The purpose of the Bill for which I seek First Stage approval is to remedy a very serious social evil which was created by the Rent Restrictions Act, 1960, under which it became possible——
Private Members' Business. - Rent Restrictions (Amendment) (No 2) Bill, 1966: First Stage (Resumed).
Question again proposed:
That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend section 29 of the Rent Restrictions Act, 1960—(Deputy Ryan.)
Is it agreed this Bill is now to be taken?
The debate was adjourned on 21st June, 1966, and is now being resumed.
Again on a matter of information, if the debate on this Bill was adjourned, why should we not have had it as the first business in Private Members' Time? Why did we take the second item and why are we now going back to the first?
I do not think that question should be addressed to me.
It is by agreement, I understand. I was absent on parliamentary duties elsewhere and I understand that last week it was agreed to take Item No. 25 in advance of No. 24 and to go back to No. 24. As the Minister may be aware, a Private Member's Bill takes precedence over a motion.
I am asking why it was not taken.
I understand Deputy Ryan was not available. Now he is available and he is entitled, by precedent, to resume the debate on the First Stage. The debate was adjourned on 21st June, 1966, until the resumption of the Dáil. There was agreement.
I am not questioning the Deputy's entitlement. I am confused as to how the Bill comes to be taken now.
I take it the Minister has now been enlightened.
Are you withdrawing the cattle prices motion?
We are endeavouring to deal with a number of social and economic evils and we shall deal with them all. As I was attempting to explain, the purpose of my Bill is to deal with a serious social evil which has its roots in the Rent Restrictions Act of 1960 under which, for the first time, it became possible for wealthy land grabbers, rich entrepreneurs, builders with unlimited resources, to evict from their homes people who were in possession under tenancy or lease agreements for rents which, under our rent restrictions code, could vary from 5/-, 10/-, 15/- or perhaps 20/- a week.
In many parts of the country people are living in such homes, small but suitable for their purposes, two, three or four-roomed dwellings, and paying rents of 5/-, 10/-, 15/- or 20/- or thereabouts, people who had every reasonable justification for believing that they could end their days on this earth in such homes having, under our socially enlightened legislation, a security of tenure in those homes. However, the Rent Restrictions Act of 1960 abolished security of tenure for many people living in small homes under weekly tenancy agreements if the landlords' interests in the properties were purchased by property developers who could then evict the tenants by paying compensation set out in the Act as being not less than three years' rent.
One does not have to be a higher mathematician to appreciate that three years' rent for a person paying a weekly rent of £1 will provide him with only £156, an utterly useless sum to secure alternative accommodation. The courts have interpreted the clause in a variety of ways but even the most generous members of the judiciary have not been able to extend the permissive compensation clause in the 1960 Act beyond a figure for total compensation of £700 and it is only in extremely rare cases that compensation in the region of that figure has been paid. In most cases the figure awarded has been from £300 to £400.
The effect of this has been that many homes have been broken and that many people, most of them elderly, have been evicted from their homes and no provision has been made for them by way of alternative housing accommodation. In 1960, the housing situation generally was bad. During the past six years it has become intolerably worse.
On a point of order, is this a Second Reading of the Bill?
The Deputy is making a statement and its length is outside the discretion of the Chair.
I have been listening to this sort of thing during the past three weeks.
Listening to it is extremely difficult for the Minister but we are entitled to set out the basis for this urgently necessary piece of legislation, and the Minister will listen to it, whether he wants to or not.
On a point of order——
The Minister has made his point of order and the Chair has rejected it.
The Minister is entitled to make more than one point of order.
I submit that what is being discussed is whether this Bill is to be given the opportunity of circulation for Second Reading. What we appear to be getting is a Second Reading discussion.
The Chair is entitled in its discretion to allow the Deputy who moves that the Bill be introduced a length of time to explain the terms of his Bill——
Certainly.
——just to see whether it should be printed. I am giving the Deputy that time.
I have no doubt he is entitled to some time but I query whether he is entitled to engage in a Second Reading discussion.
