I move that this Bill be now read a Second Time. This Bill is designed to serve three purposes— firstly, to make certain amendments which appear to be desirable in the present Mines and Minerals Act of 1931; secondly, to authorise the Minister for Industry and Commerce, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, to acquire compulsorily minerals in private ownership, in certain circumstances; thirdly, to authorise the Minister to work mineral deposits as a State enterprise. In the administration of the Mines and Minerals Act of 1931, certain difficulties were experienced. To meet these, certain amendments are proposed now, of which I propose to mention the two principal ones more specifically later. The bulk of the amendments are of a minor character, but they have been rather numerous, and in view of that it has been felt desirable to proceed by way of a consolidating measure rather than by way of an amending Bill. Accordingly, this Bill proposes to repeal completely the Act of 1931 and to re-enact its many provisions with the amendments which experience has shown to be desirable.
The first main amendment which this Bill proposes to make in the Mines and Minerals Act of 1931 is one to meet the difficulty which arises out of the fact that, on the sale of estates to tenant purchasers under the Land Acts, 1903 to 1923, minerals are, as a general rule, reserved to the Land Commission. The tenant purchaser is granted the ownership of the stone, gravel, sand and clay on his holding. In the case of minerals which were thus reserved to the Land Commission, certain difficulties regarding title have arisen from two causes: first, there is no way of telling whether some particular substances come within the category of minerals vested in the State under the Acts or within the categories of stone, gravel, sand or clay and are thus specifically exempt from such vesting by the terms of the Land Acts. The second difficulty arose through the fact that vesting of minerals in the State under these sections did not take place in certain circumstances, that is to say, for example, if the owner were himself working the minerals on the day of vesting. Whether particular minerals were being worked on the vesting date or on the appointed date was, in some circumstances, a question of fact which it was difficult to determine. As a means of settling the questions of title, the Mines and Minerals Act of 1931 empowered the Minister to refer such questions to the Land Commission for determination. Reference to the Land Commission meant delay for the person proposing to work the mineral and, in one case, expensive litigation, which ultimately went to the Supreme Court, in which the tenant purchaser was involved. In this Bill, the remedy proposed is, by way of legislative act, to declare that an exclusive mining right vested in the State under the Land Acts shall be deemed to include and always to have included the right to take all of the mineral substances set out by name in the Schedule to the Bill. I think it will be conceded that this is, perhaps, the most practical and businesslike way of settling this rather vexed question.
The Mines and Minerals Act of 1931 also failed to make sufficient distinction between prospecting and working. In so far as that Act did make provision for prospecting as such, it placed this aspect of mineral development on the same plane as actual working, with the result that anybody in this country wishing merely to examine a mineral deposit to see whether it was worth developing or not was faced with pretty much the same degree of formality, expense and delay as if he had already decided to work the deposit commercially and wanted for that purpose to get legal title.
With a view to remedying this position in regard to the matter of mineral prospecting as distinct from actual working, the new Bill contains in Part II a whole set of provisions based on the principle that where there are minerals, whether State owned or privately owned, which are not being worked or which are not being worked efficiently, either the Minister or any person to whom a licence for the purpose may be granted by the Minister should be entitled to investigate the possibilities of these minerals subject to payment of compensation in respect of disturbance or damage caused to the surface of the land only. It is not proposed that the owner should get compensation in respect of the minerals themselves because he in fact will suffer no loss. His title, even if a prospecting licence is granted, will remain unimpaired and, in view of the fact that the Bill proposes to make it an offence for anyone to whom a licence has been granted to work the minerals or to remove any quantity of them other than what is required for the purposes of analysis or other similar tests, his property will be protected.
Part III of the Bill contains provisions which authorise the compulsory acquisition of minerals in private ownership. Briefly, this authorisation is granted to the Minister for Industry and Commerce where he, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, is satisfied that certain mineral deposits are not being worked or are not being worked efficiently and where in his opinion it is essential in the public interest that such order should be made. Circumstances have shown that there is necessity to look for these powers. Left to development by private enterprise, experience has shown that there is a probability that the mineral deposits, such as they are, in the country, may never be developed. In the interests of the State it is important that such possibilities as there are should be fully explored and should be fully availed of. The development of the deposits which we have would give much-needed employment, and the coal and other minerals which may be raised would help to feed essential industries with raw materials at a time when the flow of imports is for any cause interrupted. Again, development of the country's mineral resources has, to some extent, been impeded by unreasonable demands which have been made by owners of deposits for a right to work and develop them. There is, naturally, no desire to confiscate private property, but it is important that the efforts of the State or of private persons to develop mineral deposits should not provide the owners of deposits which may have lain dormant for years with the opportunity of demanding for their interests amounts which would make the exploitation of the deposits uneconomic.
In general, we assume that the owners of the deposits will be sufficiently compensated by a royalty on any minerals which an efficient mining undertaking may succeed in winning from the soil and it is only in exceptional circumstances, I should say, that any lump sum will be paid over at the outset. The Bill, in relation to this question of compensation, provides that the compensation to be paid to the existing owners will, in default of agreement, be fixed by the Mining Board, but the compensation which the board is empowered to award is, in general, limited to compensation, as I have mentioned, by way of royalty on the quantity of minerals raised from the deposits which are acquired. There are, however, two exceptions to this general rule. If the minerals are held subject to a rent or other fixed annual payment or if they have been purchased by their present owners for valuable consideration within ten years prior to the date of the passing of the Bill the board may at its discretion award compensation in the form of (a) a lump sum, (b) a fixed rent, (c) a royalty, or any two or more of these modes of payment.
