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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 1 Mar 1939

Vol. 74 No. 9

Valuation Bill, 1938—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

This Bill, to my mind, is a very bad and a very unpopular Bill, and the Government would be well advised to withdraw it. It is going to affect people who are already overburdened with taxes. In the cities and towns it will affect professional men, working men and citizens who took advantage of the Housing Acts to build or to improve their homes. In the country, the Bill is also very unpopular and is creating a feeling of uncertainty amongst farmers, especially those who go in for cattle raising. Conditions have changed in connection with that industry, and farmers who want to get into the British store market have to adopt new methods. They have to provide more housing accommodation for cattle in the winter, and to put the stock on the market earlier than was the rule in the past. The day when four-year-old bullocks were fattened here has gone. Irish farmers have now to compete with Canada and other countries in the British market. British stock owners can get suitable cattle in Ireland. Our cattle suit the climate there, but to have stock in proper condition in the early spring, they must be well fed and well housed. Farmers are not prepared to put up additional houses if they have the feeling that in a year or three years they are going to be taxed for doing so. They have the fear that they are going to be taxed out of existence if, in order to compete in the world market, they put up housing to enable them to have their stock in proper condition. Farmers are affected in other ways. In districts where potatoes are extensively grown the old custom was to feed potatoes to stock. This was the severest winter we had for many years, with heavy frost and heavy rain, and many farmers, when they opened their pits in the fields, found that the potatoes were rotten. The alternative is to build proper potato houses.

The only alternative to that is to build proper potato houses and, according to this Bill, you will be liable to extra taxation on those houses. It also affects the dairy farmer. Under the Milk Regulations Act farmers had to improve their cowsheds or else go out of producing milk, whichever they liked. It cost a good deal of money to improve the cowsheds and now they are afraid they are going to be taxed for that improvement. They feel that the farmer has no security. He does not know where he is or what he is up against. The sooner the Government withdraws this Bill the better it will be for them and the country. There is a feeling in the country that farmers should be encouraged to put up haysheds and cattle sheds. They fear that, if they borrow the money to do this or if they do it out of their own savings, they will be taxed on the re-valuation which is sure to come.

I would advise Fianna Fáil and every member of that Party to study this leaflet, which was circulated before the 1932 election, when they were telling the people the way to reduce taxation, and that the only way was to put Fianna Fáil in power. I wonder what the poor people who put them in think to-day of that reduced taxation. They were to decrease taxation by £2,000,000 a year, but what do we find? It is going up in leaps and bounds every year and there is no sign from this Bill that they are satisfied yet. They are going to bleed the people further. It is nearly time for this Government to waken up to facts and to think of all those grand promises in this and other leaflets that were distributed to the country, telling what they were going to do for the poor people, how they were going to help the unemployed, and how they were going to help the workers, the industrialists and the farmers. First of all, you had six years of an economic war that led this country into debt. The towns, villages and cities have been feeling the effects for the last two or three years. In addition to that, you had ten months of the worst weather in living memory. You all must know that to have this country prosperous agriculture must be prosperous. The farmers must be in a position to make money to pay a living wage to the agricultural worker. You have no money in circulation in this country if the farmer is down and out. I see nothing in the policy of Fianna Fáil since they got into power but to depress the farmer, to try to get him on the road to ruin, which they have almost done. It is nearly time for this Government to waken up and, instead of putting more taxes on the people, come to their assistance right away and not collect the taxes or rents for the next two or three years. The rents have been raised until the farmer is unable to pay them. Surely they should not be further depressed by trying to get through the flying squad what is not there, by seizing the farmer's stock and putting him in a worse position. That is not going to make this country prosperous. There are many farmers in this country to-day, especially in my own county, who do not know where to turn to get seeds and manure for their land. They have no credit and they have no money and their seed has been destroyed by the bad season. My advice to this Government would be to withdraw this Bill and instead of increasing taxation reduce it and keep to their promise in this leaflet. If they do that they will be doing a good day's work.

Faoi'n mBille seo tá a lán ráidhte ach tá faitíos orm na daoine is mó a dteastuíonn rud eicínt a rádh ar a son, sin iad an fíorbhocht, nár dhubhradh go leor fútha. Má thagann an Bille seo i bhfeidhm ní bheidh siad ann le tada a rádh ar a son, mar cuirfidh na rátaí bhéas i ndiaidh an Bhille seo o theach is talamh iad. Tá sé dhá thabhairt isteach in am nach bhfuil tada ag na daoine. Rud ar bith a bhí aca tá sé anois caithte aca, mar an méid a rinne an Riaghaltas seo dhóibh, rud ar bith a bhí le díol aca a chur faoi chois agus gan ceathrú cuid a luach fháil air. Sna blianta seo atá caithte ní raibh pighinn aca le fáil ar bheithíoch, ná ar chaora, ná ar mhuca. Maidir le na huibheacha ní bhfuightheá cúig chéad ubh faoi láthair ón Spidéal go dtí Ceann Léime, agus tá fhios go mb'iongantach an áit uibheacha é seo sna blianta atá caithte. Go leor de na sean-daoine tháinig romhainn mhair siad ar na huibheacha. Nuair a chuir an Riaghaltais iallach orainn sé phunt a thabhairt do Sheán Buidhe i ngeall ar chuile bheithíoch os cionn dá bhlian, chuir sé sin as beithígh an ceanntar seo, mar níor bhféidir beithíoch faoi dhá bhliain a dhíol againne mar bheadh siad ro-bheag. Agus go leor aca níorbh fhiú sé phunt féin iad.

Maidir le rud ar bith a bhí siad a dhéanamh leis an bhfairrge tá sé imithe le fán uilig. Chuir an dream seo Fianna Fáil i ngar leaghadh cubhar na habhann air. Agus anois tá an tAire ag tabhairt isteach an Bille seo le muid chur síos ar chaoi nach mbeidh muid i ndon ar gceann a chrochadh le linn na ndaoine. Leath leithscéil atá ag an Aire, ach tá mé ag ceapadh go bhfuil sé níos glice ná go gcreidfí leithscéal ar bith uaidh. Deirtear an té nach bhfuil láidir go gcaithfe sé bheith glic, ach tá aithmhéal orm go bhfuil seisean glic agus láidir faoi láthair sa Teach seo. Cén leithscéal is mó atá aige? Seod é. Má theigheann an valuation suas go rachaidh na rátaí anuas. Nach é cheapas muid a bheith bog! Tá béal na fírinne annseo agam. An dá Union is boichte in Éirinn, an dá Union is Gaedhealaighe in Éirinn, an dá Union is mó fíor-Ghaedhealtacht, seod é an valuation a bhí ar na tighthe ionta i mbliain 1924— £11,758 17s. Sa mbliain 1938 an valuation atá ortha £13,966 7s. Sin cúigiú cuid árdú sa valuation sa gcúig bhliana déag, no os cionn £2,500. Más fíor scéal an Aire ba cheart go dtiocfadh na rátaí anuas sa dá Union seo. Ach céard a thárla? I mbliain 1924 9/2 sa bpunt a bhí na rátaí; agus sa mbliain 1938 bhí na rátaí 14/7 sa bpunt—níos mó go mór i 1938 ná i 1924, níos mó ná oiread go leith. I 1924 sa dá Union sin híocadh os cionn £5,000 ar rátaí ar thighthe; i 1928 híocadh os cionn £10,000 ar rátaí ar thighthe—dúbailt na rátaí in imeacht cúig bhliana déag. Cuireann sé sin ar magadh atá ag an Aire abhaile chuige, mar níl aimhreas nach bhfuil uaidh ach an t-airgead fháil. Ach má chuireann sé an Bille seo i bhfeidhm ní £10,000 a bhéas muid a íoc ach ar a laighead £30,000, mar gabhfaidh an "valuation" suas trí huaire agus gan aimhreas ní thiocfaidh na rátaí anuas. Tugaim-se fuagra don Aire má dhéanann sé seo nach mbeidh na daoine i ndon é íoc mar ní bheidh sé aca. Gan aimhreas tá sé ag cur a shúla thar a chuid. Tá fhios ag Teachtaí Fianna Fáil as an gceanntar sin chó maith is tá fhios agam-sa gurb 'eod í an fhírinne ach níl misneach aca a rádh. Ní féidir fuil a bhaint as turnap; mar seo ní féidir rud a bhaint de na daoine nach mbeidh aca. Suas go dtí seo ba iad an dá Union seo an dá Union is fearr a d'íoc na rátaí i gCo. na Gaillimhe—go leor leor de na daoine dhá n-íoc agus ag tabhairt anshógh dhóibh féin is dhá muirghín, dhá gcur féin go dtí n-a mbionda agus thairis go minic, ag iarraidh é a chruinniú. Ach nuair a fheicfeas siad anois an t-ualach a bheas ortha tuithfidh an driúll ar an dreall aca agus déarfa siad go bhfuil sé chó maith dhóibh féin iad a bháthadh le n-a gcaitheadh. Anois tá fhios ag chuile Theachta sa Teach seo a raibh éinní le déanamh aige le Acht na dTithe (Gaeltacht), 1929, gurb é an chéad cheist a d'fhiafruigh na daoine a n-árdófaí an "valuation" ortha go mór. Dubhradh leo nach ndéanfaí agus ba ar an ngealladh sin a chuaidh go leor aca ag obair, mar fuair siad an oiread sa sean-aimsir ón gcíos go raibh faitíos ortha roimh na rátaí. Anois tá dream Fianna Fáil ag dul ag briseadh a bhfocail leo agus an méid gealladh a thug siad a riamh dhóibh go mbeadh chuile rud aca ar leath a luach. Ach is olc iad na gealla bréagach'—más fad' díreach an bóthar isé an tslí mhór an aithgiorra. Cuimhním go maith ag líonadh fuirm do shean-fhear atá anois ar shlí na fírinne. Dubhairt sé liom: "A Josie," adeir sé, "bhfuil tú siúráilte nach n-árdófar go mór an `valuation'.""Sin é gealladh an riaghaltais," adeirim-se, "atá faoi láthair againn." Ba shin é i mbliain 1930. Dubhairt sé: "Ar éigin a chreidim é," adeir sé. "Tá súil agam nach cáirde atá ann," adeir sé, "mar más eadh, tagann an cháirde ach ní maithtear na fiacha." Níl baol go maithfidh an tAire seo aon fhiacha ar chaoi ar bith, ach iad a chur suas trí huaire chó hárd is tá siad. Ní thuigeann sé an tír, go mór-mhór an tír bhocht mar tá sí faoi láthair—go leor de na daoine nach bhfiul fata aca le cur ina mbéal. Ach ní airigheann sughach sáthach anshógh an ocrais. Gan aimhreas tá an bhliain seo i ngar chó dona le bliain an droch-shaoil ach mar dubhairt Easbog Chluain Fearta le gairid: "Ná ceapadh an tAire gurb é Baile Atha Cliath Éire." Ní hé, míle buidheachas le Dia.

Anois faoi bhaile mór na Gaillimhe is a leitheide, cuirfear iad seo de dhruim seoil uilig. Tá go leor siopaí annseo cheana atá ag coinneál a gcuid doras oscluithe ar éigin agus nuair a thiocfas an "valuation" nua seo ortha tá faitíos orm go n-eireoidh an rud céanna dhóibh a d'eirigh do "factory" na holna, sin é, a dhoras a dhúnadh. Maidir leis an gCladach— an ceanntar ar cuireadh go leor de na daoine amach as a gcuid tighthe beaga in aghaidh an dtola, cuid aca ar caitheadh dlí a chur ortha sara n-imeoidís asta go ndéanfaí tighthe nua dhóibh—nuair a hárdófar an "valuation" ortha seo gan aimhreas ní bheidh siad i ndon a íoc, mar ar a laghad dúblófar an "valuation" atá ortha faoi láthair. Cá bhfuigheadh na daoine bochta an méid seo airgid le n-íoc? Agus mar a chéile na tighthe nua a rinneadh ar an mBóthar Mór; tá na daoine seo chó bocht faoi láthair agus nach bhfuil cuid aca i ndon teine a choinneál leo féin más fíor a bhfuil ráidhte. Céard éireochas dóibh seo ach a dhul 'un báin is gan áit aca le dhul.