Within the rules of order and the scope which I am permitted to justify asking the House to give a First Reading to the Bill, I am setting out the reasons why there is an obligation on the House to give a First Reading to the Bill. The housing situation now is totally different from what it was in 1960; it is now very much worse. If in 1960 the House had regard, as I believe it had, to the housing situation as it then existed, there is an obligation on the House to have regard to the housing situation today. In 1960, when the 1960 Rent Restrictions Act was passed, it was possible for people who were being evicted in Dublin city and elsewhere by developers to get alternative accommodation from the local authority, even though they might also get some monetary compensation from the landlord.
Now the situation is that nobody will get alternative accommodation in Dublin city unless there are at least four persons in the family being evicted. Indeed, at the time I tabled this Bill, no person could get alternative accommodation from Dublin Corporation if he were being evicted by a developer unless there were six people in the family, and until a month or so ago, there had to be five people in the family. The present situation is that for the next two years no person being evicted by a private developer under the provisions of the Rent Restrictions Act of 1960 will get alternative housing from the local authority. The result is that unless the Minister amends the 1960 legislation, we shall have further people rendered homeless and given as compensation an amount which would not even build them a garage, which would not even purchase them a caravan, in which to live for the remainder of their days.
Most of the people who are being evicted without alternative accommodation are elderly people, and there are many Members of this House— some of them I see opposite me— who are keenly aware of this great social problem. It is many months since I first table this Bill. Since then, unfortunately, many more people have been evicted. Even with the best of goodwill and with efficient discharge of business, the Rent Restrictions Bill which the Minister has introduced to the House cannot hope to be passed and come into law for at least a year, and even the Minister's Bill does not provide what I seek to provide with my Fine Gael colleague in this Bill.
What we seek to provide is that no developer, no property owner, will be able to put a person out unless the court is satisfied that alternative accommodation reasonably suited to the residential and other needs of the tenant and his family is available in a dwelling at a rent similar to that of the dwelling out of which that person is being put. Any member of this House who seriously and conscientiously considers the problem will agree that what we seek in this Bill is no more than what is reasonable, that if developers are to be permitted to develop—and it may be socially and economically desirable that they should—it should not be at the price of human misery and we should not entitle developers or anybody else to impose unnecessary hardship and unnecessary suffering. All we seek to do is to preserve the status quo. We believe this is such a compelling matter, is so crucially urgent, that the Minister and the Government ought to accept this Bill.
I think it is also fair to say that as a matter of principle, Deputies introducing Private Members' Bills ought to be allowed to have their Bills printed and circulated. We are all here as equal members of a sovereign Parliament, whether we are Ministers or in the distinguished office of the Chair. We are all here as equal representatives of the people and we ought to have equal right to have our proposals considered by Parliament. Therefore I urgently petition the Minister and the Government to permit this Bill, which is a simple one-page Bill, to be printed in order that it may be debated. I believe that if the Whips were removed, this would be passed and that we would restore some degree of fair play to the less privileged members of the community who are deserving of the little protection which we are trying to give them here.
If, on the other hand, the Minister and his colleagues refuse to give a First Reading to this Bill, refuse to have it printed and refuse to have the principle which we seek to enshrine here put into practice, then they may as well themselves put their weight behind the crowbar and behind the sledgehammer and join with the developers in evicting those unfortunate people and destroying their homes in the autumn of their days.
I deplore very much the rather hysterical note introduced by Deputy Ryan into what should be a sensible discussion in regard to the possible reform of the rent code with a view to dealing with a problem which does exist to some extent but certainly not to the extent suggested by Deputy Ryan. The reason the Government have opposed the Private Members' Bill is that we have a comprehensive piece of legislation involving substantial amendments of the Rent Restrictions Act, 1960, and that this legislation, the Rent Restrictions (Amendment) Bill, 1966, has been circulated and is on the Order Paper for Second Reading in the very near future.
In my view, the introduction of this legislation renders it a rather futile exercise to have any full-scale debate on Deputy Ryan's Private Members' Bill, which, however well intentioned, deals with just one aspect, although it may be important to some people, of the whole rent code. More particularly do the Government take the view that Deputy Ryan's Private Members' Bill should be opposed because we have gone to some pains to remedy to some degree—I will not say what we have embodied in section 9 of the Bill, which will be discussed shortly, meets his case completely but it is the most practical way of dealing with it—the problem with which Deputy Ryan has dealt.
