this character.
So far as the creditor to whom Deputy Dillon referred is concerned, he would be, when this is passed, in exactly the same position as before. He will have as much or as little power over the cottage tenant as he has at present before the Bill goes through. Creditors know that. They know the position at present, and I think that a cottage tenant would need to be very prosperous before any creditor in a town or neighbouring place would advance anything substantial in the way of credit to such a tenant.
Does the question of Section 22 not arise? What is the Minister's own remedy?
The remedy of ejectment.
Where is the remedy if the person is in enjoyment of property?
If the tenants fail to pay their rents.
But they are not your tenants.
When they fail to pay their annuities.
Where is there in this Bill a proviso that the local authority or the Minister can put a person out for failure to pay a gale due under the purchase annuity?
Section 24 deals with the recovery of possession of cottages by boards of health on breach of statutory conditions. Has the Deputy read that?
Yes, but is the Minister satisfied that Section 24 sets out as one of the statutory conditions that rent should be paid on the due date?
I think it gives the local authority and the board of health the statutory power necessary to deal with the tenant in case of any breach. I think it gives power in the case of tenants who fail to meet their annuities. Sub-section 2 (b) of Section 24 sets out the notice that is necessary. It says:—
...in case it is to be based on failure to comply with the statutory condition relating to payment of an instalment of the annuity payable in respect of such cottage, not less than one week's notice,
and so on. That sets out the necessary notice, but they can take the purchaser into the court, and the power is set out here giving the board of health, through the district court, power to deal with such tenants as they would deal with any other person in such contractual relations with the board of health.
Is the Minister prepared to quote any precedent for this interference with the right to a mortgage charge on property?
I cannot do that at the moment. I am sure I could get it if I had time to look into the matter.
Do you mean in Section 21?
Section 21 operates to restrict the owner of property in his right to charge a mortgage.
What is the objection?
I was asking is there any precedent for that.
I submit there is a precedent in the Land Acts.
No, there is a limitation.
I do not know if it is eight or ten times that the purchase annuity formed a limitation.
Yes, there was a limit.
Is not this a limit?
This provides that you cannot charge it at all.
Is not the principle the same?
It is progressing along the slippery slope.
Unless it is against a fundamental principle of law, I think the section is a good one. I am not competent to comment on whether it is an infringement of a great principle of law, but in my humble opinion I think that the restriction in the Land Acts could be interpreted as a precedent for this, and unless it is an outrage on some great principle of law, which I am not competent to determine, I think if you can get over that, it is essential, in order to keep people in their homes, to have this section.
Deputy Dillon has in mind the occupant of a particular piece of property, a house or land as the case may be. He would be presumably the owner of that property. There might be debts against it. In this case the tenant purchaser will not be the owner of the property until all the annuities have been paid. He then becomes the full owner. He is only a tenant purchaser without rights to full ownership until the annuities are paid.
But he has some kind of tenant right, some form of title?
Yes, but he is not the owner.
To differentiate between tenant right and ownership in modern times is somewhat difficult.
That tenant right is limited by the terms under which he purchases. It means regular payments of his annuity.
It appears it was held by the legal experts of the Department that this Bill did create some kind of property in the tenant purchaser which could be charged with a mortgage, and they put in Section 21 with the deliberate intention of exonerating that property, whatever it may be, from liability to such a charge. I have the feeling, but I am not fully qualified to elaborate it, that that makes a kind of instinctive appeal to one's sentiment, but that it is not sound, and that is why I would sooner see it done by a separate Bill introduced by the Minister for Justice which could be argued on its merits as primarily an amendment of the existing mortgage law rather than as an ancillary provision to a Housing Bill.
What will take place in practice is that when a cottage is purchased, the purchaser will be the registered owner in freehold, subject to the charge of the purchase money, and this section gives the Department power to do that. It is a warning to anyone who advances money that on the folio there is a charge there registered.
That appears to be the exact opposite to what the Minister is just after telling us. The Minister told us that the tenant will not be the registered owner until the last annuity is paid.
He cannot be until the last annuity is paid.
Deputy McMenamin's contention is that, as he understands the Bill, the tenant purchaser would be registered as full owner, subject to charges in respect of the annuities outstanding.
Yes.