An "valuation" atá ar an talamh i gConamara faoi láthair, tá sé beag ach bheadh sé níos lugha dá gcuirtí faoi "valuation" anois é mar nuair a bhí Griffith dhá chur faoi "valuation" bhí luach mór agus cáil ar an bhfeamuinn, agus tá fhios ag muintir Oifig an Valuation é seo. Anois níl díol ar bith ar an bhfeamainn. Ní maith liom nach bhfuil an Teachta Peadar O Lochlainn sa Teach, mar tá fhios aige go maith gur minic a chonnaic sé Céibh Bhaile Uí Bheacháin, an Chéibh Nua agus Céibh an Chorainn lán le báid feamuinne le feamuinn as Conamara. Ach tá an saol sin caithte faríor, o tháinig an guano agus leasú na málaí. Anois d'iarrfainn ar an Aire, má tá blas suime aige sa gceanntar seo, an Bille seo a tharraingt ar chúl. Nuair a théigheas daoine síos as Baile Atha Cliath agus a leitheide d'áit, nach 'éard deireann siad: Cén chaoi bhfuilmuid beo chor ar bith sa gceanntar bocht sin. Ach má bhí sé bocht roimhe seo beidh seacht mbochtaineacht air i ndiaidh an Bhille seo. Chuile dhuine ag magadh is ag fiodmhagadh faoi'n nGaeltacht agus faoi'n nGaedhilg agus gan de shuim ag an gcuid is mó aca inti ach an oiread le madadh Sheáin Dan, ach go leor aca ag déanamh go leor is go leor aisti. Rud ar bith a fuair muid ariamh— agus ní bhfuairmuid ach an beagán— tá chuile dhuine ina dhiaidh orainn tá sé ina "Oineach Uí Bhriain agus a dhá shúil ina dhiaidh". Tá mé ag iarraidh ar an Aire gan an Bille seo a chur i bhfeidhm; mara ndéana sé ar son na mbeo é ba cheart dó é dhéanamh ar son na marbh. Agus cuimhnigh nach mbeadh sé sa Teach seo marach an Piarsach agus gur go dtí an Ghaeltacht a chuaidh an Piarsach le féachaint le maith a dhéanamh ortha, ní le n-a scrios é mar tá an tAire ag dul a dhéanamh.

I rise to oppose this Bill. I think it is a most unjust Bill. It is a Bill which is going to put a further burden on the farmers, the farmers who have worked hard and have built decent dwellinghouses for themselves and decent out-offices for their cattle, the farmers who have built hay barns. We are now to have an army of officials going round the country revaluing these buildings and I believe that these officials are going to do their duty, are going to earn their money and are going to put taxes on the farmers. I am surprised that the Government should have thought of putting through a Bill of this kind. Think of the case of the unfortunate farmer who tried to build a decent dwellinghouse on the side of a mountain, who had no horse or cart, and had to carry his stuff up and down the side of the mountain. Now, because that man has managed to build some little outhouse or out-office, his property is going to be revalued, and he will be made to pay, and pay heavily. I am surprised that a native Government should attempt to put a Bill like this through. Take the case of a poor boy in the country who comes to a town and gets married and builds up a little business through his own industry. That man is now going to be heavily taxed. Not alone is he going to be heavily taxed as a direct result of this Bill, but he is also going to have to pay more to the Electricity Supply Board.

I think that the Minister should have more consideration for this country. To prove that, I may mention that the Sligo Corporation—80 per cent. of whom are behind the Fianna Fáil Government to-day—have instructed me to oppose this measure. That resolution was passed on the 18th of January, 1939, and was duly signed by the town clerk. I submit that that shows that the Corporation of Sligo, 80 per cent. of whom, as I have said, are Fianna Fáil and supporters of the present Government, are opposed to this Bill. On these grounds, I think one could presume that a great many of the supporters of the present Government would be against this Bill. Accordingly, I think that this Bill should be withdrawn. I think it is going to inflict a lot of hardship and injustice on the people of this country, and especially on the farmers of the country. The farmers of this country fought through the economic war for the last four or five or six years, and now they are going to be taxed on their out-offices and farm buildings. I would appeal to the Minister, and to the members of the Fianna Fáil Party, to withdraw this Bill.

We have just heard two speakers from some of the poorest parts of the country referring to this Bill. Deputy Mongan can go home and tell the people of Connemara what the effects of this Bill will be, but that is not going to have any effect so long as the Bill goes through. Galway sent five voices, or five votes, into the Fianna Fáil Party, and their decision is going to dictate what is to happen in Galway or in Connemara as a result of this new taxing measure. The Minister for Finance told us, early in February, that the present cadastre of valuations is an indefensible anachronism, which is injurious to the credit of our public authorities, and tends to impede all social progress. I suggest that the Minister's attitude with regard to this Bill is a degradation of Parliament, and that the only anachronism in this House, so far as I see, is the dumb mouths and hang-dog attitude of Deputies sent into an Irish Parliament in discussing important matters of this kind. I suggest that the kind of dumb tongue and hang-dog attitude one sees now in this House is reminiscent of the days of Hamar Greenwood, or of the landlords and the battering ram.

Are we discussing important things or the question of the physiognomy of certain people?

I am discussing things that are important to this country. The Minister, in his speech, mentioned certain anachronisms, and I say that the only anachronism is that this is somewhat like the days of Hamar Greenwood, so far as concerns the denial of things that have actually happened. That is the attitude of the Minister with regard to this measure. What did the Minister say about this measure? In effect, the Minister said that the object of this measure was to settle the relativity of rates—not to increase income tax or rates, and so on, but that, actually, strictly speaking, as he suggested, it might result in reducing rents and, as he said, would do away with certain inequities and inequalities. As I have remarked already, the person who can talk in that way about this measure is adapting to Irish life the methods of Hamar Greenwood. In my opinion, not alone is this going to mean extra taxation, but it is going to take at least £300,000 out of pockets of persons who occupy houses for rent or of people who are owners of houses and occupy them. It is going to mean at least that. Does the Minister deny that? The Minister, of course, would have been delighted if he had this measure in 1932. He modestly admits that, if he had had this measure in 1932 he would have got another £500,000 out of the rate-payers; but in the meantime he took other means of getting money from the tax-payers. He got something out of the owners of business premises, and he got something out of everybody when he put on the 25 per cent. a couple of years ago. Now he is going, as it were, to finish the job, and the finishing up of the job means that he is going to get the rest of this money from the people who are renting houses at the present time and from owner-occupiers of houses at the present time.

I say, therefore, that when the Minister made his remarks about the taxing capacity of the people with regard to this measure he was misleading the House. The Minister says that 1932 has been responsible for increasing the taxation of the people of this country by £4,000,000 a year. Now, in the last year it was £4,041,000 more than in the year when he took office. Not alone that, but the rate-payers of this country, during the same period, have had to pay £1,173,331 more in rates—so that, in money that actually comes out of the people's pockets, in payment either to the State or to local authorities, despite all the protestations of the Minister and the members of his Government and his Party that taxation was going to be reduced, the amount of money that has been taken out of the pockets of the people last year would amount to £5,213,300 more than was taken out of their pockets before we had the blessing of a Fianna Fáil Government coming into office. The Minister says that it is not going to increase the rates. Does the Minister seriously mean that?

What has happened during the last few years with regard to rates? I pointed out that the amount taken out of the people's pockets in rates last year above the amount in 1931-1932 was £1,172,000. Of that, £612,319 came out of the pockets of those who paid rates to county councils. That is, that for every £100 they paid in 1931-1932, they had to pay £126 in the year ending March, 1938; and in the urban districts and county boroughs, for every £100 paid in 1931-1932, £125 had to be paid in the year ending March, 1938. The current year is going to be worse. The only people we have information about at present are those who pay rates to county councils. The people who pay rates to county councils are going to pay, according to the warrant when every reduction has been made for credit notes and other things, £240,000 more than they paid the year before; so that in the year ended March, 1939, the payers of rates to the county councils for every £100 they paid in 1931-1932 are going to pay £134 and a few shillings extra. That is as far as rates are concerned.

But when we leave the county councils and take those bodies particularly concerned with borrowing for what are called public services a rather interesting position discloses itself. When we take the county boards of health, county boroughs, urban districts, and towns other than urban districts and see what they are getting from the urban ratepayers in the case of urban districts and from the county ratepayers in the case of boards of health, we find that the rates increased £561,328 between 1932 and 1937. It is only up to 1937 that we have this information.

I should like to know whether the Deputy purposes to make a review of local government from 1931 to 1937 or to deal with the Valuation Bill and its effects.

Unfortunately, local government finance is related very closely to the Valuation Bill, and the Minister's whole case is that he is bringing it in in order to make equitable and just the burden of local finances on the ratepayers.

The Deputy is only proving that the rates may go up whether there is or there is not a new cadastre.

I am going to prove that what the Minister says has, as I say, no relation to the facts. The Minister ought to know what the facts are. There is no Deputy sitting behind, who has anything to do either with urban government or county council government, but could tell him. I am asking the Minister to realise that this is a definite indication that, no matter what he says here, the rates are going to go up, and that, as well as the money he is going to take out of income-tax payers' pockets as a result of the measure, he is going to take infinitely bigger sums out of both urban and rural payers of taxes.

If the Deputy would relate the suggested increase to the Valuation Bill——

I am going to relate it to the Valuation Bill. I am saying that boards of health, county boroughs, urban districts, and towns with local government handled in the year ending March, 1937, £561,328 of money taken out of the ratepayers' pockets more than they did five years before that. Where did it go? £579,908, that is the whole of that money plus an additional £22,927, went for the payment, in an increasing amount, of borrowed moneys. Actually, when these two figures are compared, instead of dealing with the ordinary current expenses of these local bodies at the time, the moneys raised in that way were raised to pay money on additional capital expenditure at that particular time. Even when we take into consideration increased rents as a result of the houses built and make allowance for the increased cost of repairs, the position was that, out of £560,000 additional raised by taxation, only £22,000 was available for spending on the actual current work of local government.

The figures seem to me to be very relevant to the Vote for the Minister for Local Government, but the Deputy so far has failed to relate them to this Bill.

I want to relate them to this Bill. I bring that forward as an index of the pressure which is on local authorities at present to take more money out of the people's pockets for work, if you like, of a constructive kind. I say that the people are not able to bear it, and that the Valuation Bill is going to make it easier for that to be done. I want to refer to what happened in Waterford in order to show that. It might be easier for you, Sir, if I had stated what happened in Waterford first, and then passed on to the position of local authorities. This is what happened in Waterford. Waterford was revalued in 1926, and the Minister, in column 275, when he referred to the revaluation of Dublin in 1915 or 1916 and the revaluation of Waterford in 1926 stated it was important to note that this revaluation was on the basis of pre-war money values in both areas.

What happened in Waterford? The average valuation for the three years ended March, 1926, was £51,260. After the revaluation of Waterford the average valuation for the three years ended March, 1929, was £77,368. Now the average amount of money that was taken out of the pockets of the rate-payers of Waterford for the three years ending March, 1926, was £46,828. That meant an average rate for those three years of 19/8 in the £. For the three years following the revised valuation of 1926 the average amount of money taken in rates out of the pockets of the Waterford ratepayers was £58,767. That works out at an average rate of 16/1. The Minister in his talks to the House says that when the valuation goes up the rates go down in the same proportion. Unfortunately, in Waterford, the anticipated drop of 6/7 in the £ in the rates did not come about. There was a drop of only 3/7. If the valuation of Waterford had remained as it was and the average amount of rates taken out of the pockets of the people of Waterford during the three years following the revaluation had to be assessed on the old valuation, the rates in Waterford, instead of being 19/8, as they had been for the three years ending March, 1926, would have risen to 24/9 in the £. Now the Waterford people would not face a rate of 24/9 in the £. But they were meeting what was the equivalent of that figure when they were paying 16/1 in the £ on the new valuation. That is the case of Waterford valued at the pre-war level and that is the case of Waterford with the additional social services pressure on it with the three years ending March, 1929. The Minister said the rate will not go up except you have squandermania——

I did not say that. I did not use the word "squandermania."

Oh, dear me. The Minister said, as reported in column 268, volume 74:—

"unless, of course, those who are in charge of local administration should get a fit of squandermania."

These are the words the Minister used.

What I meant was that I was not accusing the local authorities of squandermania.

What the Minister meant was that he wanted to blind this House to the fact that the widening and broadening of the basis of the valuation estimate was going to provide an opportunity for the official machinery of Government policy to take more money out of the pockets of the ratepayers throughout the country, when it had come to the step where there was no other pocket except the pockets of the owners of houses to be searched after all the searching that has been done in the last seven years. But what is intended and what will happen is that as soon as the increase in valuation takes place, it will be easier for the official screw there on top to extract more moneys out of the ratepayers' pockets. At any rate, that is the hope and that is the plan. The Minister implies that it may reduce the rents.

