Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 8 Feb 1978

Vol. 303 No. 5

Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) (No. 2) Bill, 1977: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. F. O'Brien

Before the Adjournment I was saying that basically the only real difference between this Bill and what was there when the National Coalition went out of office is the provision transferring particular functions from the county registrar to the Registrar of Titles in the Land Registry. I believe that is a retrograde step, because this is a small area in which decentralisation could be practised with comparative ease and I would ask the Minister to have another look at this from that point of view. It is very important that people should have ease of access when transferring the fee simple from the ground landlord to the occupier of the house.

Fianna Fáil promised to abolish existing residential ground rents. In their manifesto they said "a scheme leading". "A scheme leading" means what it says. It means total abolition. If I do not feel free to buy out my ground rent then ground rents are not abolished per se. The Minister was congratulated by Deputy Woods. I wonder was he being congratulated because he conned the people into believing ground rents would be abolished. That was the common belief, and I believe there should be no shifting away from the implementation of that promise at this stage. It is because there is a shifting away from implementation this side of the House must raise very strong objection. It is totally dishonest. It is misleading.

ACRA have clearly spelled out in their document of 14 December last that they rejected the buying out of the landlord's interest. It was obvious that there was no great enthusiasm on the Government's side today to spell out the fact that they were not going to abolish existing ground rents. They had the neck in the Minister's speech to talk about "leading to the abolition". When the Minister comes to reply will he spell out exactly what he means? If I do not wish to buy out my ground rent is it abolished? Of course it is not. Ground rents will continue and the Minister knows that. He sits smugly on the Front Bench feeling he has done a good day's work in codding the people. Other days will come and he and his colleagues will be called upon to render an account of their stewardship. They will have to answer for their false promises. They are not long in office and the honeymoon period is over. It is becoming obvious that the promises so gaily entered into will not now be fulfilled.

There is no real difference between the Minister's Bill and that of the Coalition Government, but had the latter Bill been passed people would now be purchasing their ground rents at a lower rate over approximately 7½ years as against 8½ years because of interest rates and the national loan. Why the fanfare of trumpets for this Bill? Surely the Minister is not claiming credit. He cannot. The Bill introduced by the Coalition Government was a comprehensive reform in tenant and landlord legislation. Here we have bits and pieces of reform. It was believed that ground rents would be abolished. That is not now the position. There is no question of abolition. I defy the Minister to deny that. I cannot understand why anyone should be excited about this Bill. There are just a few changes in existing legislation. The provision allowing local authority owners to purchase their ground rents is something that should have been in the original Bill and I have no doubt it would have been before the Bill left this House.

The Government are playing with words and misleading the people. But they will not mislead the people. Had they provided that in eight to ten years ground rents would have disappeared that would have been a positive step towards the abolition of ground rents. That is not in this Bill. I regret having to be critical. For practical purposes this is the Coalition's Bill. The Government are guilty of deception in misleading the people into believing that existing residential ground rents would be abolished. No matter how they whitewash it or phrase their words, that is the message and it was clearly stated in the small print of their election propaganda. They must state in this House that they have reneged on their election promises. This will be the trend from now on, that the Government will renege on their promises one after the other.

The Minister talked about the bargain of the century. There is no doubt that they will use banner headlines in urging people to purchase their ground rents at Fianna Fáil bargain basement prices. It is a ludicrous way in which to describe this kind of thinking. It is an effort to whitewash their false promises but they will not be allowed to whitewash them. That is primarily why it is important that this type of deception be put on the record of this House. It is sad that political parties are prepared to do this to win popular support. It would be better to be without a parliament than to have to resort to such tactics to win support. We knew they could not fulfil their promises because the Constitution would not allow it. They can change the Constitution if they are so concerned about the abolition of existing ground rents. However, they have only paid lip service to it and now the great con trick is being unveiled.