That is Deputy McMenamin's conception. From what the Minister tells us here, the title under this Bill is of a very peculiar character because the person remains a tenant purchaser until the last annuity is paid, so that Deputy McMenamin's conception does not quite coincide with the Minister's. Under the Land Acts the moment the land was vested the man became owner, but he was subject to a charge in respect of rent outstanding. The tenancy under this Act is quite different and is very materially qualified by Section 24, which leaves the man virtually a tenant almost at will up to the time of the last instalment.
Yes.
But I submit this does create some kind of ownership which the legal advisers of the Department think can be charged with a mortgage. I am sorry they have decided to exonerate this by Section 21 instead of asking the Minister for Justice to introduce an amending Bill.
The Minister will find in practice that his statement is a mistake. He will find that a man cannot be a qualified freeholder; he is registered full owner, subject to these charges. In practice, if at any time he runs into arrears, ceases to pay his annuities, the Department will step in and sell this place to somebody else and that person will be registered as owner.
Why?
In my opinion there cannot be a qualified freeholder. In practice when the folio is made out he will be absolute owner, subject to the charge of the annuity for a certain number of years.
Either Deputy McMenamin or the Minister is right, but both cannot be right.
What Deputy McMenamin refers to is quite accurate. We are trying to make these tenant purchasers tenants in fee of their cottages and plots and it is a very difficult process. We have seven or eight sections of the Bill endeavouring to do that, bearing in mind that it is difficult to qualify the ownership in fee, to put qualifications upon that. These plots are held by boards of health under a variety of Acts of Parliament and in a variety of ways and in order to get them freed and hand them over, when the final annuity is paid, to the cottier tenant—hand over the plot in fee—we have had very long consultations with specialists in land law as to how the various cases that have been put up to us can be met. The whole question of transferring these cottage plots to the tenants in fee has raised many difficult points. Six or seven of these sections have had to be specially drafted to deal with the matter. The intention is that as soon as the final instalment is paid we will hand the cottage and plot in fee to the tenant. These various sections have been framed to enable us to do that and there are some qualifications, such as in Section 21, that have been found necessary to safeguard the position of the tenant purchaser during that period.
I am against Section 21, but I will not challenge a division.
Sections 21, 22 and 23 put and agreed to.
Is it provided by Section 24 that if a person is only one week in arrears with his rent, the local authority can recover possession from him and wind up his purchase agreement? If so, is there provision in the Bill that any payments made on foot of the purchase agreements are to be refunded, or, are they to be treated as rents?
There is nothing in the section dealing with it.
Section 24 provides in (2) (b) that in case a board of health makes an application for recovery of the cottage owing to a breach of the statutory conditions, or where the applicant has failed to comply with the statutory conditions relating to payment of rent, one week's notice is sufficient, and proceedings may ensue. I think we ought to know in that case what the position of the tenant purchaser would be in the event of the local authority succeeding. Will the tenant purchaser get any credit for the instalments he has paid up to then? If he does not get credit for the instalments paid, then Section 21 becomes a delusion and a snare, because we are substituting for the right to charge a rent a new method whereby we take the land off the man and give him nothing at all for it. The Minister will readily recognise, say, in the case of a man who had paid up his land annuities and then fell into arrears, that his tenant right would still be a very valuable consideration and it could be sold. Apparently Section 24 means that the local authorities should treat all the instalments paid by the tenant up to that date as rent. I think the Minister ought to clarify that for us before we pass the section.
I believe that all payments made by the tenant purchaser up to the time he fell into arrear and was taken into court would remain the property of the board of health.
The Minister must see that that is monstrous, because Section 21 now becomes an oppression and a grave injustice. The land is vested in the tenant, and the tenant has a growing property in it. Take the case of an ordinary tenant purchaser in the case of land, where the tenant was paying rent in lieu of annuity on a holding acquired under the Land Acts. An Act was brought in here in 1933 to give the tenant credit for the moneys he had paid pending vesting. Under this Bill, with all its appearance of benevolence, there is set up under Section 24 an entirely new rent recovery procedure which provides that though a man has paid 30 years out of 60 years' rent, and then falls into arrears for one week, the board of health can intervene and put him out of the cottage, taking away his 30 years' payments—writing them down as rents. That is a positive injustice, and I do not believe for a moment that the Deputies here will accept such an arrangement, nor do I conceive how the Minister could seriously recommend it. I would be glad to hear from the Minister really what he thinks of this.
