Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 21 Feb 1962

Vol. 193 No. 3

Private Members' Business. - Ground Rents (Prohibition and Extinction) Bill, 1961—First Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed:
That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to prohibit the creation of ground rents and to provide for the extinction of existing ground rents.—(Deputy S. Dunne.)

I put this Bill down for discussion some time ago and its First Reading was opposed by the Government. By virtue of that fact, I was denied the facility available to those promoting Bills after the First Stage has been passed, namely, the facility of circulation. Therefore, the members of the House will not know until now what the Bill contains and, with the permission of the Chair, I propose to read the terms of the Bill. I assume the rules of order permit me to do so. The Bill reads as follows:

BILL

entitled

AN ACT TO PROHIBIT THE CREATION OF GROUND RENTS AND TO PROVIDE FOR THE EXTINCTION OF EXISTING GROUND RENTS.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE OIREACHTAS AS FOLLOWS:—

1. As and from the date of the passing of this Act it shall not be lawful for any person to create a new ground rent.

2. (1) As and from the date of the passing of this Act any tenant may purchase all rights of his ground rent from his ground landlord by payment of a determined sum, and it shall not be lawful for the ground landlord to refuse to accept such payment.

(2) A ground rent purchased under subsection (1) shall be deemed to have been extinguished.

3. The determined sum referred to in section 2 shall be a sum not greater than fifteen times the amount of the annual ground rent which the tenant is liable for at the date of the passing of this Act.

4. Any amount paid by the tenant in respect of any period of tenancy prior to the passing of this Act shall be taken into account in calculating the sum referred to in section 2.

5. This Act may be cited as the Ground Rents (Prohibition and Extinction) Act, 1961.

The terms of the Bill are, I suppose, in need of some explanation. I understand that, under the rules of procedure, I am entitled to make a statement explaining just what they mean.

An explanatory statement, under Standing Orders.

Does it not say a short explanatory statement?

It will be as brief as possible. They mean simply that as and from the passage of this Bill the iniquity called ground rent, which is rooted in the conquest of this country, shall finish. It means also that persons who have been in occupation of houses and paying ground rents for a number of years will have taken into account the amount of money they have paid by this annual extortion, in many cases by absentee landlords living in luxury in Mayfair, in the West End of London and in other cases by native landlords also living in luxury, and that in no case shall the purchase price of the ground rent exceed the equivalent of 15 times the annual amount paid.

This, I should add, is possibly made more easy to understand when one thinks in terms of the 11,000 new ground rents that have been created in the suburbs of Dublin, in Churchtown, Dundrum, Walkinstown, Santry and other places well known to members of this House. People who have availed of the Small Dwellings Acquisition Acts and endeavoured to build their own homes have been compelled by the existence of this iniquity to pay sums varying from £25 to £30—

Is the Deputy not going beyond the explanatory statement?

I am simply trying to let the House know what the Bill aims to do and the grievance it purports to remedy. It may be said that the Government have set up a Commission to deal with this matter and that the Bill is, therefore, unnecessary. It is something of a coincidence that the Commission was not announced until almost the eve of the proposed discussion on my original motion about ground rents. It is a well-known fact that the device of the Commission is a very powerful retro-rocket on any piece of progressive legislation.

We have had Commissions in the past—I just want to make this point before the Minister makes his statement in reply—which have had time limits defined for their deliberations. I think the Intoxicating Liquor Commission got six months to make up their mind and some other Commissions had their terms of reference defined to be worked out over periods of 12 to 18 months, but in the case of the Commission set up to deal with ground rents I heard no mention whatever of any time limit to their deliberations. I should be satisfied if the Minister said that this Commission had been told it must deliver its report within a certain period of time, 18 months or two years, and that the Government would then act on the principle that ground rents should be finally ended and thereby also ended the inquity which is rooted in and stems from the historic conquest of the country. But the Minister has not said that and, until he does, I feel compelled to press this Bill upon the attention of the House in an effort to get something done about this outstanding source of scandal which has gone on without hindrance and without being remedied or interfered with by anybody for the past 50 or 60 years.

