(Cavan-Monaghan): I crave the Chair's indulgence for not more than a minute and I hope to be able to convince him that I am not out of order. The Minister says that he did not undertake to abolish ground rents and I say he did. I am referring to the language he used in the manifesto and I am comparing that with the language he used in regard to tax on motor cars and rates. Indeed, Sir, you were not in the Chair when the Minister referred to these two items in his opening speech in justification of his argument. I am trying to throw them back at him and in using the same argument that he was permitted to use to prove the opposite. I assure you, Sir, I will not go into an in-depth discussion on the merits or demerits of road tax or rates. There will be another day for that when the bill comes up for payment next year or the year after.
In regard to ground rents the manifesto says:
Fianna Fáil will provide a scheme which will lead to the abolition of existing residential ground rents.
In regard to road tax the manifesto stated:
Abolishing annual road tax on all cars up to and including 16 h.p. from August 1977.
The Minister abolished road tax from that date. With regard to rates the manifesto stated:
Abolishing rates on all dwellings from January 1978.
There was a time element in those cases but those undertakings were honoured. The only difference between those undertakings and that in regard to ground rents is that the manifesto did not specify the date when ground rents would be abolished. We were told that a scheme would be introduced which would lead to the abolition of ground rents at some future time. I suggest that the only meaning that could be taken out of the manifesto in regard to ground rents is that they would be abolished without cost to the lessee, whoever else would be paying the cost.
The Minister is introducing a Bill to facilitate the purchase of ground rents, to facilitate and simplify the procedures in regard to the purchase of ground rents. That should have been written into the manifesto, but that would not be an attractive carrot because people would want to know how much it would cost them. It is not the same as saying that ground rents are going to abolished. That is why I charge the Minister, and the drafters of the manifesto, with being politically dishonest and misleading the electorate. They certainly misled ACRA because in a long document they stated that they did not want a system whereby ground rents would have to be brought out. ACRA felt that compensation should be paid for the ground rents paid in the past, but they were codded by the Minister for Justice and his advisers.
The Minister is on record as having said that he was disappointed with the Bill introduced by his predecessor because it did not provide for the abolition of ground rents. What is the difference in principle between what the former Minister introduced and what this Minister has introduced? The principle is the same although there may be some procedural differences. I do not think the Minister can blow any trumpets about what he proposes doing here. The Bill is doing exactly as Senator Cooney proposed doing and the present Minister expressed his disappointment with that.
The Minister devoted four pages to trying to prove that the manifesto meant something other than what everybody took it to mean, and in dealing with the terms of the Bill he stated:
There are, however, important differences between the approach adopted in this Bill and that of my predecessor. The most important difference—and one which is an essential feature of the scheme—is that we are in this Bill telling the tenant precisely how much it will cost him to get his fee simple. For a transfer by consent the fee will be £5 and no more. When we were debating the previous Bill we had no idea whatsoever what the intention was with regard to the costs of acquisition. At no stage was the actual fee to be charged mentioned and this was, indeed, to have been left over for determination in the context of regulations to be made after the Bill had passed. That was not, to my mind, a satisfactory approach.
It should be noted that the Minister, having made that little boast stopped, as Deputy Eileen Desmond said, without mentioning subsections (2) and (3) of section 23. Those subsections specify that other charges will be made by the Land Registry and will be dealt with in regulations to be drawn up by the Minister for Justice, under the fatherly eye of the Minister for Finance, and that they will prescribe other charges to be made in the Land Registry. It is significant that these other charges shall be fixed so as to meet the full cost of dealing with the relevant application. It will be operated on an economic basis without any subsidy from the State; it must pay its way. If it is complicated and goes on for a while the people will be charged accordingly. On occasions it takes up to a year for the Land Registry to deal with such matters. They are harsh provisions in a Bill which sets out to simplify and subsidise. Tenants are being asked to pay fees in the Land Registry on an economic basis and they will have to pay for everything there. We had a provision in the Agricultural Credit Bill, which we dealt with this morning, not that the fees in the Land Registry will be economic and will bear the cost of the transaction but that there will not be any stamp duty or any fees payable. There is a great contrast between the way the agricultural sector will be treated under the Agricultural Credit Bill and the way the people who are buying out their ground rents under this Bill will be treated in the Land Registry. They will have to pay the full economic costs of the transaction in the Land Registry.
I believe the Minister was ill-advised to entrust the machinery for registration of the lessee in fee simple to the Registrar of Titles rather than the county registrars. That is a move towards centralisation, expense and mystery as far as the purchaser down the country is concerned. The other Bill provided that the legal working connection with the purchase of ground rents would be done by the county registrar and disputes in regard to them would be resolved by the county registrar. There are 26 county registrars, one in each county. In almost every case the county registrar is also the local registrar of titles. He has particulars of all registered titles in his county in the courthouse. A folio is opened in the courthouse in each county town regarding every bit of registered land in the country. It was a simpler procedure to leave the working out of this legal procedure to the county registrar who was also the local registrar of titles.
This man is in constant touch with the Land Registry in Chancery Place in Dublin. They speak the same language and he could communicate with the registrar of titles in Dublin. The local registrar of titles also speaks the same language as the purchaser down the country who comes from the same county and probably knows him. The county registrar in each county is accessible to the purchaser down the country. If the county registrar was doing the job less travelling would have to be done. If a person was semiilliterate he could go into the local man, get his differences ironed out, bring his documents with him and explain the position to the county registrar. That would not mean any extra journey for the man living in Dublin because he already has his county registrar in Dublin within one mile or two miles from him.