Does Deputy Dillon suggest that the board of health should not get any of that money paid by the tenant, but that it should be returned to him and that the board should bear all the liabilities? But the board of health has to pay the loan that has been raised to pay for this cottage. It is doing that out of the moneys received from the tenant. Surely if the tenant purchaser is to get credit and have that money returned to him the board of health would be at a big loss. Perhaps Deputy Dillon has in mind that if there is anything over, after the payment of liabilities by the board of health, that should go to the credit of the tenant purchaser when the cottage and plot were being resumed by the board of health. If that is what the Deputy means there would be something in it. But if the board of health is not to be in a position to secure that any moneys it has raised by loan or otherwise for the provision of that cottage and plot should not be met by the tenant, then the board of health would have a very heavy additional liability to meet.
Surely the Minister realises that, on the basis of this arrangement, a man who paid 30 years' annuities for his cottage would, because of one week's arrears, lose the whole thing. If the tenant is one week in arrears with his payments the board of health can kick him out and open a new purchase agreement with him which would run for 60 years or more. My argument is that the tenant purchaser acquires some property in the cottage and plot, by Section 21, which has been inserted to protect him. I find it hard to define the nature of that property. Section 24 confers upon the local authority the right to take that property, whatever it is, away from the tenant purchaser because of his failure for one week to pay the rent. To my mind, that is manifestly unjust and it is in direct conflict with the whole trend of legislation and its character in this country. Property certainly does exist for the tenant purchaser, because Section 21 has been inserted. I protest against the proposal to give the local authority the right to rob the tenant of his purchase because of his failure in the payment of one week's rent. Candidly, I do not see how the Minister can recommend this section to the House. If the board of health is receiving the annuity which was agreed upon when the purchase agreement was made, then I do not see that the board has contracted any further liability during the 30 years my imagined tenant was in occupation. If the board proceeded to sell the tenant right it would be represented by its amenity value plus whatever the tenant has paid in the 30 years. Then you can imagine a case where the new tenant comes in and goes on paying the remainder of the annuities. In such a case it may happen that, at the end of the original agreement, one or two or three succeeding tenants would have paid off the entire sum due. This is a section on which I propose to divide the House unless the Minister says he is disposed to consider the position in the light of the facts I have raised.
I will look into it, but I do not think there is anything in the case made.
I think the Minister will discover that a mine is about to be exploded under his feet. However, there will be a Report Stage.
Sections 24 and 25 put and agreed to.
Question proposed: "That Section 26 stand part of the Bill."
This section provides that the board of health shall insure all these cottages for that period. Will they be entitled to take that expense into consideration when fixing the annuity?
They will.
Then this question arises: What will happen if the board of health covenant in any insurance agreement against the doing of certain things in respect of these cottages, and one of the tenants does something which the board of health undertook should not be done? Will that not operate to invalidate the insurance policy? For instance, let us take an extravagant covenant, that no one will light a fire in the middle of the kitchen floor or anywhere but on the hearths. Somebody does light a fire on the kitchen floor or the pantry floor and the cottage is set on fire and burned down. Will that breach of the covenant on the part of the tenant deprive the local authority of their right to recover against the insurance company?
The Deputy knows that very difficult questions frequently arise on matters of that kind between insurance companies and their clients. The insurance company naturally have to protect themselves. If they discover that there has been any breach or breaches of the covenants they will try to get out of the liability. The question then is whether the making of a fire in a room where there was not a fireplace would be a breach of the covenant. I presume it would be a breach and the insurance company might escape liability. Then it would be for the board of health to say whether they would out of generosity rebuild the cottage. That is a difficulty. There may be other cases. For instance, if a person built a garage next door to a cottage and, through an accident, the cottage was burned, that might not be covered by the insurance. At any rate, the board of health, for their own protection are bound to insure. They will insure for their own protection. It will not be a very big sum and they can include that in the annuity. The tenants themselves can also insure for their own protection. I do not know whether many of them do. Many difficulties might arise as to the interpretation of the covenants and whether there were breaches of them. I am afraid that the board of health could not possibly undertake to watch every cottage and see that things were not done which would be breaches of the covenants with the insurance company. They would have very great difficulty in exercising such supervision as that.
What remedy would the local authority have in this case? A very common covenant in fire insurance policies is that you are not to keep on the premises oil in drums above a certain flash point which usually excludes petrol and gasoline. Suppose the occupant of a cottage becomes a hackney car driver and instals a barrel of petrol on the premises. The local authority knows that that destroys the security under the insurance policy and tells him that he must not keep the petrol and he says he will keep it. What remedy have the local authority or have they any remedy?