It is remarkable that, despite the great and valiant efforts that were made by the men who freed this country from the power of the landlords in rural areas, the very essential rights and needs of the people in the cities and towns seem to be overlooked. As a result, we still have this infliction on the hardworking and deserving people who live in houses which they are trying to purchase themselves.

That simply is the purpose of this Bill—to speed up, to get some action, instead of just leaving the matter to be discussed in an academic manner for the next five or six years in some obscure council room somewhere, as has happened to other Commissions and the report finally produced to be buried in some dusty library and nothing being done about it. This Bill is designed to get results.

May I just inquire what is the object of the First Reading? Is it that the Bill be circulated?

It is to have the Bill printed. That is all.

And that is all that Deputy Dunne is looking for?

That leave be granted to introduce the Bill.

In other words, that it be printed, so that we can see what it is about.

I want to assure the House that in normal circumstances there would be no question of my opposing the Deputy's motion for leave to introduce this measure and the House would have an opportunity of discussing it on Second Reading. Unfortunately, any other action on my part at this stage would be incompatible with the establishment last December of a Commission charged with the task of inquiring into the very matters with which the measure is concerned and of indicating the legislative provision that should be made to deal with them.

I can tell the House that the Commission has held several meetings and has, I understand, made arrangements for taking evidence, as Deputies who are members of local authorities may be aware. In these circumstances, it would be invidious for me or any member of the Government, to commit the Government to any definite expression of opinion on these matters.

Whether we like it or not, the fact must be faced that the ground rent problem is a particularly difficult and complex one, with wide social and economical implications and, with the best will in the world it cannot be solved in a single Bill in the way suggested by the Deputy. Even if approval in principle were to be given, even if all of us here agreed in principle that we should have a scheme which would be fair to all the interests concerned and decided to proceed with a purchase scheme; even if we got that definite decision in principle a tremendous amount of work on the technical obstacles and problems of such schemes would have to be put in and the actual preparation of the requisite legislation could not be undertaken without prolonged study of the problems involved. For instance, Deputy Dunne's Bill as he has read it to the House, takes no account of the numerous cases where there are several intermediate interests between the leaseholder who wishes to purchase his ground rent and the owner of the fee-simple.

We do not know what is in the Bill.

Deputy Dunne has read it.

On a point of order, I am not familiar with the procedure, but the Minister now appears to be dealing presumably with the details of a Bill which is apparently before him. It is not before me and my colleagues and we do not know what the Minister is talking about.

Deputy Dunne has read the Bill.

That may be so.

We could not assimilate it in five minutes.

It appears invidious that we should have a discussion on the details of a Bill which Deputies have not seen.

Standing Orders provide that an explanatory statement by the Deputy introducing the measure will be allowed. Deputy Dunne read the statement.

On a point of order, I did not read the statement; I read the terms of the Bill.

Deputy Dunne read a statement designating what he would like done to deal with the problem.

I did not read the statement. Let us stick to the facts.

I am not concerned with what Deputy Dunne did or did not do. I am concerned with the position in which we find ourselves in the House. The Minister appears to be dealing with some details——

——in relation to some matter before him. We have not got it before us.

The Minister, so far as I understand, is dealing with the problems the measure is proposed to deal with. He is presenting to the House the difficulties and problems which the Bill proposes to deal with.

On a point of order, the Minister is dealing with the merits and demerits——

No, I am not.

There is not a Bill before the House.

How can we discuss it when we do not know what is in it? If a Bill were circulated, we could see it and then we could say whether we agreed with it. That would be the sensible thing.

The sensible thing is to wait for the report of the Commission. Deputy O'Higgins is not as innocent as all that. He knows as well as I do that this problem cannot be dealt with in a Bill such as that read out in two seconds by Deputy Dunne. That is the only point I am making. The point I am making is that apart altogether from a decision in principle—and goodness knows that is a difficult enough decision to take—the technical problems are so complex that they would require investigation by a skilled body of persons. I think the Commission can give us the necessary machinery.

