I move:—
That the Bill be now read a Second Time.
As the House is aware, after the occurrence of the incidents of bombing by foreign aircraft in this country at the beginning of this year, the Government undertook that compensation would be provided for the damage caused, whether or not the foreign Government responsible accepted liability and agreed to pay compensation. This Bill makes provision for such compensation in so far as injuries to property are concerned. It was, at first, the intention to bring within its scope compensation for death and personal injuries as well but, on further consideration, it was thought better to keep such compensation in line with what was done or is contemplated in the case of other civilian classes like the Air Raid Precautions service, the Local Security Force and the Local Defence Force; differentiation could hardly be justified and might lead to complications because of the absence of uniformity. I, therefore, propose to deal with compensation for death and personal injuries by a scheme to be made pursuant to an order under the Emergency Powers Act, 1939. The scheme is at present in course of preparation. Death and personal injuries are accordingly not provided for in the present Bill.
As well as injuries arising from the dropping of bombs, the Bill embraces damage to property caused by the explosion of mines washed ashore, drifting balloons and kindred incidents occurring while the country is neutral. It covers all such incidents that have occurred, or may occur, including the County Wexford incidents of 26th August, 1940. The Bill follows generally the lines of the Damage to Property (Compensation) Acts, 1923 to 1933, but it requires all applications for compensation to be submitted in the first instance to the Minister for Finance who is given power to negotiate directly with claimants with a view to settlement of their claims. In the event of no agreement being reached, and only in that event, applicants can present their claims to the Circuit Court. This arrangement is, I think, an improvement on the 1923 and 1933 Acts procedure. It should save litigation and trouble, and make for economy and the speedy disposal of claims.
The Bill provides for compensation for all damage to property except, on the analogy of the Damage to Property (Compensation) Act, 1923, such personal effects as watches and jewellery not forming part of the owner's stock-in-trade, coins, currency, stamps, postal orders and so forth, as well as consequential loss, such as loss of business profits. On the analogy, too, of that Act, damage to streets, roads, bridges, water-pipes, sewers and kindred items maintained by local authorities is also excluded, the idea being that local authorities themselves should be able, with their own labour and materials, to make good any such damage without being much out of pocket. Another thing excluded is damage to ships and vessels, including equipment and the personal effects of the masters and crews which are not registered in this country or, not being capable of registration, are in non-Irish ownership. The object of this is to preclude the owners and crews of foreign ships and vessels from benefiting under the legislation; the risk of damage should be borne by themselves or covered by insurance.
The compensation to be awarded by the court for damage to buildings will be conditional on full reinstatement, and must not exceed the cost of complying with that condition less the amount, if any, by which, in the opinion of the court, the value of the building as reinstated would, because of reinstatement, exceed its value immediately before the damage took place. The Bill gives power to compromise with claimants who have been awarded compensation by the court and find it impracticable to comply with the reinstatement condition, for instance, where a local authority under a town-planning or rehousing scheme is opposed to reinstatement. In negotiations with claimants for direct settlement of their claims, I propose to follow the provisions in regard to reinstatement which govern the court, and to make an unconditional offer of compensation only in cases where I would be prepared to waive a reinstatement condition imposed by the court. Where the property damaged is found to have been insured against the damage caused, the amount of the insurance will be deducted from the compensation payable.
Some of the compensation under the 1923 Act was payable in the form of securities—compensation stock. Under the present measure all compensation will be payable in money; for this purpose I propose to bring in a special Estimate as early as possible. The Bill provides for a contribution by local authorities on a national basis of 25 per cent. of the total compensation paid in each financial year or whatever would be produced by a rate of 6d. in the £, whichever is less. This more or less follows a corresponding provision in the Act of 1923 and is, it is felt, preferable to the alternative of a contribution only from the particular local authorities in whose functional areas the damage to property occurred.