Deputy Mongan talked about what was going to happen in the case of the Gaeltacht houses, and he mentioned a particular section of the Bill under which certain concessions were given to housing. Amongst other matters the Bill provides that the valuation of houses in the Gaeltacht will be increased; there is no provision for any valuation being decreased. The Bill specifically mentions the lines upon which the valuation of houses will be increased whether they were new houses or old houses. In column 260, No. 2 of Volume 74, the Minister said:

"The increase, therefore, in the income-tax liability of individual citizens will, in general, be negligible. Where no part of a person's total income is derived from ownership of house property the new cadastre will not affect his income tax liability in any way."

I interjected "or his rent?" and the Minister replied, "except, strictly speaking, to reduce his rent." And by way of appropriate comment on that I asked "by what percentage?" The Minister said:

"That is a matter that remains to be seen, when the revaluation is complete and is in operation."

Does the Minister think that there is a single rented house in this country where the rent is to be reduced as a result of the operation of this Bill? I know he does not, and when I asked him "by what percentage?" I do not suggest that I believed him for a moment in the slightest degree. I thought it the best way of making him realise what I did mean by forcing him to work it out by some calculation—if he had not already gone beyond the calculation point and that he knew it was not necessary to make a calculation. What is going to happen certain rents? In the City of Dublin at the present moment a person derives, let us say, his income from ten houses of £30 valuation. Assume that that person is in the position that he has, in fact, an income of £50 from every house. In that case while under the present scheme his income for income-tax purposes would be £300, that is, calculated on the valuation of his houses, his actual income would be £500. The income-tax people can only deal with him on the £300 basis. Let us take it that his commitments brought him to the point that the £300 left him at the point at which he would not be liable for any income-tax. Let us say—and I am giving moderate figures compared with what happened in Waterford at the pre-war valuation rates—that the valuation of each of these houses was going to be increased to £50. Then his income for income-tax purposes would be £500. He would in that way be brought £200 above the pre-1926 level that we were assuming before. That is, he would be liable for an income-tax of £45 at the 4/6 rate of income. Now who is going to pay that £45? Is the house still to be controlled at the new valuation of £50? If not, does the Minister in the case of a person enjoying an income of £500 from ten houses—and finding that he is forfeiting in taxation £45 of that income—really think that that person is not going to take out that £45 in increased rent if he can? At any rate we are in the situation in which the Minister suggests that rents may be reduced as a result of the operation of this Bill. I want to know even assuming that this house is still going to be controlled at £50, who is going to be forced to pay this £45? Evidently, it is the owner of the property, but what position is he going to be in in relation to the person who has the house rented from him?

Now, take the person whose house is beyond control. Let us say the valuation of this house is £31. In that case, if there is an increase in his valuation to £50, the owner of the house will be liable to pay £42 15/-, assuming that the £300 brought him to the limit of exemption. Who is going to pay that £42 15/- in the case of that uncontrolled house? The owner of the house has had an income of £500 up to the present, and is going to be asked to pay the Revenue Commissioners £42 15/-. What is going to happen there? Do not tell me that that is a case in which the rent is going to be reduced. In this rent question we are up against one of the most important things in the Bill, because the whole of the additional amount of money that is going to be taken for income tax under this Bill is going to come proximately out of the pockets of the people who either own their own houses or who have houses to rent— that is the classes that have been escaping the Minister up to the present. If you are below the limit either to rent a house at the ordinary market rent or to buy a house you can get assistance from the public authority to provide you with a house. If you are in the position of being the owner of business premises, well then, it does not matter, because if the thing does affect you in any way you can pass on your increased costs either to reducing your Schedule D payments to the Revenue Commissioners, or you can pass it on to the public, so that the people who either rent a house or the people who own a house are the people who are going to be hit, as far as income-tax and rent are concerned at the present time. In spite of that, the Minister can bring himself to make even the shadow of a suggestion here in this House that rents are going to be reduced.

The next Hamar-Greenwoodism in this matter is that there are inequalities in the present situation that this Bill is going to remedy. I wonder does the Minister know anything at all about it. We are led to understand that there is a scheme of things in the minds of modern valuation experts that is going to level out all the inequalities, all the inefficiencies and all the injustices of local taxation and, I may say, all the income tax burdens at the same time. This was the point that the Minister most relied on. However, perhaps I had better get one thing out of the way before I deal with Irish realities. There was a paper read the other night at the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland on "Rating and Valuation." Now this is not a political body in any way. Things are discussed there with academic detachment. With regard to this new equality-securing business of the Minister, we read here:

Critics of the present rating system have condemned it as "illogical,""antiquated" and "unfair." The allegations are hard to refute. They say it has outgrown the times for which it was created and that modern changes in economic and social conditions have rendered the system obsolete and wholly out of accord with the times.

The writer of the paper is Mr. Harry Lisney, F.S.I., who, at any rate, is nearly as expert in valuation as the Minister.

More expert.

That is what he says: "wholly out of accord with the times." Then he goes on: "Few will deny"—he was simply saying first what other people were saying, and now he wants to have a say himself—"Few will deny that the system is `illogical,' `antiquated' and `unfair'——"

Will the Deputy complete the quotation?

I am going to—"and it would be a miracle if it could be described by any other words"— That is part of the completion of the quotation.

"considering the piecemeal fashion in which it has been built up and the economic and industrial changes which have taken place since its introduction and early development."

In fact, he is making a case for the Bill.

Then I must say that the Minister can find support in the queerest possible collection of words if he finds support either for his outlook or his Bill in the statement which I have quoted. I take it that the comfort the Minister was looking for was in the last part of the quotation:—

"The economic and industrial changes which have taken place since its introduction and early development."

Will the Minister tell us if the economic and industrial changes during the last six years here, or the early possible economic changes foreshadowed by the Minister for Industry and Commerce this morning, implying some of the things that we have had suggested to us here in this House during the last couple of weeks in regard to world circumstances, have anything to do with the justice or otherwise, the fairness, the logical nature of, or the modern nature of the thing that is proposed here? We are told that by allowing the Valuation Office to have a free hand in valuing buildings, in valuing everything, other than land in the country during the next seven years, that we will make up for a century of backwardness; that not only will we be translated to true 20th century values in our general outlook, but that we will be brought almost to the very threshold of the 21st century.

That is what can be said about the system by an Irish student of valuation here. This is what other people think about it, in Great Britain where the scheme came from. The same paper refers to two Royal Commissions that were set up in 1901 and in 1914. It says that, in the case of the 1901 Report, nine members voted in favour of the retention of the present system and six against. In the case of the 1914 Report, seven members were for retaining the present system and six against. Then we come to——

The Deputy knows that he is twisting that sentence.

I am prepared to give the Minister the opportunity to explain what he means. Does he desire me to allow him the opportunity of explaining how I am twisting the sentence? No. The Royal Commission of 1901 stood by a majority of nine to six for the "illogical,""antiquated" and "unfair" scheme, and the Royal Commission of 1914 by a majority of seven to six stood for the same thing. Then we come to 1936, and as regards the Finance Committee of the London County Council who have a certain interest in this matter, it says of them:

"The last attempt to take action was made in July, 1936, when the council expressed the opinion that the present rating system was inequitable in its incidence, and passed a resolution calling on the Government to introduce legislation to empower local authorities to levy a rate on site values."

There was a certain lack of sympathy, I understand, but it goes on:

"Undismayed by this lack of sympathy, the London County Council returned to the attack, and on the 26th July, 1938, the council decided by a large majority to promote legislation in the 1938-39 session of Parliament to provide for the rating of site values in the administrative county, including the City of London and the Inner and Middle Temples."

That is Great Britain. As regards Scotland, Glasgow was interested in it earlier. London is interested in it now. I am not too clear as to what it means in the matter of an alternative, but I am clear that it somewhat backs up the suggestion that the present rating system is, as was quoted here before, illogical, antiquated and unfair. I will leave it at that.

I want to look at just a few facts in the situation that will prepare us for what we may expect, if anything can prepare us for what we may get from the Fianna Fáil administration. There was a valuation in Belfast, and we are able to compare here the increase in valuation in Belfast from 1931 to 1937, and from 1931 to 1938 in the Twenty-Six Counties. In the Six Counties, in the rural districts, between 1931 and 1937, the valuation rose by 21.4 per cent.; in the urban districts by 60.5 per cent., and in the country as a whole by 41.2 per cent. I am told that so far as Belfast was concerned the re-valuation put up the valuations there by 50 per cent. When we take, for the purpose of comparison, our condition as regards valuation and the condition in Northern Ireland on 1st April, 1938, we find that the Six-County valuation had gone up by 41.2 per cent., and we had gone up here to the extent of 4.56 per cent. There was a difference of about 37 per cent. in the increase in the valuation of the country as a whole here as compared with Belfast. The increase in valuation as a result of the revaluation in Belfast, which was a revaluation up to post-war standard, was 50 per cent. and in Waterford it was 51 per cent.

The Deputy forgets that Belfast was revalued in 1894 and Waterford had not been revalued since 1865.

Very good. At any rate Waterford, on a pre-war valuation, went up 51 per cent. Now, it and the rest of the country are going to be revalued on a post-war valuation basis and we are warned by the Minister that this rise of 50 per cent. in Belfast was from an 1894 basis, but that the rise that we are going to get is to be from an 1852 basis. We know what we can expect. There is a suggestion, on the one hand, that this valuation business is an exact science and, on the other hand, there is a kind of suggestion the Minister would like to make that valuations in this country are not going to be doubled. I think the Minister would like to resist that suggestion for the moment, and possibly he would like to suggest there is not much in the talk about income-tax and an increase of rates here and, indeed, there may be a reduction in rents. But what you are going to get is a doubling of your valuation rather than, as Waterford got on a pre-war basis, an increase of 50 per cent.

We hear a lot about the exact science of valuation. The Minister, I am sure, has some knowledge of the history of valuations in this country, both in Dublin and in Belfast. Dublin was revalued in 1916. When the work was done in Dublin, in 1916, what was the result? What was the result when Sir John Barton put his findings before the British Treasury? What did they say? They said: "Oh, hell, the Dublin fellows will never stand for this."

Is that a verbatim report?

It is, practically. If I got a little more expression into it, it would be a verbatim report. The British Treasury got the document put up to them by Sir John Barton and they felt that the high-spirited citizens of the City of Dublin were not blooming well going to stand for it; he was handed back his sheets and told to reduce an increase of 25 per cent., to an increase of about 15 per cent., and he did it. I do not know whether there was anyone there to feel the shock of the Waterford people when the 51 per cent. was added on to their valuations in 1926, or in Belfast when there was an increase of 50 per cent. In what circumstances was Belfast revalued? Belfast was going to get an up-to-date and absolutely correct valuation, too. Did it get it? The Minister must know very well it did not. The same type of opinion in the British Treasury that was able to get the kind of shock the Dublin people would have got if their valuations were increased in 1916 by 25 per cent. was able to sense the kind of shock that Belfast would get, and particularly the kind of shock they would have got in the circumstances in which the Valuation Bill was introduced there. We are not going to get here even as reasonable a jolt in the raising of our valuations as either Dublin got in 1916 or Belfast got in 1931 or 1932.

The Deputy forgets Waterford.

That is what I am saying. I am saying that I do not know if there was anybody there in 1926 or 1927 sensitive enough in their administrative organisms to feel any fraction of the shock the Waterford people did get. With that in front of us, so far as valuations generally are concerned, where do we expect this burden is going to fall? Is it going to fall on the industrialists? No. If the Minister knows anything about the history of valuation in this town he must realise that valuation does not necessarily fall as heavily as it might on industrialists. Surely when the Minister is holding up to local authorities the bait of getting industrialists to go down the country and set up new industries there is going to be that same sensitive feeling regarding the valuation of different industrial concerns under the new valuation scheme as there was in respect of certain industrial concerns here in the past, and the incidence of the increase is going, therefore, to fall on dwellinghouses.

We have had occasion here in discussing in general increases in taxation on the part of the Government which they stated would come out of the pockets of the rich to trace the incidence of this taxation year after year on to the shoulders of the poor until we have got the admission from the far side: "Yes, why should not the workman pay?" We have had to point out that every scrap of furniture, every scrap of equipment, that went into an Irish dwellinghouse has been taxed and retaxed in the past few years. Under this scheme of valuation, as the Minister knows, and as we have had experience in the past, the incidence of the increased valuation will fall on the dwellinghouse, whether in the shape of income-tax in certain cases or as increased rates in other instances. Equities!

Then we are asked to consider that land will be excluded from this valuation. I believe that this scheme of not allowing land to be valued at the present time is designed to enable the valuations of farmhouses in the country to be raised rather higher than they might safely be if the land were being valued at the same time. However, what I want to assert with regard to land is that you cannot put an increased valuation on the small dwelling houses in some of our rural towns or urban areas and take away completely the idea of a valuation of the land outside. What is a dwelling house, in any case? It is simply a shell in which people live, a shelter in which they may raise their families. If so, there is no element of production in it. You cannot have land outside a town free from the idea of valuation, free from the idea of having rates paid on it, if you attach, to an excessive extent, the valuation label on our urban towns.