There are at present laws in existence, I think, regulating the storage of petrol. Certain conditions are laid down in connection with its storage.
In order to save the Minister the trouble of meeting a lot of individual cases, let us suppose the local authority learn that a tenant is doing something which is legal, but which is in conflict with the covenants in the fire insurance policy. Have they any means of compelling the tenant to comply with the terms of the policy or must they stand by in the knowledge that the fire insurance policy has become null and void?
So far as I am aware, there is nothing in this Bill which would cover the point.
Surely the section becomes a rather questionable advantage then.
I will look into it and see if we can cover that. It may be covered by the ordinary tenancy regulations.
The Minister can look into it at his leisure.
Question put and agreed to.
The following amendment was agreed to:—
In sub-section (1), line 3, page 13, to insert at the end of the sub-section the words "as on and from the date (in this section referred to as the date of consolidation) specified in that behalf in such order."—Aire Rialtais Aitiúla agus Sláinte Puiblí.
I move amendment No. 17:—
To delete sub-section (2) and substitute the following sub-section:—
(2) Where a consolidating order has been made in relation to a cottage which is subject to an annuity (in this sub-section referred to as the cottage purchase annuity) payable to a board of health under this Act, and a holding which is subject to a purchase annuity (in this sub-section referred to as the land purchase annuity) payable to the Irish Land Commission, then as on and from the date of consolidation specified in such order, the following provisions shall have effect, that is to say:—
(a) such cottage and such holding shall be deemed for the purposes of the Land Purchase Acts to be one holding (in this sub-section referred to as the consolidated holding), and the owner of such cottage and such holding shall for the said purposes be deemed to be the proprietor of the consolidated holding, and the conditions imposed by the said Acts on the proprietor of a holding for the purchase of which the Irish Land Commission have made an advance under the said Acts shall apply to such proprietor accordingly;
(b) the cottage purchase annuity and the land purchase annuity shall each continue to be payable as a separate annuity;
(c) the land purchase annuity and any unpaid arrears thereof accrued due before the said date of consolidation shall be charged on and recoverable out of the consolidated holding in the same manner and in the same priority as the land purchase annuity was immediately before the said date of consolidation charged on and recoverable out of the original holding;
(d) the following provisions shall apply in respect of the cottage purchase annuity, that is to say:—
(i) the cottage purchase annuity shall, in lieu of being paid to such board of health, be paid to the Irish Land Commission, and shall, unless previously redeemed under this paragraph, continue to be so paid until the expiration of the payment period in respect of such cottage;
(ii) the cottage purchase annuity shall be payable to the Irish Land Commission by equal half-yearly instalments on the gale days on which the land purchase annuity is, or in the case of the cesser of the land purchase annuity, before the cottage purchase annuity was payable, and the first instalment shall be payable on the first gale day after the said date of consolidation, subject, however, as follows:—
(I) if the period commencing on the said date of consolidation, and ending immediately before the said first gale day, is less than six months, the instalment payable on foot of the cottage purchase annuity on the said first gale day shall be reduced proportionately;
(II) if the payment period in respect of such cottage expires on a day other than a gale day, there shall be payable to the Irish Land Commission on foot of the cottage purchase annuity on the expiration by the said payment period an instalment which bears to the cottage purchase annuity the same proportion as the period commencing on the last gale day in the said purchase period and ending at the expiration of the said purchase period bears to one year,
(iii) the cottage purchase annuity shall be charged on the consolidated holding,
(iv) the cottage purchase annuity shall rank as a charge on the consolidated holding next in priority to the land purchase annuity,
(v) the cottage purchase annuity shall be deemed to be an annuity for the repayment of moneys advanced under the Land Purchase Acts for the purchase of a holding, and the Irish Land Commission shall have for the recovery of any unpaid instalments thereof the like remedies as they have for the recovery of unpaid instalments of a land purchase annuity,