In my reply to a parliamentary question by Deputy Byrne on the 24th June I referred to the arrangement between the Department of Local Government and Public Health and the Dublin Corporation, under which the corporation have authority to carry out repairs to damaged dwelling houses sufficient to make them habitable, to provide temporary accommodation for people left homeless and to make cash advances to such people for the purchase of furniture and clothing. Similar arrangements operate in other areas where damage has taken place, and power is taken in the Bill to recoup the local authority out of voted moneys the expenditure incurred. Where a house has been extensively damaged it is not intended that the local authority should carry out the repairs; generally, they should only take on the job where the expenditure is not likely to exceed £100, although no objection has been taken to this limit being stretched, to £130 or even higher where it was found as the work progressed that the cost cannot be kept within £100. There is nothing to stop the owners of damaged houses from making their own arrangements for repairs. The advances for furniture and clothing may be up to £50 and £30, respectively. Money expended by a local authority on repairs, etc., is not to be taken into account by the court in assessing compensation under the Bill, but I am authorised to deduct the amount of such expenditure from the compensation.
Compensation recovered from an external Government in respect of damage to property will, under the Bill, be paid into or disposed of for the benefit of the Exchequer, but should the amount in any case prove greater than what was awarded under the Act, the excess may be distributed among the parties concerned. The House will appreciate that I cannot say at this stage to what extent we shall succeed in recovering compensation for all the damage caused.
I propose to go into more detail on the various sections. The definition section, Section 1, speaks for itself. Section 2 prescribes the injuries to which the Act applies and says that the Act shall apply only to injuries to property which occur while the State is not engaged in war. Damage caused by our own Defence Forces, for instance, by anti-aircraft shells fired by them does not come under the Bill but falls to be dealt with otherwise by the Department of Defence.
Section 3 indicates the persons entitled to compensation. It precludes payment of compensation to local authorities for injuries to streets, roads, bridges, viaducts, subways, waterways and so forth which they are required by law to provide, maintain or repair. I have already mentioned that the idea here is that the local authorities themselves with the resources of labour and materials at their disposal should be able to make good any such damage without being much out of pocket. Sub-section (3) is to protect the interests of the Revenue Commissioners in the matter of estate duty. Sub-section (4) is to preclude people from getting compensation for injuries who have been compensated for them directly by a Government or authority outside the State; this has happened already in one or two cases where property was injured by aeroplanes, etc., coming down in this country.
Under Section 4 all applications for compensation must be made to the Minister for Finance in the form and manner to be prescribed. This may require applications to be in the form of a statutory declaration. Applicants are obliged under the section to furnish all necessary information and particulars. Applications must be made within three months after the occurrence of the injury or, where the injury occurred before the passing of the Act, within three months after its passing.
Section 5 directs that the Minister shall consider every application which is duly made to him and make an offer of compensation to the applicant or inform him in writing that he does not intend to make any offer. The Minister may attach to an offer any conditions he thinks proper in relation to the expenditure of the compensation offered. Generally the conditions envisaged here will be concerned with the reinstatement of damaged buildings and I propose in this connection, as I have mentioned earlier, to follow what is prescribed for the court. The applicant is given six months to consider the offer made to him and if he accepts it or, by his silence, is deemed to have accepted it within that period, the compensation offered will be paid to him subject to compliance with any conditions attached to the offer whereupon he will have no further claim under the Bill.
Section 6 enables a person who has refused the compensation offered by the Minister, or to whom he has made no offer, to apply within one month to the Circuit Court for compensation and for the hearing and determining of the application by the court in the normal way. Section 7 provides for the fixing of the compensation by the court and the making of an order that the compensation shall be paid by the Minister for Finance.
On the analogy of the 1923 Act Section 8 excludes from compensation watches and personal effects, coins, currency, stamps, postal and money orders, the loss and value of which would be difficult or impossible to prove. Injuries to foreign ships and their equipment and to the personal effects of their crews are also excluded and, again on the analogy of the 1923 Act, provision is made for preparing a scale of compensation for injuries to documents such as muniments of title to property, stock and share certificates, wills and so forth.
