I do not want to go over matters that were raised on the Second Stage last week save to repeat very briefly the objection which I have to this section remaining part of the Bill. As I indicated on the Second Reading, I feel we are legislating in Section 3 retrospectively and that the justification in certain circumstances for retrospective legislation is not here in the circumstances of this case. I believe that there would be great hardship on the particular tenant in this case if this section was not put through the Dáil, but I think it is wrong for the Dáil merely because a question of hardship is involved to get away from the principle, and in fact abrogate a principle of such vital importance as is involved in this section.
As I have already indicated, I believe the landlord in this particular case has got contractual rights declared to be given to him by the President of the High Court. I do not agree with the Deputies who spoke last week and who said it was a mere technicality. It is possible to wave aside every decision of the courts by saying such a decision was given on a mere technicality. It was not given on a technicality. It was given on the interpretation of the Act as it stood and as passed by this House. The fact that it was wrongly passed by this House should not alter the principle involved which is that the courts have declared that an individual —in this particular case a landlord— has got certain rights, an ancillary to which will be his right to claim arrears of rent. We are now taking away those rights from him by this Section 3.
There is one other matter I want to raise on this section which I think is of equal importance and that is the constitutionality of this particular section. I would ask the Minister to state whether he has been advised by the Attorney-General whether this particular section is, in fact, constitutional. I think this case comes very close indeed to the decision of the Supreme Court in the case known as the Sinn Féin funds case and I would just like very briefly to quote to the Dáil a section from the judgment of the Supreme Court, of Mr. Justice O'Byrne as quoted in the 1950 Irish Reports, page 82. It reads as follows (referring to Article 43, which refers to the rights of private persons):—
"It seems to us that the article was intended to enshrine and protect the property rights of the individual citizen of the State and that the rights of the individual are thereby protected, subject to the right of the State, as declared in Clause 2, to regulate the exercise of such rights in accordance with the principles of social justice and to delimit the exercise of such rights so as to reconcile their exercise with the exigencies of the common good."
It seems to me quite clear that we are taking away a right of a person in this Bill and we would have to persuade the High Court—if the constitutionality of this Bill were to come before them—that the Dáil by so doing was regulating the exercise, in this case, of the landlord's rights in accordance with the principles of social justice and also that we were delimiting in this particular case the landlord's rights to reconcile them in their exercise with the exigencies of the common good.
I would be extremely doubtful that it could be held that it is necessary for the exigencies of the common good that the Bill should be passed into law or that it is necessary that these rights are regulated under this particular Bill according to the principles of social justice. I should like to find out from the Minister whether he has obtained the opinion of the Attorney-General on the constitutionality of this particular section of the Bill as I feel it is very close to the decision of the Supreme Court in the Sinn Féin funds case. I also repeat the objection which I dealt with at greater length on Second Reading as to the manner in which we are legislating retrospectively to deal with a case of hardship, admittedly, but none the less taking away a legal right from an individual person.