Why is Dublin being valued first, and Waterford also, in spite of the fact that Waterford was re-valued some short time ago? Because the country, as a whole, will probably not mind very much the extent to which an increased valuation is imposed in Dublin. But when the standard is set in Dublin, the Government can move throughout the country. With the standard fixed on the threshold of the 21st century, as regards valuations on buildings and houses in the country, then land can be dealt with. Land cannot avoid being dealt with. It may be part of the Minister's schemes to say that derating must come, and, therefore, by increasing valuations on dwelling houses in rural areas, he hopes to recoup himself for the loss of revenue due to the derating of land. That may be part of his scheme, but whatever his scheme is, he cannot pile the load on small towns and urban districts, in the condition in which they are at the present time, and let land go free. It will not be free. To use a word which Deputy Costello introduced, if there is anything sinister in this measure, as there is, I think the most sinister part is that which leaves out land. The measure which we have before us is a taxation measure. It is intended to squeeze the last bit that can be squeezed out of the people, to get increased revenue for State purposes. It is intended to widen in an artificial way, as it were, the channels by which rates are extracted from the people. The position with regard to borrowing throughout the country shows the pressure there is on our local authorities at present. That pressure will be increased. It will be increased by the policy of the Government which pushes more and more over on local authorities the burden of providing relief, which pushes more and more over on local authorities the frills and the fringes of propaganda schemes such as A.R.P. and other matters of that kind.

Let us look back for a moment on the various banners under which the Fianna Fáil Party have marched. In their first great march, when they were going "another round," we had the banner of "nationalism." Then we had the banner of "Christianity," and now we have the banner "equity." The banner of "equity" is raised to-day when the people are taxed almost out of existence, when the economic condition of the country is such as to drive people by thousands out of the country and when so many people are unemployed. Two years ago, taking the number of people who were registered as unemployed, and those working on relief schemes, the total number of persons unemployed was 108,000. That was the average for every month of the year 1936. The average for every month of the year 1938, in the same circumstances, was 107,000. There had been a fall of 800, but what had happened in the meantime? Fifty-seven thousand people had emigrated and the population of the country had fallen by about 30,000. Yet, the number of people whose economic condition was such that they had either to get assistance of one kind or another, or had to get relief work, stood at 107,000 or 800 less than two years before. If the Minister wants to measure the financial condition of people, he can look at the position as regards savings, the savings of the people who are going to be hit particularly by this measure, the savings of the middle classes and of the workers. In 1931, the net savings shown by purchase of savings certificates and Post Office deposits amounted to £1,340,000, while last year the savings had fallen to £574,000. The savings of the people had fallen that year as compared with the year 1931— the year before all the increased taxation, before all these economic and social policies of Fianna Fáil were embarked upon—by 57 per cent. or by £765,000. Forty-three thousand fewer people were employed in the last four years. We had been arguing here that the consumption of bacon had gone down by 26 per cent. The official report disclosed recently that it had gone down by 29 per cent. The position is similar in regard to bread, butter and milk. In circumstances like these and with the promise of relief of taxation when the economic war was ended, the Minister comes in with this Bill the results of which are plain to be seen by anybody. He covers it over with misrepresentations as to both its contents and its effects. He talks of anachronisms. The only anachronism we have is to be found in the cowed faces and silent tongues of men who should be Irish representatives and views from the Front Bench of an Irish Parliament which remind us of the views of Hamar Greenwood.

Mr. A. Byrne

I join with Deputy Mulcahy and other Deputies in appealing to the Minister to withdraw this Bill. The time of its introduction is inopportune. The uncertainty of trade in the City of Dublin and the uncertainty regarding the future of many thousands of employed persons should, in themselves, serve as a reason for the withdrawal of the Bill. We in Dublin are aware that, particularly in the building trade, there is a complete hold-up as a result of the introduction of this measure. People in business who were considering the building of new premises have had completely to reorganise their whole programme because of the dangers involved in going ahead with big schemes, having regard to the threat of revaluation. Their schemes were based upon the present valuation. If their valuations were appreciably increased the amount of rates and income-tax payable would be far beyond what their business could afford. One must have regard to the small, struggling shopkeepers who improved their premises in the hope that trade would increase. Trade has not increased, and they have had to pay rates on an increased valuation because of the improvements made. They have also to face the prospect of a further increase as a result of this Bill. The shopkeepers of Dublin and of the different towns will tell you that they are hard put to it to meet their expenses.

Deputies must be aware that this is the most expensive country in the world in which to live. The cost of foodstuffs has gone beyond the purchasing power of the ordinary working man. Foodstuffs, which in the past were plentiful in the workman's home, are to-day considered luxuries. The price of potatoes, bacon and butter in the City of Dublin is extremely high. These are all things that have to be taken into consideration. There are no purchasers now for many of the things which the small Dublin shopkeeper used to sell. The municipalities will, whether they like it or not, be immediately faced with a levy by the Government for the expenses of this Bill. Dublin is expecting a demand for 2½d. in the £ before the corporators have time to meet at all. I understand that the cost of the periodic valuations of small property and improvements worked out in Dublin at about £200 a year. Immediately this Bill is passed that figure will be increased to about £2,000 per year. When occupants of large houses in the city find their valuations increased, with consequent increases in their rates and income-tax, they will let their houses out in flats, which will possibly be decontrolled. The result will be that people urgently in need of housing accommodation will have to pay higher rents. The Minister is aware that there is a general hold-up of finance for building in the country.

Is that due to this Bill?

Mr. Byrne

What the reason for that is, I have no knowledge. There is a tightening up by the banks. They are not lending money freely. I am sure Deputy Hickey has experience of that in Cork.

That is not due to this Bill.

Mr. Byrne

There is a tightening up as regards private building. I should like to hear the opinion of Deputy Hickey on the tightening up of moneys by the banks.

Deputy Byrne will not hear the Deputy any more on this Bill. He has spoken already.

Mr. Byrne

It would be helpful to us in Dublin if we heard of the experience of Cork. We are anxious in Dublin, and I am sure the Government are anxious, to go ahead with big building schemes, but if private building is to be held up and the builders have to depend on municipal schemes, then there is a bad time ahead for those interested in the building trade. I should like to see more confidence on the part of the investing public. This Bill makes for uncertainty. One or two building schemes were recently stopped in the country and people are wondering why. If private building has to stop and if this uncertainty continues, the building trade will have to depend on municipal housing schemes and that will be a bad day for the country.

Some of the speakers have touched upon a matter affecting a very important trade, in connection with which special demands may be made for exemption. We all know that the licensed trade pay their licence duty on the valuation of their property. If their valuations be increased there will not only be an increase in their rates and income-tax but their licence duty will also be increased. That is an imposition of which Deputies will hear in the very near future. I think the time is not opportune for the introduction of this Bill. As I have said before, in view of the fact that Ireland—and Dublin City especially—is the most costly country in the world to live in, I think the Minister should withdraw the Bill, and give those with money to invest in building some encouragement to go ahead, in the hope that it will take some of the many thousands of unemployed off the market and give them reasonable employment.

As one who represents an urban area, I rise to welcome the Bill, and I do so because I am satisfied from my experience of local administration that this Bill is very long overdue. In the urban areas throughout this country there are very grave anomalies which require amendment. During the discussion on this Bill I have not heard the people who are opposing it adduce any arguments to satisfy me, at all events, that there is no necessity for the Bill. In towns such as the one I represent there are very grave anomalies, and during the discussion on this Bill I have been rather surprised by the attitude of the Labour Leader, Deputy Norton, who seemed to think that his sole interest should be in what be described as the black-coated wage earners. I would remind Deputy Norton, and remind this House in general, that there is a very important section of the community in every town in this country. I refer to the working classes or the slum dwellers. I think the Labour Deputies and other. Deputies who are opposing this Bill should take the trouble to give a little thought to the position with regard to those people and the circumstances under which they are compelled to live in the slum areas. They should make a comparison between the valuations which they have to meet when occupying slum dwellings and the valuations of the new houses which have been provided largely by the policy of the Government, a policy which was long overdue in respect of most people in this country. They will find that in many cases the slum dwellers had to meet something like a valuation of 10/-. What do we find when those same slum dwellers are removed to the new artisans' dwellings? The valuation of the new artisans' dwellings in the town I represent, at all events, is £5 10/-. That is an enormous increase in the valuation placed on the shoulders of the slum dwellers. But we hear no wails of woe from any section of this House in regard to those people. That is one anomaly which. I submit, justifies the introduction of this Bill. Another anomaly which exists is in connection with vacant sites. We know from experience that vacant building sites in every town throughout this country are deliberately being held up for the express purpose of exploiting their value in connection with the Government's policy of housing. If any Deputy in this House will take the trouble to look up the valuation sheets and find what those people are paying on those vacant sites, and then compare that valuation with the price which they demand for those sites when they are being acquired for housing purposes, or for playgrounds, or for the building of schools, he will find justification for the introduction of this Bill.

With regard to Deputy Mulcahy's reference to Hamar Greenwood, I as a one-time colleague of the Deputy would suggest that he would be well advised to draw a veil over such names as Hamar Greenwood in this House or outside it. What we want here is constructive criticism of the Government's policy, and that should be the object of every member of this House, instead of dragging in personalities and making capital out of the unfortunate situation which has arisen, and in which the Government finds it necessary to introduce legislation such as this in order to ameliorate that situation. I was rather of the opinion that the Leader of the Opposition, when he spoke on this Bill, was consistent at all events. The main Opposition in particular have been consistent in this respect, that they are prepared to defend the the vested interests in this country to-day as they did during their ten years of office.

Now, there is one suggestion which I would make to the Minister, and that is with regard to agricultural land within the borough boundary. I submit, Sir, that it is not just or equitable that holders of agricultural land within the borough boundary who do not enjoy any of the benefits of agricultural derating or remission of rates are still to be excluded from this Bill. I submit that those people to-day are not in any privileged position, due to the development of rapid transit. Take for instance a farmer living 30 or even 40 or 50 miles distant from the town, in which a market is held on a certain day, and those farmers with small valuations can in a few hours be competing with the agricultural holder within the borough boundary—and competing very effectively with them —when the markets open at 7 o'clock in the morning. That is an anomaly, and I would appeal to the Minister to give some consideration to the matter so that he can come to the relief of agricultural land holders within borough boundaries.

We have heard from Deputy Rogers of Sligo that the Sligo Corporation passed a resolution asking him to oppose this Bill. I respectfully suggest to Deputy Rogers that, if he took the trouble to investigate, through the representatives of Sligo Corporation, the exact valuations which slum dwellers were paying before they were provided with new homes, and compare the figures with the valuations that these people are now paying. I am quite satisfied, if the investigations were carried out impartially, the answer would convince even Deputy Rogers that there is justification for this Bill. With regard to what Deputy Byrne said about Dublin, I suggest that if he got some of his officials to make a comparison between what slum dwellers in old tenements paid, and the valuations on the new houses that have been provided for these people in and on the outskirts of the city, he will find justification for the introduction of this Bill. I know that Deputy Byrne is a busy man, and that he would not have time to make a comparison, but he can get it done. In my opinion it is flogging a dead horse to argue against a Bill such as this. I am quite satisfied from my own experience that this Bill is long overdue, and I welcome it as being just and equitable.

I wish to touch upon a few points in connection with this Bill. One is the question as to how it will affect hotels and the catering trade. A new Bill dealing with the Irish tourist traffic is about to be introduced, and I am afraid, if the Minister does not take suitable steps, this Bill, as a result of revaluation, will cut right across the benefits that could accrue to hotels. I appeal particularly to the Minister to take into serious consideration the fact that some of the hotels do only a seasonal trade for four or five months, especially along the sea coast. The position really is that hotels in these areas are paying as much as if they were busy the whole year, whereas the season only lasts from four to five months. If some amendment is not introduced into this Bill so as to give consideration to the position of hotel proprietors who carry on a seasonal trade, I am afraid there is not much use in bringing in a Bill to develop the Irish tourist industry. Under the present valuation system, if a hotel has 40 bedrooms, and if ten additional bedrooms are added to the old building, the old building is revalued and an increased valuation put on it, while there is an addition to the valuation of the new structure. If there is not some provision made in this Bill to cover a situation like that. I have the feeling that it is going to do serious damage to the Irish tourist industry. For that reason, I appeal to the Minister to take these points into consideration.