Section 30 of the Bill authorises the Minister for Industry and Commerce, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, to work and dispose of minerals already vested in the State or minerals which have been acquired by the issue of an order under Part III of the Bill. The arrangements most suitable for working minerals by the State, whether directly or through a semi-State organisation, would, of course, be for consideration in each particular case. So far as it may be proved necessary, the Dáil will be approached to provide financial assistance in the form of repayable advances, but it is intended that any such project should, within a reasonable time, show itself capable of being operated on a commercial basis without State assistance. Accordingly, the enactment of the Bill will not of itself throw any charge upon the Exchequer.
While the other provisions in this Bill do not differ widely from the provisions of the Act of 1931, they are arranged on a somewhat different plan, and it may be well at this stage to mention briefly the plan adopted in the 1931 Act for giving effect to the general purposes behind that legislation. The principle underlying the provisions of the Act of 1931 was that the development of the mineral resources of this country is essentially a matter for private enterprise. In that Act, therefore, it was not necessary to do more than, first of all, authorise the Minister for Industry and Commerce to give leases of minerals which were in State ownership; secondly, to provide persons with facilities for acquiring the right to work minerals which were in private ownership; thirdly, to provide facilities for working deposits either acquired by mining leases or by mining rights, to provide them, for instance, with a right to a supply of water, a right to dispose of waste products, a right to demolish buildings. These rights, provided under the Act of 1931, were known as ancillary rights and are set out in detail in Section 19 (2) of that Act. The 1931 Act also provided for the terms on which mining rights and ancillary rights should be acquired and the compensation which should be paid to the persons from whom they were so acquired. It also made provision to prevent the working of minerals which were required for the support of buildings, and it made provision for various minor matters mentioned in Part VIII of the Act, that is to say, for the fencing of abandoned mines, for furnishing information regarding boring operations, et cetera.
For the purpose of advising the Minister as to the reasonableness of claims made for mining and ancillary rights and for assessing compensation which should be paid in respect of them a body called the Mining Board was established and it consisted of three persons, a lawyer, an expert in land values and an officer of the Minister. These various provisions of the Act of 1931 have their counterparts in the present Bill. Part I corresponds roughly with Part I of the Act of 1931. Some of the definitions are changed slightly. I have already referred to some changes in the definitions in the first part of the Bill, and also to the main changes of substance in that part which refers to scheduled minerals. The changes, as I indicated, will, we hope, obviate delays which have taken place, and remove difficulties which have been experienced in considering whether in fact certain mineral substances have been vested in the State.
I have already dealt briefly with Parts II and III of the Bill, and with Section 30 of Part IV. That part of the Bill will generally re-enact the provisions of the 1931 Act. It also introduces the following new principle: that the Minister will have authority to give facilities to take deposits from State-owned minerals, and also from privately-owned minerals, without putting the applicants to the expense of making formal leases. It also provides that the Minister will be authorised to work certain mineral deposits as a State enterprise. Part V re-enacts in substance Part II of the 1931 Act. The constitution of the mining board to be set up will not be altered. The nature of its general functions will not be altered, but the cases that will come before it for determination may be more numerous, depending on the extent to which the powers vested in the Minister under Part III of the Act will be exercised.
Part VI of the Bill embodies the provisions of Parts IV and V of the Act of 1931. These are the parts which contain provisions for the giving of facilities to work minerals which are in private ownership. In this Bill the facilities are called "unworked mineral licences." In the Act of 1931 they were called "mining rights." In this part are provisions which will make it an offence for a person to work mineral deposits in such a way as to deprive of the necessary support buildings and other erections on the surface of the land.
Part VII deals with the payment of compensation. The circumstances in which compensation will be payable have been stated at length in a memorandum which I circulated to Deputies. Part VIII deals with miscellaneous items which were dealt with in Part VIII of the 1931 Act and, in addition, contains provisions making it an offence to work minerals without lawful authority. The need for that arises from the fact that from time to time it has come to the notice of my Department that mineral deposits which belong to the State were being pilfered by persons living in the locality. The trespass was most frequent on coalfields such as at Arigna, the Leinster coalfields, and Slievardagh. Quite apart from the injury done to State property by these acts of trespass, it is important that trespass should be stopped for the following reasons: firstly, that the trespassers left unfenced shafts which they had sunk when they decided to abandon the workings; secondly, the State might, to some extent, be made liable for compensation to the owners for any injury done to the surface; and thirdly, there was a likelihood that the irregular working carried on might result in serious accident. There was, in fact, one serious accident due to that cause. Nevertheless, the State hitherto had no effective means of putting an end to the trespass. Proceedings might have been taken under the Larceny Act, but it is doubtful if they would succeed. The protection that will be extended to mineral properties by this section will also extend to minerals in private ownership.
These are the principal features of the Bill, and as the need for the enactment of the measure in present circumstances is very urgent, I should be grateful if the House could see its way to give me all stages of the Bill to-day. The powers with which we are seeking to vest the Minister in Parts II and III would be particularly valuable in present circumstances.