Deputy Dunne, in reading out his Bill to us, indicated that it would be his intention that no future ground rents would be created. I do not think anyone needs great powers of assimilation to recall that that was a clause in the Bill as read out by Deputy Dunne. My simple reply to that proposition by Deputy Dunne is that that may or may not be a principle to which every member of the House would adhere. The Government would not like to adhere to it until a full examination is carried out as to whether or not such a provision would result in housing for our young people who were getting married being put out of their reach. That is a very reasonable view for me to take.

I feel I am entitled to ask Deputy Dunne, and the House generally, to wait until they have received the report of this body of experts which was set up to deal with the problem. With regard to the Commission, I have already indicated that it has been set up, has already held a number of meetings and is in process of taking evidence. Deputy Dunne asked me for an assurance that it would not take five, six or seven years to report. This is a committee of voluntary people. They are doing this work voluntarily and this House cannot put a pistol to their heads, as suggested by Deputy Dunne.

I want to point out one or two things with regard to the Commission. First of all, it is a highly skilled commission and membership of it is really excellent. It is a commission of experts and, furthermore, Deputy Dunne can rest assured from the choice we have made of Chairman of the Commission, there will be no avoidable delay in its report.

I do not like to be an nuisance but the Minister now seems to be praising something else. There appears to be some decision by the Government now before us to set up a commission to inquire into ground rents. Surely we are not discussing whether that is a wise or bad decision, or whether the Commission is a good or bad Commission. Are we not discussing whether Deputy Dunne should have an opportunity to print and circulate his Bill?

That is not a point of order.

The Minister is entitled to say why he is opposing the introduction of the Bill. As I understand it, the Minister is doing that.

The Minister is saying the Commission he set up is good.

That is the reason I am asking the House to wait for its report before introducing a Bill.

The Minister is entitled to explain why he is opposing the introduction of the measure.

I do not know where we are going.

In his explanatory statement introducing the Bill, Deputy Dunne asked me for an assurance that the Commission set up by me would report. I am endeavouring, to the best of my ability, to assure Deputy Dunne that the composition of the Commission is such, and the reputations of its members are such, that he can be sure it will report at the earliest possible moment, and that from what we know of the calibre of the Chairman, there will be no avoidable delay in producing a report, and producing a very good report. I am paying Deputy Dunne the tribute of thinking that he is being sincere in his approach to this matter. I hoped he would do the same for me. He is doing himself less than justice, if he is sincere in his approach to the matter, by attempting to suggest we could deal with the problem in a five-section Bill such as he has put before us this evening.

He has not put it before the House.

He has read it.

The Minister must have it before him.

Deputy Dunne read five simple sections of a Bill to the House.

No; it was a summary.

That is the greatest possible indication or proof of what I am saying. Deputy Desmond thinks he read a summary. He read the whole Bill.

How does the Minister know?

We have not got it and we do not know.

Deputy Dunne will confirm that he read out the entire five-section Bill to the House.

If it were ten pages long, it would be all right?

If it were technically correct, it would be all right. I am trying to persuade Deputy Dunne of the simple essential fact that it is a complex problem. The approach of the Government to the problem is that all its aspects should be examined by an expert committee and on the basis of its report, the House can sit down calmly and objectively and take the necessary decision.

On a point of order, a commission which is being set up to look into the matter was mentioned by the Minister, and surely to goodness——

That is not a point of order.

——we understand and know——

That is not a point of order.

——that this ground rent system was introduced to prevent the Irish people from owning the land of Ireland.

That is not a point of order. The Deputy is not entitled to proceed.

Are we not allowed to speak at all?

It seems unfair.

It is unfair.

I do not want to delay the House any longer. As I say, I feel I can, with confidence, appeal to Deputy Dunne, now that he has made his point with regard to this matter and given his explanatory statement, to accept my assurance. If he wants this problem dealt with in a proper manner, the right way is to agree with the approach of the Government. I assure him there will be no avoidable delay of any sort in the production of the Commission's report.

Can the Minister give a date?

I cannot allow the Deputy to proceed.