I should like this Bill to go through the House as quickly as possible because there are many good things in it. The next time they try to con the people they may have second thoughts. I believe they will and that the next time the electorate will have second thoughts.

Mr. T. J. Fitzpatrick

(Cavan-Monaghan): It was Shakespeare who put into the mouths of one of his characters the expression “Me thinks thou dost protest too much”, and that about summarises the Minister's approach to this Bill. He came into the House very much on the defensive. His script, which has been supplied to us now, shows that he spent approximately half of his speech denying that he had promised to abolish ground rents. The first four-and-a-half pages of this script deal with no other topic than his interpretation of the promise contained in his manifesto and he tries to show that he did not undertake to abolish ground rents. The Minister knows that he did convey the impression to the electorate that he would abolish ground rents. He knows perfectly well that he has reneged on that promise every bit as much as the Minister for Foreign Affairs has reneged on his promise to the Third World to provide them with £90 million to make life more bearable for them, whereas he provided them with only £9.6 million. The only difference is that the Minister for Foreign Affairs did not extract votes from the people of the Third World but the Minister for Justice did extract votes from our people on the promise that he would abolish ground rents.

When he promised to abolish ground rents the Minister was not promising something that was not possible. He could have abolished ground rents in one or two ways. He could have amended the Constitution and confiscated ground rents but he dare not do that and he dare not tell the electorate before an election that he was going to do that because the people who own the ground rents would rebel. On the other hand he could have decided to abolish ground rents without amending the Constitution and let the State pay the bill. Of course, he could not tell that to the people before the election because it would be a simple matter to work out the endless millions that that exercise would have cost and the people would not buy that one either. So the Minister decided to be gloriously vague by saying that they would abolish ground rents but would introduce a scheme leading to the abolition of ground rents and the people would think that that meant in ordinary language what it says: that they would abolish ground rents.

This term "abolition" or "abolish" appears at least three times in the manifesto which has now been quoted freely and will continue to be quoted. It is used in the manifesto in relation to the tax on motor cars—"Abolishing annual road tax on all cars up to and including 16 h.p. from August 1977".

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We cannot go into motor tax or anything else. The Bill has no relevancy to motor tax.

Mr. T. J. Fitzpatrick

(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.

Mr. W. O'Brien

We all agree with the Bill in principle because we realise the hardship inflicted on many people who have to pay ground rents. Many thousands of people were disappointed because they expected ground rents would be abolished. I do not know if it was deliberate but the impression was given that this would happen. If one read the manifesto one would be inclined to accept that. When canvassing at the last election I felt at a disadvantage in the housing estates because ground rents was a day-to-day subject there. Numerous people asked me if we would abolish ground rents. I could give no commitment but they were not in the least shy telling me that the Fianna Fáil Party had told them they would abolish existing ground rents.

I have read this Bill. As a layman I might have missed the point where this promise was fulfilled. As I am not a lawyer, it is possible I may have slipped up but I am convinced that I did not. In his speech the Minister said:

I may be asked if I am saying that the scheme will, in fact, lead to the abolition of existing residential ground rents. While I have no crystal ball, my answer is that I think it will.

Wherever that crystal ball has disappeared to, there was definitely one during the last general election. Many people were led to believe that ground rents would be abolished in a very short time.

The only change of any importance which I have seen between this Bill and the Coalition Bill is the change from the county registrar to the Land Registry. Over the last number of years I have had experience dealing with the Land Registry and found it impossible to have anything dealt with urgently. I can understand that because the volume of work must be very heavy and perhaps that section is understaffed. The Minister said he has given instructions to have the staff situation improved to deal specifically with ground rents. If extra staff are employed they must be employed solely for work on ground rents.

We must be serious about decentralisation. In my city we have the registrar's office. What could be wrong with having extra staff in that office which is situated in a constituency in east Limerick adjacent to my constituency? That constituency suffered a great loss recently through the closing of a certain industry. We should have decentralisation. Although there are only 26 offices involved, if we employed another two or three people for each office this would be a step in the right direction. It is often said in the country that Dublin is top-heavy where service jobs are concerned. I believe that is true. This is an opportunity for us to bring as many jobs as possible to the country.

