This Bill is—the Minister will correct me if I am wrong —simply a continuance Bill of the standard type. It proposes little more. Deputy Boland last night commented on the fact that it was possible to give effect to the recommendations of a commission that had reported later than the two years, which I think was the interval from the other report. Perhaps it could be argued that the matters to be dealt with in the second case were essentially simpler and could be more expeditiously dealt with from the point of view of preparing a Bill. I do not see that there was a great deal of difference having regard to the lapse of time. I do not think the Minister or any Minister could attribute the delays merely to the delays of preparing a Bill to implement the commission's report as it stands. That report is explicit and definite. It is accepted that the time involved in the preparation of a Bill and the routine consideration that arises in the preparation of any Bill would not be sufficient excuse for failing to present the Bill here to-day or indeed to have presented it a matter of years ago.
I imagine the fundamental problem here is that the Government and the Minister have not made up their minds on matters of policy arising under that code. I am not saying that the thing can be dismissed as an easy matter. It is not. There are problems there, but the fact is that arising out of the Conroy Report on a very large number of points, serious matters of policy are involved. One matter was touched on by another Deputy here yesterday in regard to lock-up shops. That is only an indicator. There is the question of furnished lettings, the question of application to newly built houses; there is, in fact, the whole question of the conflict between the owner of property who is using it as an investment and the occupier who is interested in the property primarily as the roof over his head. There are serious policy matters involved in this, and neither this Government nor this Minister has given any indication as to what the policy in these matters is.
This debate is an occasion when at least that could be clarified. The Minister's introduction to the Bill was so short and cursory as to give rise to the suspicion that it was simply tossed up in the routine way for reenactment, giving just that scant consideration which is given to reenactments, and that this measure is indefinitely shelved. I will not pretend that the Rent Restrictions Act and the rent code are as urgent as some other of the national problems that are facing us. I am not trying to suggest that this should be given over-all priority. Nevertheless, within the bailiwick of the Minister for Justice and his Department there are few measures that can compete with this measure in the matter of public importance and urgency.
We have had the Minister recently introducing a number of lawyers' Bills. These Bills, desirable as they are for amending the law and improving things from the point of view particularly of practitioners and litigants, may be all very well and very desirable, but we got on very well with the Statute of Limitations code as it was for a long time. We have had introduced here a most detailed and carefully drafted lawyers' Bill which apparently was a preoccupation of the Department of Justice for the last while back, the measure dealing with married women's property, in relation to which if the average citizen was asked to decide which was the more important public matter, he would say this rent code was infinitely more important than the relatively restricted measure dealing with married women's property. We have had tortfeasors' Bills and various relatively insignificant measures of that nature brought and brought very well before us.
Do not let me run down the Minister on account of that. From the lawyers' point of view and from the point of view of legal nicety and legal thoroughness there has been quite a good job done on these measures, but when it comes to a matter of general public interest involving questions of policy that the Government should face up to, a Continuation Bill is brought in here in the most perfunctory and routine manner. Does it mean that in this, as in very many other things, this Government is unable to make up its mind when it comes to serious matters? Is it again the case, as instanced yesterday in passing off the business we had here when we could not get even the unemployment problem looked at in its proper light, that serious matters of policy—and there are serious matters of policy involved in this Bill—cannot be grappled with?
This is not a simple measure. I know that at every stage of importance, at every point where legislation of the nature about which I am speaking rises above the routine lawyers' level to which I have referred in the case of the other Bills, there will be different points of view with substance behind them and there will be certain difficulties in arriving at a decision, and when a decision is arrived at that decision will be open to controversy. That is quite true but then what is the Government there for but to deal with these questions, to make up its own mind, to propound its views and to have the moral courage to propound its views and to stick to them if it really believes in them? What is the Government or the Minister there for but to do precisely that?
I do not wish to delay the House by going into detail but there was one case mentioned yesterday. There is the question of furnished lettings, the question of the application of the Act in point of time, and there are innumerable points touching every tenant in the country in fact, touching nearly every member of the community in the urban areas anyway. There are points of policy involved in that. The Minister could have availed himself of this occasion to propound at least the problems if not his views. It is not sufficient to say a thing is under consideration. We have had typical jokes in the funny journals not only in this country but in others in regard to the various stages of consideration a matter can have in a ministerial Department. It used to be customary to say: "The matter is under consideration" until it became synonomous with: "The matter is on the very long finger". Then somebody thought of adding: "The matter is under active consideration". We sometimes say "urgent consideration" and various other variants of the word "consideration", which in that context means nothing more than a shelf that it is hoped will remain untouched for a considerable time.
Why am I criticising the Minister on this? I do not think he is treating the House properly in not giving us at least a report on the progress made in examining this matter. It is not enough for the Minister to say that either I or any other Deputy can ask a question. We can, but what is the use if the only answer we get, as I got recently in respect of a question, is that the matter is under consideration? The initiative lies with the Government. What is the Government there for but to give a lead to the community? Here in the bailiwick of the Minister for Justice is an important matter. Why cannot he give us a lead and give us a concrete realisation of the problems of delay? By doing that, he will make democracy work and make it simpler and easier for the people to accept the ultimate decisions arrived at. It is only common sense to approach the matter in that way.
Even if the decision was against me as an ordinary man, I would be more prone to understand the reason and accept it if I see the matter is being re-examined and the rational reasons why the decision was given against me. Surely it would make it easier for the Government or its successor to deal at least with the problems that are the cause of the delay—problems of policy in respect of which apparently this Government has not yet been able to make up its mind as to a decision. These problems of policy, these conflicting interests, should be pinpointed. I appreciate—let me not be unreasonable—that the matter is bristling with difficulty. Again, I think the Minister is hardly treating the House in the most helpful way by not making some statement.
The Minister may have wondered perhaps why I embarked on this line. I can give him two very good reasons. Actually, I have given the first. This is a matter of public importance. The Minister is not crowded out with business. In regard to Tortfeasors' Bills and Statutes of Limitations, there is time for consideration. There is a less worthy reason perhaps, but, nevertheless, it is a reason. I know the Minister would not and did not scruple to use it. When the Minister's colleagues in the Government were on this side of the House, why were they so insistent on this Bill? Deputy Boland, I think, reminded the House that in his time there was an attempt to refuse the passage of the Bill for six months. There was an uproar and I think the present Taoiseach—I may be wrong—or at least leading members of the Government took a most active part and divided the House on this matter.
I do not seek to arraign them on that. As an Opposition, they were entitled to do that, but, having done it, if, when they were in Government, they found they could not do it as quickly as they said they could, I would be inclined to be reasonable in the matter, but in that case I would at least expect that the Government and the Minister responsible in that Government would give to the House and the country an indication why it was not possible to follow the line. If we were to insist in the same way upon a six months' time limit on him, it would be very relevant to ask him, in the light of all that has happened, why could he not comply with that requirement ?
As I say, I have a pretty good idea, but the time has come when the Minister should say so. As in the matter of the exploitation of the unemployed by the Tánaiste, the cost of living and so forth by the Taoiseach and the rest, so also in this. I say that this Government, in the light of the way the Minister has acted in this, is open to the charge of insincerity. Surely, the Minister can examine what are the problems in bringing in legislation of that nature? I am not even going so far as to ask him to make final decisions without due consideration. Goodness knows, there has been plenty of time to consider these matters, but I urge him to do that before he concludes. The paralysis of decision that has seized upon this Government in many respects and their inability to push things to a conclusion or get effective action for the benefit of the community will not, I hope, deteriorate to the degree where the actual problems that are there will not even be recognised.