May I refer to Standing Orders? Standing Orders provide that a Bill may be introduced with a short explanatory statement by the proposer. If it is opposed, there may be a short statement by the opposing side, and if the Chair thinks fit, other discussions may take place.

Yes, "If the Chair thinks fit".

I want to urge, Sir, in relation to this important matter, that certainly the Chair should not rule that no view may be expressed by the main Opposition Party of this House.

The Chair does not have any power under Standing Orders to allow a debate.

May I refer the Chair to the relevant Standing Orders?

I have read them several times. I have no power to allow——

Would the Chair refer to the words "if the Chair thinks fit"? Surely the words "If the Chair thinks fit" have some significance in the particular ruling?

I am ruling in accordance with Standing Orders. There are no precedents——

I am not concerned, Sir, in relation to precedent. I am referring to the particular discretion which you have to enable a Deputy to make a statement on this matter, since it is the first time in my experience of Private Members' Business that we have been asked to vote on something that we have not seen.

I am ruling that the matter may not be allowed to be discussed by the entire House. If I were to rule in favour of one Deputy, I might have to rule in favour of more. I cannot discriminate between one Deputy and another.

I am not asking the Chair to discriminate.

I cannot allow this discussion to continue. I am ruling definitely that the Question be now put to the House.

You are exercising your discretion under Standing Orders——

——not to permit any discussion?

May I ask only one question? As the person principally concerned, surely——

Will the Minister give a date, say within two years? That is all. Will he say that?

I shall certainly assure the Deputy that I should be surprised if it took more than two years from now to produce a report.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 27; Níl, 65.

  • Barron, Joseph.
  • Browne, Michael.
  • Byrne, Patrick.
  • Carroll, Jim.
  • Casey, Seán.
  • Corish Brendan.
  • Desmond, Dan.
  • Donegan, Patrick S.
  • Dunne, Seán.
  • Farrelly, Denis.
  • Harte, Patrick D.
  • Hogan, Patrick
  • South Tipperary.
  • Hogan O Higgins, Brigid.
  • Jones, Denis F.
  • Kenny, Henry.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • McLaughlin, Joseph.
  • Mullen, Michael.
  • O'Higgins, Michael J.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F. K.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Reynolds, Patrick J.
  • Ryan, Richie.
  • Tierney, Patrick.
  • Treacy, Seán.
  • Tully, James.

Níl

  • Allen, Lorcan.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Blaney, Neil T.
  • Boland, Kevin.
  • Booth, Lionel.
  • Brady, Philip A.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Brennan, Joseph
  • Brennan, Paudge.
  • Breslin, Cormac.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Burke, Patrick J.
  • Calleary, Phelim A.
  • Carter, Frank.
  • Carty, Michael.
  • Childers, Erskine.
  • Clohessy, Patrick.
  • Collins, James J.
  • Cotter, Edward.
  • Crinion, Brendan.
  • Crowley, Honor M.
  • Cummins, Patrick J.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • Davern, Mick.
  • de Valera, Vivion.
  • Dolan, Séamus.
  • Dooley, Patrick.
  • Egan, Kieran P.
  • Egan, Nicholas.
  • Faulkner, Padraig.
  • Gallagher, James.
  • Galvin, John.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gibbons, James M.
  • Gilbride, Eugene.
  • Gogan, Richard P.
  • Haughey, Charles.
  • Hillery, Patrick.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Lalor, Patrick J.
  • Lemass, Noel T.
  • Lemass, Seán.
  • Leneghan, Joseph R.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Lynch, Celia.
  • Lynch, Jack.
  • MacCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • Meaney, Con.
  • Medlar, Martin.
  • Millar, Anthony G.
  • Moher, John W.
  • Mooney, Patrick.
  • Moran, Michael.
  • Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
  • Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
  • O'Connor, Timothy.
  • O'Malley, Donogh.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Sherwin, Frank.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Timmons, Eugene.
Tellers:— Tá: Deputies Carroll and S. Dunne; Níl: Deputies J. Brennan and Geoghegan.
Question declared lost.
Top
Share