Section 9 deals with the compensation to be awarded by the court in respect of injuries to buildings and fixtures. It makes the compensation for damage to a building conditional on reinstatement, that is, the money must be used for erecting a new building on the site of the injured one or replacing the injured building, but so that the new or repaired building shall be not less valuable than the injured one and shall be of the same character or of a character suitable to the neighbourhood. The compensation is not to exceed the cost of reinstatement less the extra value, if any, of the new or reconstructed building as compared with the old one. The reinstatement condition is also applied to fixed machinery and plant, but the court is empowered to waive it upon such terms as it may think reasonable. The Minister is given power to waive reinstatement where the court has awarded compensation for injury to a building if he is of opinion that, owing to special circumstances or unforeseen events, compliance with that condition is inexpedient or impracticable. A case in point, as already referred to, would be where a local authority objects to reinstatement for reasons associated with town-planning or a building scheme.
Section 10 restricts the awarding of compensation to actual damage done and excludes consequential loss and particularly loss of the use of the property or of mere pleasure or amenity. This also follows the lines of the Act of 1923. By Section 11 the court is required to ascertain whether each person to whom it awards compensation was insured against the loss involved and, if so, to state in its order particulars of such insurance and the sum the person has been or is entitled to be paid under it. The Minister is empowered to deduct the amount of any such insurance when paying the compensation.
Section 12 provides that chattels lost or supposed to have been destroyed in respect of which compensation has been awarded and which are subsequently discovered shall be the property of the Minister and shall be disposed of by him for the benefit of the Exchequer to the person who got the compensation, or otherwise if that person does not purchase.
Section 13 is the expenses section, and provides that the compensation awarded, less any deductions, court costs payable by the Minister, and administration expenses shall be defrayed out of voted moneys.
Section 14 provides for the payment out of compensation awarded to a person of any debt due by him to a Government Department. It is on the lines of similar sections in other Acts.
The disposal of compensation recovered from an external Government or authority is dealt with in Section 15. All such money received will be paid into or disposed of for the benefit of the Exchequer, and if it transpires in respect of an injury that more is received than the amount of compensation awarded under the Act, the amount of the difference may be paid to the parties concerned out of voted moneys. Provision is made for the recoupment or partial recoupment from the same source to local authorities of their contribution towards the cost of compensation where compensation is recovered from abroad.
In Section 16 provision is made for a contribution by local authorities (county councils and county borough councils) towards the cost of compensation under the Act. The amount, which is limited to 25 per cent. of the compensation, is to be levied on a national basis at a flat rate in the £ valuation within a maximum figure equivalent to the produce of a rate of 6d. in the £. Section 17 empowers local authorities to enter on and inspect damaged buildings and, after notice, to repair them unless the occupier or his immediate landlord undertakes to do so.
Provision is made in Section 18 for the recoupment out of voted moneys to local authorities of money expended by them, under authority given by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health, in relation to or in consequence of injuries to which the Act applies. This relates to the advances I have already referred to for the purchase of furniture and clothing within the limits of £50 and £30, respectively, as well as to the expenditure incurred in repairing dwelling-houses. The court is not to concern itself with these items when fixing compensation but the Minister is authorised to deduct from it the appropriate amount in respect of them. Section 19 contains in relation to any expenditure by Government Departments provisions similar to those in Section 18 as regards expenditure by local authorities.
Section 20 fixes a time limit of three years, from the date an award is made by the Minister or by the court, for the payment or recovery of the compensation awarded. Section 21 prohibits court actions against any person to recover damages in respect of an injury to which the Bill applies. Section 22 excludes from the provisions of the Criminal Injuries Acts injuries to which the Bill applies. The making of regulations is provided for in Section 23. Section 24 gives the short title.
In conclusion, may I say that our assumption of responsibility to pay compensation for damage to property, irrespective of whether or not the external Government concerned accepts liability, may impose a heavy burden on the Exchequer. It is not possible at this stage to give any firm estimate of what the total cost will be, in relation to the incidents that have already occurred. I regret, as I am sure the whole House does, the circumstances that have led to the bringing in of this measure, and I feel that the proposals in it are fair and reasonable. I ask the House to approve of it.