Quite a large number of points have been raised which are really Committee points, and which I will deal with on the Committee Stage. With regard to the point raised by Deputy Crowley, I should like to assure him that the question whether a hotel is or is not dependent on seasonal traffic is always taken into consideration in fixing the valuation on the premises, and that will continue in future. However, I shall look into the matter, and if it would appear that the general re-valuation would, in any way, hamper hotel traffic, or tourist traffic, I will not only consider it myself, but I shall bring it under the special consideration of the Minister for Industry and Commerce in connection with the Bill dealing with the tourist traffic.

Some Deputies who spoke in this debate paid me the compliment of praising the skill with which the case for the Valuation Bill was made in the White Paper, and in the speech which opened the debate. I should like to reciprocate that courtesy, and to say how highly I admired the quality which was most in evidence in the speeches against the Bill. It was the high quality of courage. In the Opposition speeches there was, if I might say so, courage of the most reckless fervour. It was what I might call the courage of Balaclava, the courage that thunders and blunders. I think it is true to say that in every civilised country you have, in one form or other, taxation for public purposes on immovable property. We have it here in a somewhat imperfect form, in a somewhat unjust form, so far as the great mass of the people are concerned, and one of the purposes of this Bill is that, since we must have that necessary evil, taxation of immovable property for public purposes, at any rate, we are going to see that the burden of that taxation is justly apportioned. So far as I know, we have this system of taxation for public purposes of immovable property in every civilised country. But never, so far as I know in any country, until now, has there been any responsible political party to be found to enunciate the proposition that, when taxing immovable property, the best way is to go on the basis of the value which that property had 80 years earlier. Yet, it is upon that patently absurd proposition that the Opposition in the Fine Gael Benches, and the Labour Benches, have taken their stand against this Bill. They, certainly, as I have said, have courage and audacity and both are buttressed by profound ignorance of the whole problem.

I wonder if those who propound the thesis that, in taxing immovable property in this country, it is best to be 80 years behind the times in their computation of value, realise what the conditions were in Ireland when the present valuation was made. The poverty was terrible, the agencies for the relief of it were few, and the means, it was said, were scanty. If a small farmer had a shirt then, it was in rags, like the rest of his clothing. His mud cabin not so much sheltered him as stifled him in its dark and unhealthy shroud. You had a stagnant, decaying country and, in most areas, a terrible burden of rates. It was with these conditions Griffith had to deal when he began his gigantic task of making a general re-valuation of Ireland.

Did Griffith, however, in 1852, adopt as his basis of general re-valuation the value of 80 years before—the value, say, in 1772? Not at all. He was not insane. He was one of the greatest practical geniuses of his century, whose fame, solidly based upon the work which he did, remains to this day. If Griffith, in that year, had met Deputy Cosgrave and had been told by him that it was all nonsense to base the valuation upon the 1852 values, that, in fact, 1772 was the critical year, he would simply have said, "Deputy Cosgrave is as mad as a hatter," and every farmer in Ireland and every man of sense in the country would have endorsed Griffith's verdict and not without reason, unless he knew Deputy Cosgrave's somewhat peculiar sense of humour, a sense of humour which governs Deputy Cosgrave's attitude towards this Bill and towards the other measures of reform which from time to time have been introduced from these benches. Deputy Cosgrave, as former Minister for Finance and as former Minister for Local Government, just like Deputy Mulcahy, knows as well as I do how urgently and pressingly necessary this Bill is.

To get more money.

I am sure he would admit that but for the fact that it amuses him to make the passage of it as troublesome and as difficult as possible for the Government.

This Bill has been met with bitter hostility and unscrupulous misrepresentation from the benches opposite and from the Labour Party. I expected it would, for it is a measure which, as Deputy O'Sullivan had to admit, is designed to remove injustices and "to promote justice as between man and man and citizen and citizen." Failure to do such justice between citizen and citizen as would be right, as this Bill seeks to do, and to right, as this Bill seeks to do, widespread wrongs and inequities, is one of the most active factors in creating discontent among the people. The Party opposite and the Labour Party trade upon such discontent. They have erected for themselves a vested interest in injustice. Any measure, therefore, which would ameliorate injustice and ease discontent is opposed by them and misrepresented by them, as this Bill has been misrepresented by them, simply because it cuts across their own petty, factional, selfish, Party interests.

I have been criticised because I have not given detailed examples of the injustices in the removal of which this Bill is the first step. Why should I waste the time of the House upon that matter?

When you have more votes.

When you can see the injustices all around us, in the hovels and the slums. Deputy Walsh, the Mayor of Drogheda, referred to the fact that you take a man out of the slums in the City of Drogheda and you put him into a new house and you increase his valuation from 10/- to £5 10/- and you leave the valuation of the most prosperous merchant in the City of Drogheda, in the finest business street in that city, standing at £10, £11 or £15.

Will this Bill reduce his valuation?

It will reduce the amount which he pays in rates.

It will reduce the amount which he pays in rates.

Will it reduce the cost of living?

Will it reduce his valuation?

It will. For the majority of the people of this country it will reduce the cost of living.

Will it reduce taxation by £2,000,000 a year?

Deputy Keating must stop interrupting, please.

Read that leaflet, will you? Will it reduce taxation by £2,000,000 a year, which was promised in 1932 to the unfortunate people of this country?

The Deputy must either keep quiet or leave the House.

I will not keep quiet as long as he is talking through his hat. I would rather leave than listen to codology.

Deputy Keating had then better leave.

I am sorry to have to leave.

Mr. Keating withdrew.

I was saying, Sir, why should I waste the time of the House reciting specific instances of injustices when we see those injustices all around us in the hovels and the slums, the working and the middle-class districts of our towns and cities, where the great majority of our people are rated to the uttermost so that they are paying much more than their fair share of the municipal burdens, while the select and fortunate few, whose properties are, by comparison, grossly undervalued, get away with paying much less than, in justice, they should. Why should I waste the time of the House when Deputy after Deputy, getting up to make the case against this Bill, in fact, made the case for the Bill when they told us about the small towns where the local services were in danger of breaking down because the cost of them bears too heavily upon the mass of the people? That is the case for the Bill, and it has been made by every Deputy who, whether out of innocent ignorance, like Deputy Brown, or calculated malevolence, like Deputy Norton, spoke against the Bill. They know as well as I, and they have by implication admitted it, that the reason why the local services and the local authorities are in such an unsatisfactory position is that the burden of the local rates is so unfairly distributed, that it presses much too heavily upon the poorer ratepayers.

It is quite easy to understand why that is so. The majority of the buildings in our towns are very old, 70, 80, or 100 years old in fact. They were valued for rating purposes when they were built and the majority of them have not been revalued since. The valuations put upon them when new— and they are now old—approximated very closely to their true net rental values at the dates of their construction, and they have carried those valuations, and they have paid rates upon those valuations during the whole period they have been in existence. Moreover, the poundage of those rates has gone up from 2/- or 3/- in the £, at which it stood when the premises were built, until to-day when it may stand at 20/- or even 25/- in the £. Now I am speaking of the older hereditaments, perhaps once very fashionable and eagerly sought for and, therefore, rightly carrying a high valuation then, but now mainly to be found in those quarters of our towns or cities which fashion has abandoned.

Give us a specimen.

The Deputy can go around any one of them. He can go around Parnell Square and see them in hundreds.

Are the valuations in Parnell Square going to come down? They are not.

If the Deputy will only extend to me the courtesy which I extended to him. I allowed him to make a speech, utterly and grossly irrelevant, in my opinion, a speech for which the Chair had to call him to order on a number of occasions——

The Minister is paying me back.

And, except to poke a little fun at him now and again, in the manner of an innocent joke, I did not try to throw him off his argument. I was saying that the majority of the hereditaments in our towns and cities are, in the main, occupied by the less wealthy elements of the population, the workers, the small shopkeepers, the struggling middle-class families. They constitute, as any one of us can see, the greater number of the buildings in every town in the Twenty-Six Counties, and they are all valued now—and I want to repeat and to emphasise it— as they were when they were first built, 70 or 80 years ago, at their full net rental values, or very near it. Therefore, they are weighted up to the limit for rates, so that the occupiers of them —and again I want to repeat it because this is the basis upon which I am defending this Bill—are bearing very much more than their fair share of the cost of the local services.

Contrast the position of these people, the majority, as I have said of the ratepayers in any urban community, with the favoured few, the privileged classes upon whose behalf Deputy Norton, Deputy Cosgrave and their satellites are opposing this Bill. They are the occupiers of the newer, the more up-to-date, the more fashionable premises in any town. Such premises are rated, not upon their true present-day net rental value, or near it, as the older premises in general are rated, but at a written-down value which is perhaps not even equivalent to one-third of the true figure. Those who occupy these premises, therefore, get away with paying perhaps only half or one-third of what they ought to pay in rates, and, as I have made plain, they get away with that at the expense of those much less fortunate people, the majority of the ratepayers. The home of the postman living in Ballybough, or in Beggars' Bush; the middle-class business or professional man living in the neighbourhood of Northumberland Road, Palmerston Park or Clyde Road, relatively speaking, is valued up to the hilt, and the occupant thereof is called on to pay his £10, £20, £40 or £60 in rates each year accordingly. But the palatial premises of the wealthy public company, carrying on business in the centre of the city, making large profits and with huge resources behind it and serving no indispensable public purpose, is valued at one-half or one-third of what it ought to be valued at, and escapes with a payment of £2,000 a year in rates when it ought, in justice, to pay at least £4,000 or £5,000.

Quote a case.

No, but you will have many instances in due course. I am not going to quote one at this moment——

You are afraid.

——because I am not going to bandy names about here; but I am stating it and the Deputy knows it. It is the Deputy's uneasy conscience that prompted that question.

What did the Minister's colleagues say last night at the motor traders' dinner?

I am saying that whereas the postman in Ballybough or Beggars' Bush, or the railwayman living in a back street in Dunlaoghaire, is rated up to the very hilt and is paying more than his fair share of the rates, the big business premises, the prosperous merchant in the centre of any city or town like Dublin, upon which £4,000 or £5,000 a year ought to be paid, is getting away with it at £2,000 a year, and getting away with it at the expense of those who put the Labour Party here in the Dáil to look after their interests.

And now the increased taxation will slip over on to his customers.

It is clear that such an inequitable distribution of the municipal burden is unjust. Because of the fact that the wealthy company pays only one-half or one-third of what it ought to pay in rates, the postman in Ballybough, who relies on Deputy Norton to protect his interests, is called on to pay £10 in rates where he should only pay £7, and the middle-class supporter of Deputy Costello and Deputy Benson has to pay £60 where, in fact, he ought only to pay £40. That is what the opposition to this Bill, if it were successful, would cost the voters who sent Deputy Costello, Deputy Benson, Deputy Norton and the entire six, seven or eight Deputies of the Labour Party here to look after their interests. That is what it would cost them, if you could turn the Government out on this Bill and beat them, as you beat them on the question of Civil Service arbitration.

Deputy Flinn is blushing.

I did not know I was able to. I thank you for the compliment.

For once, Deputy Norton was a true prophet when he declared that the House would be told that "there were injustices in existence to-day which should not be allowed to continue." That is precisely what I am telling the House—injustices such as I have referred to under which the great majority of the citizens, not merely in Dublin but in every town in the State, pay more than their fair share of the rates and injustices which ought not to be permitted to continue and to redress which the House should pass this Valuation Bill as a first step.

That is not the view of the leader of the Opposition, nor is it the view of Deputy Norton, the Caballero of the Labour Party. They want the injustices to continue so that social discontent may be fostered, for it is upon such discontent that Parties like theirs thrive.

That is how you got where you are.

There is an ill-assorted coalition against this Bill, and I say "ill-assorted" because I will readily admit that their ultimate aims are not identical. Deputy Cosgrave only wishes to defeat the present administration in order to replace it by one of his own, but Deputy Norton, as he himself has so often declared, is out, not merely to overthrow the Government, but to overthrow the whole social system in this country. That is why, when he is told that "there are injustices in existence to-day which ought not to be allowed to continue," his rejoinder, as we may read in column 890 of the Official Reports is: "But it was not to-day they occurred. They have been there for ten, 20, 30, 40, 50 years," and accordingly, says this great reformer, let injustices remain.

Deputy Norton is a Labour politician and an agitator of great international experience. One year, he is colloguing with the bosses of his international labour association in Vienna, and the next, or the preceeding, year he is in Madrid, Brussels or some other Continental capital. It is surprising, therefore, that he should give himself away so easily and resist this Bill which he admits will redress injustices which have been in existence for "ten, 20, 30, 40, 50 years."

Is it in order for a Minister to read a speech supplied to him by somebody else about something which has nothing to do with the case?

The Chair has no information that the Minister has been reading anything.

Now that the Chair's attention has been brought to it, will the Chair take notice of it?