(vi) all arrears of the cottage purchase annuity accrued due after the said date of consolidation shall be a charge on and made good out of the Guarantee Fund under the Land Purchase Acts under like arrangements as are applicable to arrears of land purchase annuities,
(vii) the cottage purchase annuity may be redeemed at any time by payment to the Irish Land Commission of such sum as, in the opinion of the Minister for Finance, represents the value of all the instalments thereof which have not then accrued due,
(viii) the cottage purchase annuity may be reduced by redemption of part thereof by payment to the Irish Land Commission of such sum as, in the opinion of the Minister for Finance, represents the value of that part of all the instalments thereof which have not then accrued due,
(ix) all moneys received by the Irish Land Commission in respect of instalments of the cottage purchase annuity shall be disposed of in such manner as the Minister for Finance shall direct,
(x) all moneys received by the Irish Land Commission in respect of the redemption of the cottage purchase annuity or any part thereof shall be paid by the Irish Land Commission to such board of health and applied by them in such manner as the Minister may direct;
(e) notwithstanding anything contained in the Land Purchase Acts, no part of the land purchase annuity shall be redeemable until the whole of the cottage purchase annuity is either redeemed or ceases to be payable;
(f) so long as both the cottage purchase annuity and the land purchase annuity continue to be payable, such annuities shall, for the purposes of the collection and recovery thereof, be deemed to be a consolidated annuity of an amount equal to the sum of the said two annuities;
(g) unless and until the cottage purchase annuity has been wholly redeemed, the Irish Land Commission shall, on every date subsequent to the said date of consolidation when, if such consolidating order had not been made, the owner of such cottage would have been liable to pay to such board of health an instalment of the cottage purchase annuity, be liable either to pay to such board of health or, if any debt is due to the Irish Land Commission by such board of health, to place to the credit of such board of health, the following amount, that is to say:—
(i) in case the cottage purchase annuity has not been reduced by redemption, an amount equal to the amount of such instalment,
(ii) in case the cottage purchase annuity has been reduced by redemption, an amount which bears to the amount of such instalment the same proportion as the cottage purchase annuity after such reduction bore to the cottage purchase annuity before such reduction;
(h) the following provisions shall have effect in relation to any arrears of the cottage purchase annuity which accrued due before the said date of consolidation,
(i) the Irish Land Commission shall not be liable to collect or pay to such board of health such arrears,
(ii) such arrears shall be recoverable by such board of health as a simple contract debt in a court of competent jurisdiction;
(i) every provision of this Act which—
(i) imposes on the owner of such cottage an obligation to pay to such board of health any instalment of the cottage purchase annuity, or
(ii) imposes on the owner of such cottage an obligation to comply with any statutory condition, or
(iii) confers any power or imposes any duty on such board of health in relation to cottages purchased under this Act, or
(iv) relates to restrictions on mortgaging and charging cottages,
shall, subject to the provisions of the immediately preceding paragraph, cease to have effect in relation to such owner or cottage, but without prejudice to the application of any provision of the Land Purchase Acts;
(j) no provision of this Act shall be construed as imposing any duty on the Irish Land Commission in relation to such cottage which is not imposed by the Land Purchase Acts as implied by this sub-section to the consolidated holding.
This is one of the matters I referred to a short time ago as to the question of vesting the cottage and plot in the tenant purchaser. This amendment has been drafted for us by the Land Commission. It deals with the case of a tenant who will purchase his labourer's cottage and who is in possesion of, or obtains a holding of land subject to an annuity payable to the Land Commission. In such a case the Land Commission will collect both annuities and pay the portion relating to the cottage annuity to the board of health. The cottage purchase annuity may be redeemed at any time, in whole or in part, by a lump sum payment. There have been some cases—I do not know whether they are numerous or not—where tenants have been granted holdings of land. The intention is to amalgamate the holding and the cottage and plot and hand them over to the Land Commission. They become Land Commission tenants and the Land Commission will be responsible for them, as if they were small holdings.
