I move amendment No. 20:
Before section 17 to insert a new section as follows:—
"Amounts paid in ground rent in respect of houses built since 1st January, 1946, shall be taken into account in the assessment of freehold purchase prices."
I was impelled to put down this amendment because I felt this Bill would not be in the House at all were it not for the tremendous building development which occurred in the country, particularly around the perimeter of Dublin, since the last war. While there is always in existence a group or organisation agitating for the abolition of ground rents as such in urban and municipal areas, they never seemed to get very far until recent years.
This has been due to the fact that following the war and the tremendous housing drive organised by the inter-Party Government under the leadership of the late Deputy Tim Murphy, we had unprecedented development in house building, around Dublin particularly, under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts. Only then did the question of ground rents become a burning political issue, one which forced itself on the attention of the major political Parties. It was always, of course, the concern of the Labour Party. It forced itself as an electoral issue on the major political Parties because there were so many people who suddenly became payers of ground rents who did not know such a thing as a ground rent existed.
When one thinks of the 11,000 or 12,000 such tenants who came into existence in the post-war building boom who became aware of ground rents as such, one can easily see why this matter became one of concern to political Parties and eventually to the Government who are now in the process of doing something about it. To get to the point of the amendment, it seems to me that builders and developers who bought land, particularly in the immediate post-war years and indeed every year since, did so on a speculative basis, as they were entitled to do. In all instances, the prices paid for this land were very inflated and there was no real method of determining that such prices were in equity. These prices were left, in the much lauded law of supply and demand which is, in effect, the law of the jungle, to find their own levels. The result was that there was speculation in land.
Ground rents came into existence immediately after the war in respect of the type of house to which I am referring—the type built mainly under the provisions of SDA. These ground rents bore no relation to ground rents as they were known prior to the war and in the early years of the century. Indeed ground rents became a commodity for sale in high financial circles. They became as valuable as property itself, despite the fact that most enlightened people today, like the Labour Party, accepted that there was no moral authority whatever for them.
Nevertheless, ground rents began to be regarded almost as sacrosanct and as important as the very earth itself. As such they were treated, sold, exchanged and bought by certain financial organisations—for instance, insurance companies—as if they were gilt-edged securities. There was speculation in this and ground rents became part of the means whereby profits were amassed by people who spin not, neither do they weave.
The people who were footing the Bill at the end of it all were the ordinary people who had saved up money to put down deposits in order to get SDA loans to get into houses— usually newly-married couples and young people about to be married, people with very long periods of loan repayments ahead. As well, they have been facing, ever since, annual demands for grossly inflated ground rents when in fact they should not have been asked to pay any because if right were right, which it seldom is, ground rents would have been abolished long ago.
What I want to secure by this amendment is that such people— tenants of existing houses which have been built since the war, and I put down 1946 as a notional year—will get the consideration they deserve. They are paying ground rents which bear no relation at all to the justice of the case and there is no consideration for all the years which have passed when thousands of them have paid substantial increases already in their ground rents.
The Bill proposes that those people should be extended the opportunity to purchase the fee simple in the little plot of land on which their houses stand but they have no rights other than to require the ground landlord to sell them the fee simple for the amount of money which must be paid to the ground landlord, or which must be made available to him. This has been estimated as equivalent to a set number of years purchase. This would mean that such a tenant would be placed in financial difficulties in order to find a lump sum of £150 to purchase the fee simple plot. Very often those tenants have young families nowadays or their families may have grown up but they still have financial difficulties.
It is not right that those people should be treated in this way. Some account must be taken of the amount which they have already paid by way of ground rents in the years in which they have been in occupation of their particular houses. If I had my way, I would say that people who have paid the equivalent of £150 should, in fact, be given the fee simple without the payment of any additional money. It is impossible from the direction of the discussion in this House to get that principle accepted and one has to temporise and get the best one can for those tenants.
I would like to ask the Minister to do what he can in this direction and see that some steps are taken to provide machinery whereby the money already paid by such people over the years is taken into consideration. Those people are the victims of a situation for which they have no responsibility. They are young people who sacrificed the small luxuries of life to save money in order to get a deposit for their houses. They had to undergo rigorous financial tests—even, one might say, securing character references—in order to get loans for their houses. Since they have occupied those houses in the various areas such as Walkinstown, Perrystown and various estates in the south suburbs and also in the north suburbs, such as Santry, and indeed Lucan, and various other parts of the city, they have been undergoing considerable hardship down through the years by virtue of the fact that they have been forced to pay those unjust ground rents.
We are bringing in a Bill to deal with ground rents. It is very probable, unless certain things happen of a very radical nature in this country, that we may not have the opportunity of doing much again about ground rents for many years to come. Therefore, it behoves us to do what we can to secure the maximum amount of justice for the people involved. We would not be doing justice to those people without giving them some credit, and without affording them some allowance, for the amount of money they have already paid by way of ground rents. We should provide in this Bill that where such existing tenants paying ground rents wish to purchase the fee simple of the plot of land on which their houses stand and set about so doing, there should be, in the determination of the amount which they must pay, an allowance in respect of the amount they have already paid during their occupation of those houses since the war.
It may be asked why this year of 1946 is brought in. I have tried to explain that I believe those are a very special grade of people. If it were not for those people, we would not be discussing this ground rents Bill at all. Influential people tried to do something about ground rents before this. The late Captain Redmond was one of the people working on this and he was the only one mentioned in the Report of the Ground Rents Commission. There were possibly one or two others. There were certainly influential forces and enthusiastic forces at work but nothing was done because ground rents did not seem to bear very heavily on the votes, to put it brutally, up to recent years. The number of people who have been paying ground rents has been multiplying in recent years. It is a brutal fact but unless some issue has an influence on the electorate, nothing will be done about it. It all depends on how many votes are affected.
This matter affects a great many votes. We in the Labour Party have been concerned about this as a principle long before anybody was talking about it. James Connolly wrote a lot about ground rents and about the inequity of ground rents. He traced the very origin of ground rents to the conquest of this country—I hate to use that word because it is almost treasonable to use it now—by the foreigner. Here we are, as I say, with the chance to do justice for a section of our people. They are the very best section of our people. They are young people who worked hard and saved hard. Most of them saved from nothing. They saved money to pay a deposit in order to get a loan to purchase their homes. They have been repaying the Small Dwellings Act loans over the years and it has been no small effort to do so.
Those people have maintained a very high social standard in those areas. I mean by that that they have kept their houses in a very good state of maintenance. They have kept their gardens in admirable condition. The general level and appearance of those areas is excellent. Those people are the very best in our society. We are now giving them the opportunity to purchase the fee simple. This is not enough. We must do something more. We must give them the benefit, at least in the purchase price which they may pay for the fee simple, of the amount they have already paid for what one may describe as a penal tax.