No one could make up that stuff but the Minister.

I have listened very patiently. I have a number of very important aspects of this Bill to deal with and I have gone to the pains, in order that I may deal fairly with the House and the country, of preparing an extensive note. I am entitled, as any Deputy is, to consult my notes from time to time, and I presume to do so. If Deputy Davin sometimes spoke with notes, his reputation for wisdom in this House and in the country would stand much higher than it does to-day.

Let the Minister compare mine with his, especially at election times.

It seems to be a typical "McGintyism."

The corner-boy stuff from Belfast.

I was saying that Deputy Norton is a Labour politician and an agitator of international experience, and I was surprised, therefore, that he should give himself away so readily when he declares that he resists this Bill because it would redress injustices which have been there for ten, 20, 30, 40, 50 years.

Deputy Norton was a fool to make that statement, because it exposes the technique which has informed his leadership of the Labour Party. Let those who have been duped by the lip-service which that Party gives in public to the Papal Encyclicals consider what that technique is. This measure, which the Labour Party here is opposing, is one that in itself will redress many injustices — injustices which, if left unredressed, would breed evils for both Church and State. The tubercle of Communism will not become active in a justly-administered or well-ordered society. It can only become active and malignant when it is injected into a body that is already weakened by social disorders and corrupted by injustices — injustices which may have "occurred," to use Deputy Norton's significant words, "not to-day," but that "have been in existence ten, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years." It is, Sir, as we know, in just such conditions that the Caballeros, and the Bela Kuns, and the Lenins find their opportunities. So long as these opportunities exist, such false teachers can induce men and women who are in despair because of injustices left unredressed——

I do not wish to interrupt the Minister, but I think that the Minister is inviting interruptions in the field he is now pursuing.

Is the Minister speaking for the Hierarchy?

I would ask the Minister to keep more strictly to the Bill. I feel that he is going into country that would provoke interruption, and possibly disorder. It is the business of the Chair to prevent, so far as possible, anything occurring that might lead to disorder in the House. It is the business of the Chair to try to check anything of that nature, even when a Minister is speaking. Of course, certain latitude must be allowed to a Minister when he is replying, especially when he is met with interruptions which are entirely irrelevant. At the same time, I think that in this case the Minister is going beyond the scope of the discussion here.

He is being continually interrupted.

He is asking for it.

In introducing this Bill, Sir, I think I made it quite clear that the main purpose of the Bill was, not to raise revenue for the State, but to remove inequities and inequalities, and to promote—to use Deputy O'Sullivan's words—"justice between citizen and citizen and between man and man." I am pointing out that certain injustices have been in existence here for the past 20, 30, or 40 years; that these injustices, so far, have been left unredressed, and that to continue to leave such injustices unredressed can only bring disorders for both Church and State. That is what has happened in France and in Spain, and the same would happen here in Ireland. I am simply saying that the Government here is not going to play the game of those Parties who think that they can thrive upon injustices that are left unredressed. The policy of the Fianna Fáil Party is, not to make revolutions, but to forestall revolutions——

Give us your speech from the dock.

——by redressing grievances which have existed for many years, and the redress of which is so necessary. That is why this Bill is being introduced, and if ever the necessity for reform in this matter needed proof, I think it was proved up to the hilt by the speeches made in opposition to this measure.

Take, for example, the speech of the principal Leader of the Opposition. I think that Deputy Cosgrave's statement could be taken as being a strong argument in favour of this Bill. If you are to take the statement he made, as reported in columns 274 and 275 of the Official Debates, I think it is as good a case as could be made for this Bill. Certainly, in my opinion, it is as good a case for this Bill as ever I heard. Let me read the passage to which I refer. Deputy Cosgrave said, as reported in columns 274 and 275 of the Official Debates:

"If, over a period of 40 or 50 years, property comes on the market and is purchased, according to the lease, the valuation, and the condition of the property, and if people buy it with their eyes open, it is nonsense to say that those who bought it, no matter how much it has increased in value, have not paid a fair share. They bought it in the open market at the highest price at which it could be bought, and it is those from whom they bought have escaped, by reason of the low valuation put on such property."

Now, let me examine that statement with a view to seeing how it makes a case for the Bill. First, we are told that if over a period of 40 or 50 years property comes on the market and is purchased according to the lease, the valuation and the condition of the property it is nonsense to say that the people who bought that property, with their eyes open—no matter how much the property has increased in value— have not paid a fair share. I agree with Deputy Cosgrave that if people buy property in such conditions, with their eyes open, it is nonsense to say that they have not paid a fair share, or, in other words, that they have not paid a fair price for the property.

What was the position here? The position was that, under our valuation code, all properties were liable to be revalued at any time that the competent local authority thought fit to move in the matter, and, in fact, a number of local authorities such as Belfast, Dublin and Waterford did so move in the past 30 or 40 years. Furthermore, the longer local authorities refrained from moving, and the further nominal valuations of property tended to diverge from the true net values of such property, the greater was the likelihood that either these local authorities would move for a revaluation or that the State—in the words again of Deputy O'Sullivan— would be called upon to intervene to the end of promoting "justice as between man and man and between citizen and citizen." We have the position that during the last 40 years or so any person who bought property in this country, North or South—whether in Dublin or Belfast —with his eyes open, and knowing the conditions of the property and the valuation and so on, could not be blind to the fact that one day or another, sooner or later, that property would come to be revalued. Presumably, any person of normal intelligence would take that into account in deciding the purchase amount of the property, what it would be to him. If he failed to do that it was his own look out and, ultimately, he must abide by the consequences of his failure. There is one thing, however, that the Government cannot do, and that is to allow the fact that a certain limited number of individuals have made foolish bargains to deter the Government from—again in Deputy O'Sullivan's words—doing "justice as between man and man and between citizen and citizen."

So much for the consideration to which Deputy Cosgrave has so tactfully directed the attention of the Dáil. If individuals have purchased property, over a period of 40 or 50 years, with their eyes open, they must be presumed to have paid a fair price for that property, and I hold that it must also be presumed that, with their eyes open, they were taking into account the risks of that property being revalued. Accordingly, the fact that a few individuals may have purchased foolishly should not stop the Dáil from proceeding with this Bill.

But consider what conclusions are to be drawn from the remainder of that remarkable passage of Deputy Cosgrave's speech. They bought, he says, speaking of this deal in property, with their eyes open, at the highest price. What the Deputy really meant was the lowest price at which in the open market it could be bought. He goes on to say:—

"It is those from whom they have bought have escaped, by reason of the low valuation put on such property."

What a remarkable admission that statement contains. Somebody got away with something, somebody escaped with something belonging to somebody else, something which, at any rate, did not belong to him. He was able to escape with that something which did not belong to him because, as Deputy Cosgrave says "of the low valuation put on such property."

What did this lucky individual, about whom Deputy Cosgrave was speaking, get away with? He escaped with the capitalised value of all the rates and taxes which he might have been called upon to pay if this property had been rightly and truly valued, but which, because it was not rightly and truly valued, he did not pay. In some cases that might be a very considerable sum indeed. I know one case in the City of Dublin where property belonging to one very wealthy and very prosperous concern is so undervalued that it pays, perhaps, anything between £3,000 and £5,000 less in rates than it should. The undertaking in question, I should make it clear, has no very ancient associations with this City and could not be described as one of our largest employers. It escapes, to use Deputy Cosgrave's very significant and felicitous phrase, paying that £3,000 or £5,000 a year at the expense of those ratepayers in the City, among whom it should be our aim, as it is our duty, to promote justice between man and man, between citizen and citizen. Not merely does this ratepayer get away with between £3,000 and £5,000 a year in rates, but, if the property owned and occupied by it were to be sold to-morrow the present owner of it would, in Deputy Cosgrave's phrase, "by reason of the low valuation put on such property," escape with anything between £60,000 and £100,000 belonging to the Corporation of Dublin, belonging to the citizens of Dublin.

Does the Lord Mayor of Dublin, who, I notice, came in to scatter his few gems of eloquence in this debate, and has not been in the House otherwise throughout it—though we are told that the fortunes and interests of the citizens of Dublin, and particularly the working class citizens of Dublin, who vote for him in such overwhelming numbers at every general election, are concerned in this Bill—or does Deputy Belton, who is Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Corporation of Dublin, think it is right and just that a concern should get away every year with underpaying rates to the tune of between £3,000 and £5,000, and, in addition, if it happens to sell its property to-morrow should get away with £60,000 or £100,000 belonging to the citizens of Dublin and the ratepayers of Dublin? If the Lord Mayor thinks that is not right and that is not just, or if Deputy Belton thinks that is not right or just, that is the sort of thing they are voting for if they vote against this Bill.

What is the firm we heard about?

How did it escape so long?

The Deputy can read the explanatory memorandum and my speech in introducing this Bill and he will see why. It is true that Deputy Cosgrave says that when the property last changed hands it was the vendor was the thief and not the purchaser.

The Deputy did not use the word thief.

He says it was the vendor who escaped.

Use his words, if you pretend to quote them.

When you are dealing with any person who escapes with property, you generally associate the word "escape" with larceny or theft.

I am only saying that if the Minister pretends to quote he should quote accurately.

It is true that Deputy Cosgrave says that when the property changed hands it was the vendor got away with it and not the purchaser. But every purchaser of immovable property is a potential vendor, and the longer he holds the property at an unduly low valuation for rating purposes the more there accrues to it in increment after increment of unearned real value, value which in justice belongs not to this one-time purchaser and now potential vendor of the property, but to the community, the municipality, the local authority within whose boundaries the property is situate and, collectively, to those ratepayers who have paid and are paying too heavy rates because the property in question has been too lightly valued.

Is this a situation which ought to go on? Does Deputy Davin think that that situation should be permitted to continue, or Deputy Norton, or Deputy Hickey, or Deputy Cogan? If they do not think that it should go on, what do they think we ought to do? My view is that we ought to take steps to restore to its rightful owners, that is to the community in general and the local authority in particular, the unearned increment which has accrued to the property. I think that that would appear to be the right and proper and just course. That is what this Bill proposes to do, and that is what Deputy Norton, the Chairman of the Labour Party, and Deputy Belton, the Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Dublin Corporation, are opposing. They are anxious to let the holders of the unearned increment get away with it; to let, if Deputy O'Higgins will permit me to say it, the thief escape at the expense, of course, of the citizens of Dublin and of the constituents who have sent them here. Deputy Norton and Deputy Belton will rub their hands, saying: "Well, if that is not good business, at any rate we think that at the moment it is good politics."

That is what is behind the opposition to this Bill, the thought that it may be good politics to oppose it. There is nothing new in the Opposition's proceeding on that assumption in regard to any measure touching the public good. But there is something very new and something ridiculously original in the grounds upon which that attitude is based. Because, protest Deputies Norton and Cosgrave against the Bill, vendors of properties have been able to cash in on the unduly low valuations that have been put on them and, as Deputy Cosgrave has put it, have escaped with the swag in the past, it would not be fair to prevent others from getting away with it in future. The community has had its pockets picked and its safes robbed in the past, but, say Deputies Norton and Davin, that is no reason why the State should endeavour to stop such depredations now and in the future. I wonder would the Deputies opposing this Bill apply that principle to their own personal private affairs?

The Leader of the Opposition, or should I say the Leader of the chief Opposition, may in private life, he exceptionally hospitable. But I have yet to learn that he keeps open house for burglars. Deputy Belton may be kindly and generous, but I doubt if he ever throws open the doors of his premises and calls in the passers-by to help themselves. But it is on these principles that the Labour and Fine Gael Parties wish local administration to proceed. If they had their way the future in this country would be very pleasant for the speculative builder, the property jobber and the business man. The injustice which we have had here for the last 20, 30, 40 or 50 years is to continue. These people are to reap the benefits and the advantages which they have gained from that injustice and that state of affairs is to continue with the applause, approval and the guarantee of the Irish Labour Party.

This then is the absurd position into which these opponents of this Bill have landed themselves. Even more absurd are the other arguments with which they propose to justify their opposition to the measure. We have the objection raised against the measure that it does not propose to revalue agricultural land. Deputies Belton, Gorey and Costello are particularly strong on that point. Deputy Costello, with his colleague Deputy Benson and myself, shares the representation of the very important agricultural constituency of the Dublin Townships. He is particularly strong against this measure because it does not propose to revalue agricultural land. Deputy Belton stated that revaluation was the one thing the farmers in the County Dublin had been clamouring for for years. If that statement of Deputy Belton's had been well founded, what a dull-witted Chairman of the Dublin County Council he must have been. One of the aims of Deputy Belton's life, his one ambition was to be the acknowledged leader of the farmers of the County Dublin.