The man in Cavan, Galway or any other place around the country under this procedure will have to travel to Dublin to see the registrar of titles. The system adopted by the Minister— I speak as a non-practising solicitor— is the best possible way of keeping the legal profession busy. I cannot see how a country man will be able to travel up to the Land Registry in Dublin, go into a place staffed by hundreds of people, be sent from one section to another and eventually see the registrar of titles and try to explain his position to him. He will not do that. He will see the local solicitor and get it done by him. Perhaps that is the intention of the Minister. If it is, there will be the existing fee, the unknown Land Registry fee and the solicitors' fee. That is a very bad move.
It is also provided in the Bill that if there is a dispute the arbitrator will be the registrar of titles. There may be a flaw in the title and he could be right or wrong but he will have to sit as judge and try to decide between one and the other. The arbitrator should be somebody other than the Registrar of Titles of the county registrar. I cannot think of anybody more suitable than the Circuit Court judge who sits in each county approximately three times a year. There are many precedents for him acting as arbitrator. Many years ago he was the arbitrator under the Workmen's Compensation Act. The Circuit Court judge also acted as arbitrator under the Military Pensions Acts. He sat locally and informally in his chamber and ironed out those things. I do not see how the registrar can be advisor-in-chief and judge.
I, like Deputy Fergus O'Brien, stood up to speak to expose the political deception the Minister engaged in prior to the election. I want to put it on the record in no uncertain language that the Minister is not doing what he promised. The Bill is much the same as Senator Cooney's Bill. There is the extra little bit about different categories and prohibition against eviction which I believe is sound and acceptable. I approve of the provision to prevent a man who owes £30 or £40 being ejected from his house. That is an improvement.
If there was another Bill introduced on this topic next year there would be improvements in it also. There are improvements made in Bills between Second and Committee Stages. Indeed there are improvements made in them between Committee and Report Stages. It may happen that they are improved on in the Seanad provided it does not happen before the long vacation when, whether or not the Seanad could approve of them, they are not left to do it, or cannot, because then the Dáil would have to be recalled.
In so far as the Bill proposes to enact more or less what Senator Cooney proposed I welcome it. But the Minister knew, coming into the House, that this Bill was a bit of deception. The Fianna Fáil Party were very conscious of that because they proposed to take the Second Reading of this Bill on a very significant date which may or may not have been a coincidence. This Bill was intended to be taken on this day last week. That may have been a mere coincidence or a way of burying it in the budget so that it would have got through the House without anybody talking about it and, if they did, without a word having been reported on it.
Another aspect of this Bill about which I am disappointed is that it is a piecemeal job. There are the Landlord and Tenant Acts of 1931 and subsequent Acts badly needing to be updated and amended. During his term of office Senator Cooney put in train a Bill to consolidate the Landlord and Tenant Acts from 1931 to 1971. He availed of that exercise to do what the Minister is now doing. But the Minister has put to one side Senator Cooney's Bill with its 122 sections and Schedule. Many of those sections are urgently required in regard to ordinary residential and business leases, and many other matters such as courts in which disputes can be heard in regard to sporting leases—very important and long overdue—apportionment of rents and so on. The Minister was prevented by his party's manifesto from doing the sensible thing, of putting down a Motion in this House and reactivating that Bill with its 122 sections. Indeed he could have introduced amendments on Committee or Report Stage when the differences between Senator Cooney's Bill and his could have been attended to. Of course the Minister dare not do that because that would let the cat out of the bag properly. But here he was coming in with Senator Cooney's Bill, naked, and he had to find some way in which that performance could be covered up. What did he do? He gets two or three Bills. He took one bite of the cherry with the first one dealing with future ground rents. Now he comes along and takes another bit out of this Bill and deals with existing ground rents, leaving the 122 sections there to be dealt with some old time. It is very much in the interest both of landlords and tenants that the Landlord and Tenant Bill, 1977 should be processed through this House as quickly as possible irrespective of the Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) (No. 2), Bill, 1977.
I want to make it as clear as crystal that there was no necessity for the introduction of this small Bill with which we are now dealing. It was all in Senator Cooney's Bill. The difference between the Minister's and Senator Cooney's Bills could have been dealt with by amendment on Committee Stage here, which would have had the added advantage—as far as the public and property owners are concerned— that all of the other outstanding matters arising out of the Landlord and Tenant Bill, 1971 and innumerable others introduced, such as those in 1958, 1960, 1963, 1967 could have been amended and updated. Instead of having the piecemeal discussion in which we are now engaging we could have made a tidy job of the whole thing.
Of course, it is better for solicitors and lawyers to have three Bills instead of one because it confuses the issue, making it more difficult for ordinary human beings to find out what are their rights. Under Senator Cooney's procedure the law dealing with future and existing ground rents, residential leases and all sorts of landlord and tenant matters from 1931 to date could have been incorporated in the one Bill. Now, in bewilderment, one will have to root through the Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) (No. 1) Bill, 1977, the Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) (No. 2) Bill, 1977 to the Landlord and Tenant Consolidating Bill if the Minister ever succeeds —when the political pressure is off— in processing it through the House. I say that is bad business; it is a bad way of dealing with statute law.
All of this messing arises simply and solely because the Minister wants to justify his manifesto. God knows that manifesto will cost the country a hell of a lot in more ways than one. It will be a millstone around the neck of every Member of the Cabinet and the country as well because it will not be a case of what is good for our citizens but rather what is it necessary to do to show that the manifesto has been carried out. That is the exercise in which we are engaged here.
In so far as the Bill is a repetition of Senator Cooney's I welcome it. In so far it is marginally, procedurally an technically, in some respects, an improvement on Senator Cooney's Bill I welcome it also. But I repeat that all these bits of Mickey Mousery could have been done within Senator Cooney's Bill, with all the other virtues that would flow from having one complete, consolidating measure rather than three.