Surely this will lead to chaos. You have now a cottage and plot held from a local authority under the peculiar tenancy described in the Bill. The land which will be granted to the cottage tenant by the Land Commission will be held under an ordinary Land Commission title and will, presumably, be vested in the tenant. As soon as may be after he has been granted the holding under the Land Commission title, the Land Commission will proceed to collect the joint annuity, representing the annuity on the cottage and plot, plus the annuity on the land. But the tenant holds land as owner in fee simple with the charge in favour of the Land Commission in respect of an annuity outstanding. He is, however, no more than a tenant at will of the local authority in respect of his cottage and plot, and is liable to ejection, without compensation, on any occasion on which he gets into arrears. But you have the Land Commission collecting the rents for both plots. Surely that is going to give rise to the wildest confusion. There will be the difficulty of keeping the holding delimited and recognising the difference between what will be an annuity and a rent to the local authority. Now there is a way out, but it is a way which I think will give rise to considerable inequality between tenants. What you can do is this. Where you have a cottage with land annexed which is subject to a purchase agreement, and the Land Commission gives the tenant a piece of land under the Land Act, the local authority might sell the cottage and plot to the Land Commission and allow the Land Commission to fix an annuity that would provide for the cottage and plot. If you do that you will have every cottage purchaser clamouring for a bit of land from the Land Commission on the better terms which the Land Commission provides. Otherwise I do not see how you can work a system where the Land Commission is acting as rent collector in respect to those two different contracts in regard to what appears to be one parcel of land. Would the Minister consider the practicability of transferring the cottage and plot to the Land Commission where he is going to make the cottage tenant a Land Commission purchaser? That would simplify the situation considerably.
We have gone into that and found it would not simplify the situation. After a long discussion with the Land Commission, our advisers agreed upon this plan as one that raises the least possible number of difficulties, and made it easier for the tenant. A variety of ways were discussed. What Deputy Dillon has in mind was discussed with the Land Commission, and after considerable discussion, correspondence and conferences, this course was adopted by the expert advisers of the three parties concerned.
Incidentally, you will have the picture of a man with an acre of land with his cottage, and an annuity fixed for him which will be approximately economic. He will then get another acre of land from the Land Commission, and will have to pay half annuity under the Land Purchase Act of 1933. That, I imagine, will make further difficulty. One acre of his land will bear what will look like a terrific rent as compared with what will be known as a normal annuity for the acre of land adjoining. Would not the Minister be well advised to amalgamate such holdings and thus solve the difficulty? If he does not do that surely the time will come when he will have to consent to a scheme which will provide that one acre of land attached to a labourer's cottage will bear a heavier rent than an acre of land purchased under the Land Act. Unless he amalgamates the holdings in every case of this kind he will find himself in a very difficult position and, what is worse, he will make it more difficult still for his successor in office.
Might I refer to a couple of typographical errors in the amendment. In sub-section (d) (ii), page 5, paragraph 8 from the top, the word "by" should read "of."
We can make that amendment by agreement now.
If the Committee pleases.
Amendment agreed to.
Also in the same paragraph in line 4 the word "purchase" should read "payment" and in the last lines of the paragraph the word "purchase" there again should read "payment."
Amendment agreed to.
Amendment No. 17, as amended, put and agreed to.
What about amendment No. 18?
Amendment No. 18 is not in order.
Section 27, as amended, agreed to.
Sections 28 and 29 agreed to.
On behalf of Deputy Brennan, I beg to move amendment No. 18 (a):
Before Section 30 to insert a new section as follows:—
Cottage rent collectors whose services are not required as a result of the operation of this Act, and who are not absorbed into equally remunerative employment by the board of health shall be entitled to reasonable compensation by way of pension or gratuity with the Minister's sanction and approval.
I understand from Deputy Brennan that he feels that fees from the collection of rents which form a very substantial part of the payment of the salaries of those officers, who act as rent collectors, will be considerably reduced as the result of the passing of this Bill. I would like to hear from the Minister if that is so?
There will be a reduction, to a certain extent, in their incomes, because so many of these rent collectors are paid on a percentage basis. They are paid on a percentage of rents which will now be reduced. The annuities will be 75 per cent. of the present rents and, therefore, the collectors' income will be reduced by 25 per cent. None of them, however, will lose his fees or his employment. There will be a possible reduction in the amount of salary or commission they receive in the collection of those rents, but such reduction as will be certain to arise in that way will be met by an increase in the number of cottages that will grow up in future in board of health areas. Some collectors have had very considerable increase in revenue as a result of the increase in the number of cottages from which they collected rents during the last two or three years. In future years I think in the case of every board of health area there will be an additional number of cottages from which rents will be collected. In that way they will have made up to them much more than any loss that may arise as a result of the reduction of the annuities by reason of the purchase scheme.
I gather from the wording of Deputy Brennan's amendment that his fear was that the services of some of these rent collectors would not be required as a result of the operations of the Act. I take it that the operations of the Act will not lead to their dismissal.
They will not lead to the dismissal of one collector, so far as I know.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section 30 to 33, inclusive, agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill, as amended, reported.
Report Stage fixed for Wednesday, 3rd June.