Deputy Belton for years was the leader of the majority Party in the Dublin County Council. He was Chairman, in fact, of the Dublin County Council. But these County Dublin farmers could have their land revalued if the Dublin County Council had passed a simple resolution asking to have it revalued. During the whole period in which the Deputy was Chairman of the Dublin County Council and all the time—I think for almost two decades—that he was a member of that body he did not propose a resolution that the County Dublin farmers should have their lands revalued. That train of thought naturally leads to the conviction that Deputy Belton does not in his heart believe that the farmers of the County Dublin or, indeed, any other county for that matter, want a revaluation of their agricultural land. Whether they do or not, whether or not it would be advantageous to them to have their lands revalued, are, of course, matters of opinion. I wonder if the opportunity arose whether those who have been so loudly demanding a revaluation would be so steadfast in their views, the views which they have expressed on this stage of the Bill. Perhaps we shall see.

Admittedly, the Bill in its present form does not propose to revalue agricultural land. Because, apart from other practical difficulties which such an operation would involve, my feeling and my opinion, giving it for what it is worth, is that the farmers do not desire such revaluation. But if the Bill does not propose to revalue agricultural land it will, nevertheless, have important reactions on the rating of agricultural land. It will decrease the rates upon agricultural land.

Deputy Cogan and Deputy Hughes have spoken against this Bill, and I presume they will vote against it. I have made an estimate as to what is likely to be the effect of this Bill upon the rates on agricultural land in their own counties. The result of that investigation is this: that when the revaluation contemplated by this Bill is completed the rates upon agricultural land in Wicklow, should other things remain the same, will be reduced by about 9d. in the £. I hope Deputy Cogan is taking in that information. In Carlow the reduction would be about 6d. in the £.

Then the revaluation has already been carried out?

Where did the Minister get those figures?

Deputies Cogan and Everett are fighting against this Bill. They are fighting to deprive the farmers of Wicklow of a reduction of 9d. in £ on their rates on agricultural land.

Has the Minister taken into account the rates on the farmers' houses and out-offices?

Deputy Hughes and Deputy Norton will be voting to deprive the farmers of Carlow of a reduction of 6d. in the £. A like position will obtain in regard to the other Deputies who will vote against this Bill. These Deputies are fighting to prevent a reduction of rates on agricultural land.

Has the valuation been carried out? Is that the way it has been done? The Minister did not tell us that in the White Paper.

He told us it would take seven years to do it.

A number of Deputies of a highly sentimental disposition made a lot of play about the roses growing around the farmer's door. But what a lot of time and mental worry a Deputy like Deputy Bennett would have saved himself if he had only gone to the trouble of informing himself that flowers, shrubs, creeping plants, or any other member of the vegetable kingdom are not rateable hereditaments at all.

Properly, they are anywhere else but on the land.

Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney made a number of other points which I will deal with later on. He commenced hunting the mad March hare, which Deputy Cosgrave raised, around the farmer's garden. I want to say definitely now in regard to the garden of the ordinary farmer, that the intention is to value the whole of his land on Griffith's valuation, and to have no fiddling about because he has a few flower beds or fruit trees. There is the land of the gentleman farmer who has a garden attached to his residence——

What is a gentleman farmer?

I have heard him described as one who is neither a farmer nor a gentleman. As I was saying, if you have a gentleman farmer, the sort of man who has a garden attached to his residence of the kind that it would shock the conscience of any ordinary farmer if you called it agricultural land, in such a case, since a private residence in a city or town with a garden attached is to have its garden treated as non-agricultural, I do not see how you can treat the country gentleman differently, and therefore I think his garden must be treated as non-agricultural.

Thanks be to God the number of gentlemen is increasing.

Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney was terribly—I suppose that is the right adverb to apply to Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's speech—agitated as to the meaning of the word "lawn." I am not going to debate with any lawyer the legal meaning of any word. I need not say that I have had lawyers, and very good ones, to help me with this Bill. I conveyed to them what my intentions were, and they chose the wording. The word "lawn" passed muster with them, and it did not occur to us that it could be held to mean an ordinary grass field. Perhaps, however, my advisers are wrong. Perhaps, on the other hand, it is the lawyers of the Opposition who are wrong, and heaven forbid that I should have to settle a dispute between lawyers about the legal meaning of any word. There will be no dispute, however, if the lawyers in this House think that the definition of agricultural land in Section 3 is unjust or unfair and if they will on the Committee Stage suggest any alternative wording which avoids that, I shall put it to my lawyers and I am sure there will be no trouble about having the wording amended if necessary.

But at the same time I do not want it to go out that I have no idea of what "lawn" means. The Oxford dictionary gives it as meaning "portion of a garden," etc. "Covered with grass which is kept closely mown." In fact, "lawn" means what it is clear from the context it is intended to mean in this Bill, that is to say, "a piece of grass which for the sake of ornament or amenity, or for the sake of playing some game is kept closely mown all through the seasons when grass is growing." That, of course, may be only a man-in-the-street definition, but as I have said, it has passed with some good lawyers.

The next ground upon which members opposite have striven to found their opposition to this Bill is that stated by Deputy Costello, that we ought to adopt some different standard of assessing annual valuation from what was adopted and devised by Griffith. So far as this question, considered merely as a matter of academic interest, is concerned, there might be some room for discussion on that thesis, but there is none in the long argument which led the Deputy to the conclusion "that the House is entitled to demand that the machinery of taxation for local purposes should be brought up to date."

So far as I am concerned, I readily agree with Deputy Costello that "the machinery of taxation for local purposes, intermingled as it is, with the machinery of local taxation, should be brought up to date." This Bill, in fact, is the first and essential step to that end. I am proposing it, and Deputy Costello is opposing it. As to why, I can only assume that it is because, among other things, the Deputy has utterly confused in his mind the valuation code with the rating code. An investigation of the rating problem and a codification of the rating law cannot take place until we have had a general revaluation of the country, or, at the very least, of the structural hereditaments of the country. That is what the Royal Commission on local taxation meant when, so far back as 1902, it reported that it was "not easy to exaggerate the importance of fair, uniform and accurate valuation as a preliminary to any just distribution of the burdens of local administration." Deputy Costello desires that the machinery of taxation for local purposes should be brought up-to-date. So do I, and that is why I have brought in this Bill.

Let us return, however, to the other objection which Deputy Costello offered to the Bill, an objection which was also supported in the House to-day by Deputy Mulcahy: the objection that in making the revaluation we propose to proceed according to a well-tried and well-established principle. Deputy Costello, in regard to matters of valuation, belongs to the smart set: what was good enough for our fathers and grandfathers is not good enough for him—he wants to be modern. He reminds me, indeed, of those people who are so ultra-modern that they consider clothes old-fashioned, and in their desire to be thought progressive, dispense with them altogether as the Opposition has done with truth and commonsense in the discussion of this Bill, and go about naked. The basis of valuation laid down in Section 19 (k) of the Bill is one which, as I have said, has been well-tried and well-established. It goes back not merely to the Act of 1852, but to the Irish Poor Relief Act of 1838, and by reason of Irish judicial decisions over a long period of years the application of every word in Section 19 (k) to the varying sorts of property which arise in practice for valuing is pretty definitely settled. If we used new words, as Deputy Costello wants us to do, it would inevitably only mean a lot of litigation before their application to the various sets of facts were settled. Naturally, the Valuation Office does not want a lot of litigation, and members of the public do not want a lot of litigation either. It only means for them endless trouble and endless expense. The legal profession, I dare say, must be pardoned if they look on the matter differently.

Deputy Costello, however, ought to be aware that the basis, as I have said, of valuation as set out in Section 19 (k) of the Bill has been for over 80 years found flexible enough, as construed by the Courts, to deal with every sort of immovable property which exists in Ireland or in Great Britain for that matter, including unusual kinds, like cathedrals, railways, canals, mines, buildings like the Four Courts, and so on. Does the Deputy think that the rule of thumb which he has in mind would be flexible enough to do all that? In this connection, since Deputy Costello was talking about cathedrals, may I remind him that in Section 5 (1) paragraph (d) of the Railways (Valuation for Rating) Act, 1931, in which year the Deputy was Attorney General, the rule for valuing railways is laid down in these words:

Estimate by reference to the average net receipts so ascertained the rent at which the railway hereditaments occupied by such company might reasonably be expected to let from year to year....

Deputy Costello, on Thursday I think it was, said that there is no market for cathedrals on a letting basis. And there certainly is not; but then neither is there a market for railways upon a letting basis. Yet, in 1931, Deputy Costello, who wants to be so modern and who accuses me of not being modern and scientific, was himself not a whit more modern and scientific when he kept to the old 1852 wording in regard to the valuation of railways. Deputy Costello forgets that as medicine and engineering are sciences, valuation is a science, and a science which, so far as I know, he has not studied. That being so, I think in relation to valuation he might reflect that "humility is the beginning of wisdom." But even when the Deputy disclaims any special knowledge of agriculture, the fact does not prevent him from saying that if farms were valued on the basis of Section 19 (k), the valuation of every farm in the country would be increased. I do not believe there is one intelligent farmer in all Ireland who would agree with Deputy Costello in that statement.

Deputy Costello dogmatises about valuation, dogmatises about farms, and he has no special knowledge of either one or the other. There is something characteristically modern and up to date about that attitude. It does not date back, like our principle of valuation, to 1852 and earlier, and accordingly it satisfies Deputy Costello. I trust the Deputy will forgive me if, in regard to this intricate matter of the general valuation of the country and the basis to be used for that valuation, I prefer to take the advice of the expert and rather experienced officers whom I have at my disposal rather than to rely upon him for slick, newfangled, untried ideas upon the matter. I am quite certain that is an attitude on my part of which the general public would approve.

One other view for which I have no doubt approval would be forthcoming would be this, that since the local authorities have to pay all their expenses in post-war pounds and are compelled to levy their rates and collect their revenue likewise in post-war pounds, it is only commonsense that the valuations upon which those revenues are based should also be expressed in post-war pounds.

The last and most surprising ground upon which this Bill is being opposed is that it may bring in some money for the Exchequer. With that romantic, childlike predilection for exaggerated statements which expresses so happily and so precisely the operations of his intellect, the Leader of the Labour Party went so far as to say that this Bill was being put forward for the sole purpose of raising more money for the Exchequer. That is very far from being the case. The amount of revenue which the Exchequer may expect eventually to derive from this Bill will be about the equivalent of a farthing per lb. upon sugar. I hope the Deputies on the Labour Benches will note that fact, that when this Bill goes through, and when the revaluation has been made, it will bring into the Exchequer the equivalent of a tax of a farthing per lb. on sugar, a commodity which is consumed in every working-class household. Deputies should know that when they vote against this Bill they are voting to put a tax of a farthing per lb. on the sugar of the workers in the town and country.

That is great stuff.

Deputies may laugh, but I am certain that the working-class people will not see the joke.

In seven years' time.

I see; so the Deputy lives only for to-day? He is like a bachelor gay; he lives only for to-day; he is a political butterfly. Most of the working-class people, even if that is Deputy Davin's expectation of political life, expect to live longer than seven years, and whether the farthing per the lb. falls on a working-class household now or seven years hence, it is a very serious matter for the working-class household.

It is all right for school kids.

I want the Deputies on the Labour Party and on the Independent Benches, and all those farmers who have been talking about the unjust incidence of taxation on farmers, and about the cost of living, to remember this: that when they are going into the Lobbies to vote against this Bill, they are voting to put a farthing per lb. on sugar.

I will tell the Deputy why in a moment. Supposing the sole purpose of the Bill was to raise more money for the Exchequer——

It is not, you say.

Supposing the sole purpose of the Bill was to raise more money for the Exchequer—and, as I have said, it is not the sole purpose, and it is not even the primary purpose, but supposing it were—is that any justification for the votes which the members of the Labour Party propose to give against the Bill? I should have thought that they would have welcomed any measure which would have brought more money into the Exchequer, because no Deputies make so many demands on the Exchequer as the Deputies of the Labour Party. They have the Order Paper at this moment cluttered up with motions demanding more and still more money from the Exchequer. Deputy Norton appears to be the Diamond Jim Brady of the Labour Party, for no extravagance is too absurd for his indulgence, and he has his name to no less than four such motions, while the lesser lights are content with two, and in some cases only one each. In fact, the position is that of the eight members of the Labour Party——

Very well, nine. I would hate to do the Labour Party any injustice. I would like to remove that anomaly and to say nine. The position there is that of the nine members of the Labour Party all of them, with the exception of Deputy Hurley and Deputy Tadhg Murphy, have motions making demands upon the Exchequer any one of which, if granted, would mean hundreds of thousands of pounds. They are going to vote against this Bill, says Deputy Norton, because it will produce more money for the Exchequer. Yet the Deputies have put down motions asking that workers employed on minor relief schemes should be paid higher wages and given continuous employment; that unemployment assistance for pensioners should be increased, and that the Government should absorb in useful employment at adequate remuneration all workers able to follow useful occupations.