In his remarks here this evening, Deputy Ryan has sought to suggest that in some way we could, by legislation in this Parliament, place the burden on the courts to obtain houses for the displaced tenants, such people who may lose accommodation in the interests of good estate management. I do not think this is a practical proposition. The point of view adumbrated by him was put to me by deputations whom I received in connection with the drafting of the Bill which is before the Oireachtas, but I cannot see in practice how the courts themselves could ensure that the alternative housing accommodation was available in the case of such dispossessed tenants.
If the Minister would allow me: that is a quotation from a previous Rent Restriction Act which had such a provision.
In my view, the most practical way to approach the matter is contained in section 9 of the Government Bill before the House, which is an amendment of section 29 of the 1960 Act. The reason why this amendment has been inserted is to go some of the way to meet the point made by Deputy Ryan. I agree with him to this extent, that the compensation paid in many cases of possession being given in this type of case was not as adequate as I think it should have been or might have been. It is with that end in view that we are now placing the onus on the court that in any such case where the house is being acquired in the interest of good management the tenant must now get such compensation which, without incurring hardship, will enable him to secure appropriate alternative accommodation.
The weakness in the 1960 Act was that it did not sufficiently define the amount of the compensation which would be paid to the tenant in the type of case mentioned by Deputy Ryan. We are now ensuring by this amendment in section 9 of the current Bill that this compensation which must be paid will be such compensation as will enable the tenant, without incurring hardship, to secure appropriate alternative accommodation as the court thinks proper. So that we now place squarely the onus on the court to compensate the tenant to such extent that he can secure appropriate alternative accommodation elsewhere in the city. I take it that in that event it will be proper evidence to adduce the housing costs, the price of houses, the level of rents, and so on, and that all of these valuation factors which can be adduced by an auctioneer or estate agent will be taken into consideration by the court and that the compensation which will enable the tenant to move from the house from which he is being dispossessed to equivalent accommodation—the sort of compensation which will mean to him that he will be able to obtain such alternative accommodation—will be taken into consideration by the court. As the wording of my amendment to section 9 puts it, the tenant, without incurring hardship, will be able to secure appropriate alternative accommodation. I think that this is a more practical way of dealing with the problem than Deputy Ryan's way.
The original purpose of section 29 of the 1960 Act was to ensure that development would not be impeded. I agree that development must go ahead side by side with regard for the rights of the individual but, at the same time, this Oireachtas, and I think rightly so, in section 29 of the 1960 Act, decided to provide for a situation where possession of the dwelling is required in the interests of good estate management or for the erection of further dwellings or for the erection or extension of premises used for any business, trade or profession and in that sort of case it was decided that the landlord when he was prepared to pay compensation to the tenant, should get compensation precisely in the interests of development, precisely in the interests of providing further housing accommodation and in the interests of urban renewal, which is so important in this and every other city today that is bursting at the seams due to the modern way of life, congestion of traffic and housing generally. That is the case in every big city in the world.
The purpose of section 29 is to facilitate the housing redevelopment and renewal that will enable development to take place. The only hardship that was done under that section —and this was adverted to by Deputy Ryan—was that the courts were not sufficiently obliged to compensate the tenant more fully so that he could secure "appropriate"— as the phrase is—"alternative accommodation".
We are now in the course of the present Bill before the Dáil rectifying that situation and ensuring that while development will continue under section 29 of the 1960 Act such development must have regard to the rights of the individual and that the individual tenant must be protected. This is a weakness that arose due to narrow court decisions, if you like, since 1960, whereby the fullest compensation that should have been paid in the case of each individual tenant was in a number of cases that have come to my notice not given and in my view the amendment incorporated in section 9 of the Bill which will be debated shortly goes the whole way to rectifying that situation.
You may have more narrow court decisions.
Not if regard is had to the full reading of the amendment which, I think, is specific enough, that compensation to the tenant shall be such sum for the purpose of enabling the tenant, without incurring hardship, to secure appropriate alternative accommodation. That is a much more practical way to go about it than placing the onus on the court actually to secure a house for the tenant or to ensure that alternative accommodation is available. This, in practice, would not work out and I think Deputy Ryan, as a practising lawyer, should be aware that if in practice you are to get the court to do the work envisaged in section 29 of the 1960 Act, to be amended, and if the court is to do this work properly, you cannot have the onus placed on the court actually to secure the accommodation. The court is not the Housing Section of the Dublin Corporation or a section of the Department of Local Government. The only practical way in which the court can make any order in this sort of situation is in providing a monetary sum of compensation.
