I move:—
That the Dáil is of opinion that the valuation of any land, turf bog or turf bank should not be increased by the operation of emergency legislation; and more specifically by reason of the taking or purchase of turf therefrom by or for disposal through local authorities, or through schemes intended to provide fuel during the emergency contemplated by the Emergency Powers Act, 1939; and that proposals for any necessary legislation should be introduced forthwith by the Government.
This is a matter which was raised at the end of last year and the disparities and the injustices which are being suffered by a very small number of people in the country have been continued ever since. The motion asks that any necessary legislation should be introduced forthwith by the Government to redress the situation. Whether legislation is necessary or not, I do not know. But the matter to which I am calling attention and for which I am asking redress is that a small number of people in North Tipperary, as distinct and apart from any other people, I might say, in the country, except some in County Monaghan, have had their valuations increased and are being asked to pay additional sums by way of rates, because either they had had their bogs rented by the local authority for turf cutting or because they sold turf off their bogs during the emergency. If there is a law and that law is being operated in a partial, inequitable, unjust and unexpected way, then that is a matter of which Parliament should take cognisance.
I raised this matter before, but the Minister for Finance thought I was simply trifling with it and could not see why I had taken up the case at all.
The Minister for Local Government on another occasion also scoffed the case that we were making out of the House. The position is that in 1941 emergency powers were given to local authorities either to rent bogs and carry on turf-cutting operations by their own organisations or to buy turf from local people. At that time an urgent appeal went out from the Government that, where turf was available, it should be cut in order to provide the country with fuel during the emergency.
A large number of counties threw themselves into that campaign and a large number of local bodies took the situation in hand and either rented bogs or induced people to cut turf for them and acted as the machinery for selling that turf through Fuel Importers, Limited. Amongst these counties were Galway, Roscommon, Clare, Limerick, Kerry, Cork, Waterford, South Tipperary, Meath and Laoighis. That is one particular set of counties. These were counties that produced substantial quantities of turf. In no single case between 1941 and 1946 did whatever law is there operate in any way to raise the valuation on anybody who either was renting a bog to a county council or was cutting and selling turf either to the county council or anybody else. Then another group of counties—Sligo, Mayo, Longford, Westmeath and Cavan—appeared to be in practically the same position as the first group I mentioned, with a very small dot of a difference. Then you have Donegal and Wicklow and then you have North Tipperary and Monaghan. There are four groups of counties.
Let us take the first group. It is not easy to give exact figures as to the amount of turf produced in these counties or the amount of profit made by any persons owning bogs, either by renting them or working them themselves and selling the turf. But figures are available giving the approximate quantities of turf supplied by the local authorities to Fuel Importers, Limited. During the years from 1941 to 1945—the figures for the 1945 season's crop being just provisional—we find that that part of the production of turf in Galway that was disposed of by being sold to the Fuel Importers, Limited, by the local authority amounted to 218,000 tons; Clare, 66,000 tons; Kerry, 159,000 tons; Cork, 31,000 tons; Roscommon, 125,000 tons. Limerick, in the matter of turf production, is scarcely worth talking about, and we can ignore Waterford and South Tipperary, because the figures are not available. Those figures will give an impression of the position that those counties occupied in the provision of turf. These are much greater than the quantities provided by other bodies. In none of these counties was the valuation increased on anybody as a result of the cutting of turf.
In the second group we have Sligo, Mayo, Longford, Westmeath and Cavan. Sligo, during the period, provided, through the local authorities for Fuel Importers, Limited, 21,000 tons; Mayo, 286,000 tons. The amounts provided from Longford, Westmeath and Cavan were infinitesimal. In County Mayo in 1941, the first year of the operation of this scheme, one person had his valuation increased. No other person in Mayo, during the whole of that period, had his valuation increased as a result of turf operations. In Sligo, in the year 1944, one person had his valuation increased because of turf operations. In Longford, in 1941, one person had his valuation increased, and in Westmeath, in 1946, one person had his valuation increased.
Now we come to Donegal and Wicklow. In Donegal, in the year 1942, four people had their valuations increased, and, in the year 1943, two more people there had their valuations increased. In Wicklow, in the year 1944, eight persons had their valuations increased, and in the year 1946 two more persons in Wicklow had their valuations increased. That is the third group.
Now we come to North Tipperary and Monaghan. North Tipperary, to the extent of 45,000 tons, figures in the list of counties where turf was sold by local authorities to Fuel Importers, Limited. In North Tipperary, in the year 1945, 40 persons had their valuations increased by reason of turf operations and, in 1946, ten other valuations there were increased. In Monaghan, in 1944, 26 persons had their valuations increased; in 1945 four more persons had their valuations increased, and in 1946 there were three others whose valuations were increased. There were 50 people in North Tipperary and 33 people in Monaghan and an odd person here and there in Sligo and Mayo who had their valuations increased at a time when, throughout the country, as a matter of emergency, an extraordinary production of turf took place.
If the law is there by which, according to the Minister's statement to me on the 12th September, 1945, "we are entitled to see that these people who have been drawing such sums should bear their equitable portion of rates"—if people who, according to the Minister, have been getting substantial royalties out of turf operations are liable, under the law, to pay rates, and if we find the law operating in such an inequitable way as to be absolutely unjust and outrageous, then we ought to know something about that law. The fact is that something, from the year 1852, like the measles that Deputy Dillon spoke about, has hit a small number of people in a concentrated way in North Tipperary and has passed, unscathing, over the people in South Tipperary. It is called law and we want to know what that law is. I say that whatever it is, it is unjust, inequitable and partial and it has been operated against a small number of persons. The situation should be redressed and the only way in which that situation can be redressed to-day is by seeing that the people who have been struck by this law and damaged by it will be compensated and will have their payments made good.
The Minister for Local Government speaks of some people who got £2,000 from the local authorities or from other people for turf and they were charged only an extra £100 in rates. I think it is very wrong, when there is such an obvious case of injustice operating in the country, that anything would be dragged across the discussion of this matter to distort the situation. I want to concentrate on North and South Tipperary.
In an answer given to me on the 10th October, 1945, it was shown that the expenditure by the North Tipperary County Council for the period ended on the 31st March in the years 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944 and 1945, was £268,000 and, in the case of South Tipperary, the expenditure on the same work was £122,800. The expenditure in North Tipperary may be double what it was in South Tipperary, but it is obvious that turf operations were proceeding in South Tipperary just as effectively, if not in as great a volume, as in North Tipperary.
The Minister has indicated that, under the law, the ratepayers of County Tipperary or any other county have the right to move, through their officials, to get a bog, which had not been worked, revalued when it became a valuable property. I want to know in relation to the law who are the "ratepayers" in these circumstances? Does it refer to individuals paying rates to the elected representatives of the county or to the county manager? I want to know what has operated in the County Tipperary to bring about a position in which 50 persons in the north have had their valuations increased—in some cases, by the action of the county manager—whereas no action has been taken in South Tipperary. In County Tipperary alone, there is a case requiring explanation of the law. Why has the law operated so peculiarly and through whose action has it operated so peculiarly? If it has operated through the action of the county manager and if it is as a result of his action that the valuations of people in North Tipperary have been increased because of payments made in a particular year, did the county manager operate to get these valuations reduced when he was not paying so much in subsequent years as he was in the earlier years?