That is Red stuff, is it not?

Naturally, the first question we must ask ourselves in these circumstances is whether the Labour Deputies intend their motions to be taken seriously, or are they just so many manifestations of political hypocrisy, so many pieces of window-dressing to gull the mob?

Like your plan?

If they are not, and if they mean these motions to be taken seriously, how do they expect the cost of them to be met if a Bill, which Deputy Norton admits is designed to remedy grievances which have existed for ten, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years, is to be opposed by the Labour Party, merely on the ground that it will be the means of raising more money for the Exchequer? How, in fact, would the Labour Deputies tell me, do they expect the moneys to meet the cost of these motions to be raised?

Where are you getting the money for defence?

Is Deputy Davin going to pass round the hat on Dun Laoghaire pier begging arrivals by the mail boat to furnish funds to ensure that workers on minor relief schemes— a motion in which he is interested— should be guaranteed six days of continuous employment in each week at a rate of wages not less than the county council rate?

That is what you promised when you were in Opposition.

Or shall we see Deputy Norton with the collection box outside the G.P.O. dunning the postal workers to provide adequate remuneration for all workers able to follow useful occupations? Or perhaps——

What did you tell the people of Cork at the last election?

Perhaps the Labour Deputies' hopes are based on the public spirit of Deputies Cogan, Bennett and Nally and their own chairman? A little over two months ago these gentlemen were loud in their protestations against the Bill to increase Parliamentary allowances. Perhaps the simple minds of Labour Deputies were impressed by the qualities of self-denial and abnegation with which these Deputies at that time credited themselves and are hoping that they will finance the Labour Party's proposals to the extent of £10per mensem per capita.

Is there any limit to this codology-codology of the worst type?

I see that Deputy Davin does not take that proposal seriously, no more than he considers serious the proposition that he should go out to dun the passengers coming off the mail boat or that Deputy Norton should parade up and down outside the Post Office, to try to provide funds for the Exchequer in order to meet the cost of the Labour Party's motion. Of course, we know that the Labour Party do not anticipate that Deputy Norton or Deputy Davin will take these heroic measures or that we shall have this self-denial and martyrdom on the part of Deputy Bennett and Deputy Cogan of which they were so full about three months ago. Therefore, since they are not relying on that, since money for the purposes of the Exchequer has to be found, where better——

The Minister does admit, then, that it will mean increased taxation?

Where better can we get that money, than by taking it from those who have so far escaped paying their fair share of national and local taxation? It is from that section— it is only a section—of property owners——

What about the leaseholders?

——who, so far, by reason of an obsolete system of valuation, have got away with it, at the expense of the rest of the community. I should have thought that any Party so imbued with the principles of social justice as the Labour Party is on occasions, would tell us that it is to that section of property owners we should go first, to go to those who are so well circumstanced by comparison with their neighbours. Surely it is to them that we ought to go and not to those who have hardly a stick or a stone of their own, the men of little property or none, the men for whom James Connolly laid down his life?

Get it from the bacon curers.

"But," says Deputy Norton, "we cannot permit you to tax property.""What," says Deputy Corish, "Deputy Norton was concerned about was not income tax as such, but what is known as property tax." Well, there is no annual tax on property as such in this State. There is a tax upon income derived from property, just as there is a tax on income derived from other investments, or from the profits of the business, or from wages and salaries of employees. All these forms of income are taxed. and, in my opinion, justly and rightly taxed, within the limits laid down by the income tax code. Before the State goes further and imposes indirect taxation upon such articles and commodities as motor-cars, petrol, tobacco, spirits, tea and sugar——

And fat bacon.

The Deputy is in error. There is no tax upon bacon. It is quite true, mind you, that certain people have got away with it during the past three or four years. But there are also people, according to Deputy Norton, who have been getting away with it for the past ten, 20, 30 or 50 years—getting away with it to the tune of £250,000 a year, perhaps. I think we had better get after those who got away with it first. They have got the biggest start and the problem of the bacon curers can be dealt with in due course, and I am certain will be dealt with in due course. I was saying that in so far—and this is the point I want to make—as our revenue from the tax on incomes, including incomes notional or actual arising from the ownership of property, falls short of the requirements of the public and social services, we have to fall back upon indirect taxes. In short, if we do not collect what is due to the Exchequer from property owners we must tax the food of the people. The Labour Party are opposed, says Deputy Corish, to this Bill because that Party is "concerned with what is known as property tax." It is to tax the food of the people and to oppose a tax upon property that the Labour Party propose to vote when they go into the lobby against this Bill. For the sacred cause of property, therefore, the Labour Party is prepared to tax the people's food. But that is not the end of their iniquity.

Hear, hear! We will tax your speeches.

I am certain the Deputy would like to suppress them. He had rather a narrow squeak in Laoighis-Offaly.

I will see you again in Laoighis-Offaly.

A Deputy

It is the last time they will send you here.

The revaluation which this Bill proposes will, other things being equal, result in a reduction in the amount paid in rates by three out of four householders in the State. I shall go further and say this: Eighty per cent, perhaps 90 per cent., of the wage-earners of this State live in homes which are covered by the terms of the Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Acts. They enjoy the benefits of these Acts and in so far as any reduction takes place in the rates paid on their homes, that reduction must be passed on to them in the shape of a reduced rent. I wish to tell the Labour Deputies, deliberately and emphatically, before they vote on this measure, that the revaluation which I propose, will result in a reduction, in some cases a relatively large reduction, in the rents paid, under the Rent and Mortgage (Restrictions) Acts. This Valuation Bill, in short, though it is not expressed to be so, is a Bill which will materially reduce the rents paid for 90 per cent. of the working class houses in the Twenty-Six Counties.

This measure, this Bill which the Labour Party are going to vote against because, as Deputy Corish says, "Deputy Norton is concerned with the tax upon property" is one which will reduce the rates on agricultural land. It will help the small and decaying towns. It will reduce the rates paid on three out of every four middle-class houses. It will reduce the rents of working-class houses. It will, by providing more money for the Exchequer, relieve the impoverished elements in the community. But—let those Deputies who sit on the benches behind me and who are helping the Government to put through this great measure of social reform tell it in every constituency for which a member of the Labour Party sits or in which that organisation put forward a candidate at the last election; let them tell it at every meeting between now and the next general election—the Labour Deputies are going to vote against this Bill. This Bill means cheaper houses for the postal workers. This Bill means cheaper houses for the railway workers. This Bill means cheaper homes for the urban teachers. This Bill means cheaper homes for the tradesmen and unskilled labourers in every city and town in the Twenty-Six Counties. But Deputy Norton, Deputy Davin, Deputy Tadhg Murphy, Deputy Corish, Deputy Everett and Deputy Pattison are going to vote against this Bill because, forsooth, it will tax property justly and will bring in more money to the Exchequer. The Labour Deputies —these alleged disciples of James Connolly—are in fitting company.

You should be afraid to mention his name.

I do not traffic in it as some people do. The Irish Independent—that tireless champion of the Irish worker—is against this Bill also and for the same reason as Deputy Norton, Deputy Corish, and the other members of the Labour Party are against it—because it will put a just tax on property. On the coming 1st May, Deputy Norton, draping Connolly's blood-stained shroud around him, will tell the workers of Dublin to rise, that they “have nothing to lose but their chains.” In the meantime, however, under the flag of the Irish Independent, he will fight here in the Dáil to deprive these workers of all the gains which the revaluation proposed by this Bill will assuredly secure for them. He will do that in order to enable big and wealthy companies, such as that which controls the Irish Independent, to get away with paying thousands and thousands of pounds less than they ought to pay to the rates of Dublin City. The Irish Independent and its like are escaping, to use Deputy Cosgrave's words, with these thousands upon thousands of pounds at the expense of the Dublin workers, the small shopkeepers and the struggling middle-class families of this city. Under Deputy Norton's leadership, the policy of the Labour Party of Ireland, should, accordingly, be expressed: “No tax upon property; no tax upon big companies; no tax upon the Irish Independent; but the poor and the weak you shall grind to the dust.”

We should tax your "codology."

I should be content to leave that issue, as I was content to leave the issue of Civil Service arbitration, to the judgement of the people.

I said, in my speech in introducing this Bill, that it is indispensable to the future orderly progress of our people. Next to land purchase, it is, perhaps, the most important and far-reaching social reform that has been proposed here within the century. It will lay the foundations of a new, efficient, economical and progressive system of local government here. In regard to the local public services, it will enable the local authorities, under that new dispensation, to make good the accumulated deficiencies of years. It will enable them to provide for the Irish people decent homes, clean towns, good roads and proper health services.

And more poor houses.

At any rate, the people in the poor houses have no friends——

Except you.

They have no friends in Deputy Davin or Deputy Norton, for the people in the poor houses are secure against taxes upon property and it is only with those whose property might be taxed Deputy Norton and Deputy Davin are concerned.

As I was saying, this Bill will enable the local authorities, under the new dispensation, to provide for their people decent homes, clean towns, good roads and proper health services. It will do all that without imposing undue burdens upon the resources of individual citizens, for it will enable the Government to carry out a reform which was authoritatively recommended about 40 years ago in these emphatic terms:

"It is not easy to exaggerate the importance of a fair, uniform and accurate valuation, as a preliminary to any just distribution of the burdens of the local administration."

That reform was overdue even 40 years ago. It is much more overdue now. It is a reform which, like Deputy Norton's injustices, has waited "for ten, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years." Yet, despite the opposition of Deputy Norton, the Labour Party and the party opposite, who are concerned to oppose this Bill because it may be a tax upon property, the Government is going to go forward to prepare a fair and accurate register of the real property of this country for the purpose of justly apportioning taxes, for the Government believes that such a just apportionment as between man and man and citizen and citizen does not exist at the present time. The Government has no vested interest, as the Labour Party and the Party opposite have shown they have, in maintaining injustices unredressed—injustices which breed social disorder and revolution. As I said, it is the policy of the Government to forestall revolution by redressing injustices and, as a first step to the redressal of widespread injustices, we are introducing this Bill.

Not one word about the farmers' houses.

Question put: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 67; Níl, 51.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Denis.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Bourke, Dan.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Brennan, Martin.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Carty, Frank.
  • Childers, Erskine H.
  • Cleary, Mícheál.
  • Cooney, Eamonn.
  • Crowley, Fred Hugh.
  • Crowley, Tadhg.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • Flinn, Hugo V.
  • Flynn, John.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Fogarty, Patrick J.
  • Friel, John.
  • Fuller, Stephen.
  • Gorry, Patrick J.
  • Harris, Thomas.
  • Hogan, Daniel.
  • Humphreys, Francis.
  • Kelly, James P.
  • Kelly, Thomas.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick J.
  • Loughman, Francis.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • McDevitt, Henry A.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Meaney, Cornelius.
  • Moore, Séamus.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • Mullen, Thomas.
  • Munnelly, John.
  • O Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O'Loghlen, Peter J.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • O'Rourke, Daniel.
  • O'Sullivan, Ted.
  • Rice, Brigid M.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Martin.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Tubridy, Seán.
  • Victory, James.
  • Walsh, Laurence J.
  • Walsh, Richard.
  • Ward, Conn.

Níl

  • Belton, Patrick.
  • Bennett, George C.
  • Benson, Ernest E.
  • Brodrick, Seán.
  • Browne, Patrick.
  • Burke, Patrick.
  • Burke, Thomas.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Byrne, Alfred (Junior).
  • Coburn, James.
  • Cole, John J.
  • Coogan, Patrick.
  • Corish, Richard.
  • Cosgrave, William T.
  • Costello, John A.
  • Davin, William.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Dockrell, Henry M.
  • Doyle, Peadar S.
  • Esmonde, John L.
  • Everett, James.
  • Fagan, Charles.
  • Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Gorey, Denis J.
  • Hannigan, Joseph.
  • Brasier, Brooke.
  • Brennan, Michael.
  • Broderick, William J.
  • Hickey, James.
  • Hughes, James.
  • Hurley, Jeremiah.
  • Keyes, Michael.
  • Lynch, Finian.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McFadden, Michael Og.
  • McGovern, Patrick.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Mongan, Joseph W.
  • Morrissey, Daniel.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Donovan, Timothy J.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Sullivan, John M.
  • Pattison, James P.
  • Redmond, Bridget M.
  • Reidy, James.
  • Reynolds, Mary.
  • Rogers, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, Jeremiah.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Doyle and Bennett.
Question declared carried.
Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, 22nd March.
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