If you think about it in depth, you will see that this is good commonsense, and that the wrong, the harm, the difficulty or the problem caused by reason of an order which is in the general interests should be rectified by the fullest possible compensation which will enable the tenant, in the wording of the amendment, to secure appropriate alternative accommodation.
If the Deputy thinks in depth about the matter and gets away from what one might call an over-hysterical approach to it, if he reasons it out rationally, I think he will agree, as I think the House will agree, that there is good sense in the Government's approach in asking the House to reject the First Reading of Deputy Ryan's Bill. There is no point in a fruitless exercise, going through the Second, Committee and Report Stages in both Houses of the Oireachtas, when the very point made by Deputy Ryan can be dealt with when we are debating section 9 on the Committee Stages of the more comprehensive measure which the Government have placed before the House. Deputy Ryan, in the Second Reading of that Bill, can give notice to the House that he has the view which he has set out towards the Bill. I do not think it is a practical view, I do not think it is possible to ask the courts to bear the burden which he suggests they should be made to bear. To put it bluntly, I do not think it would work.
Deputy Ryan has the right to raise the point on the Second Stage of the Government Bill. Further, he has the right to suggest an amendment to section 9, to suggest that, instead of amending section 29 of the 1960 Act as I am doing in section 9 of the 1966 Act, I should amend it in the manner set out by Deputy Ryan in his Private Members' Bill. I do not think we should duplicate the work of the House to the extent of asking that we have a full-scale debate on a Private Members' Bill, which can be easily met by a Committee Stage discussion of section 9 of the Government Bill before the House.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 37; Níl: 59.
Tá
- Belton, Paddy.
- Burke, Joan T.
- Clinton, Mark A.
- Cluskey, Frank.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Desmond, Eileen.
- Dockrell, Henry P.
- Donegan, Patrick S.
- Donnellan, John.
- Dunne, Seán.
- Dunne, Thomas.
- Farrelly, Denis.
- Fitzpatrick, Thomas J. (Cavan).
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Gilhawley, Eugene.
- Governey, Desmond.
- Harte, Patrick D.
- Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary).
- Hogan O'Higgins, Brigid.
- Jones, Denis F.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Larkin, Denis.
- L'Estrange, Gerald.
- McLaughlin, Joseph.
- Murphy, Michael P.
- Murphy, William.
- O'Donnell, Tom.
- O'Hara, Thomas.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- O'Leary, Michael.
- Pattison, Séamus.
- Ryan, Richie.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Tierney, Patrick.
- Tully, James.
Níl
- Allen, Lorcan.
- Andrews, David.
- Blaney, Neil T.
- Boland, Kevin.
- Booth, Lionel.
- Boylan, Terence.
- Brady, Philip.
- Brennan, Joseph.
- Brennan, Paudge.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Ben.
- Burke, Patrick J.
- Calleary, Phelim A.
- Carter, Frank.
- Fanning, John.
- Faulkner, Pádraig.
- Fitzpatrick, Thomas J. (Dublin South-Central).
- Flanagan, Seán.
- Foley, Desmond.
- Gallagher, James.
- Geoghegan, John.
- Gibbons, James M.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gogan, Richard P.
- Haughey, Charles.
- Hillery, Augustine A.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Kenneally, William.
- Kennedy, James J.
- Carty, Michael.
- Childers, Erskine.
- Clohessy, Patrick.
- Colley, George.
- Collins, James J.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Crinion, Brendan.
- Cronin, Jerry.
- Crowley, Flor.
- Davern, Don.
- de Valera, Vivion.
- Dowling, Joe.
- Egan, Nicholas.
- Fahey, John.
- Lemass, Noel T.
- Lemass, Seán.
- Lenihan, Brian.
- Lynch, Celia.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- Meaney, Tom.
- Millar, Anthony G.
- Molloy, Robert.
- Mooney, Patrick.
- Moore, Seán.
- Moran, Michael.
- Nolan, Thomas.
- Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
- O'Connor, Timothy.
- O'Malley, Donogh.
- Smith, Patrick.
Tellers: Tá: Deputies Ryan and L'Estrange; Níl: Deputies Carty and Geoghegan.
Question declared lost.