The Minister will defend himself by saying that at no time was that promise made. I say this in all sincerity: this Minister during the canvassing at the last general election was convinced that it was possible to have existing ground rents abolished. I do not mind admitting this; that when the Coalition were in power I was asked if it were possible to have existing ground rents abolished; I made an approach to the then Minister and he told me he would not commit himself to that policy. One can understand my embarrassment when canvassing during the last election when I was told that Fianna Fáil were prepared to give that commitment.

I am not under-estimating the Minister but whether it was deliberate or not, the impression was given down the country that existing ground rents would be abolished. I ask the Minister to contact the Limerick Leader tomorrow and say that in view of the amount of criticism and proof available, there must have been some misunderstanding when he was canvassing during the last election because I feel it is only right to put on record that the impression was given in the manifesto that Fianna Fáil would abolish existing ground rents.

I would ask the Minister if at all possible to tell the people that in view of what he has heard they were led astray. He has very little choice but to go back to our constituency and give a report to the Limerick Leader that there was a misunderstanding and although his intentions were good he now finds it is not possible to abolish ground rents.

Mr. E. Collins

In politics I like plain, straight, honest talk and so do the people generally. I rise mainly to condemn the sheer and utter hypocrisy expressed in this Bill on the basis of what Fianna Fáil said, or gave the impression, they were going to do in relation to ground rents. There can be no doubt outside this House about the impression Fianna Fáil gave in their public statements, and especially statements by their candidates during the election campign, or what was said in private to such people as ACRA and tenant associations, that it was the intention of Fianna Fáil to abolish existing ground rents.

I was particularly aware of this before the last general election. I made several serious inquiries within my own party about the possibility of abolishing ground rents. It was made quite clear to me that the Constitution was there and could not be flouted. I accepted that. I also accepted the fact that it would be very expensive for any Government to take on the task of buying out existing residential ground rents. It would take unknown millions. I am not a legal person by any means. I am not well read in the small print of the law. It was explained to me reasonably well and I accepted this as being very difficult to achieve.

In my own constituency I was called on to make my position clear and I did so. I said that socially evil though the ground rent structure is, I would recommend to tenants that they should pay their ground rent until such time as the law is changed. I said I would support any change in the law if some legal means were found whereby the State could bear the charge of abolishing them. That was my personal position before, during and since the election, when I was called to a meeting of a residential association in Waterford.

Over the past year the Fianna Fáil Party gave a clear impression that, in office, they would take up the cause and abolish ground rents. The thing is —and here the wrong was done— people involved in ACRA and in Sinn Féin took up this cause very strongly. On the basis of what Fianna Fáil said they would do, ACRA and Sinn Féin have been advocating the withholding of ground rents. In a circular from ACRA on 14 December they said that in the meantime all householders were requested to continue with the campaign in the withholding and non-purchase of ground rents. I told people they should pay their ground rents because it is a legal charge. I also said that I have to pay ground rent myself and I would be very happy to see ground rents abolished. I will use this legislation, or I would have used Senator Cooney's legislation had it been passed, to buy out my own small ground rent.

Fianna Fáil encouraged this illegal approach to the matter, and this has done harm. Any approach which gives peace of mind to people who want to break the law, in however small a way, lessens the stature of this House and of parliamentary democracy in general. That is the basic reason why I want to speak here today. I spoke on the Bill introduced by Senator Cooney when he was Minister. I became so annoyed that I decided to speak today. There is no doubt the Minister is splitting hairs. On page 27 of the famous manifesto it is stated:

Fianna Fáil will provide a scheme which will lead to the abolition of existing residential ground rents.

Today the Minister reiterated that statement. He said: "That statement is perfectly clear. It has always been clear to me." It is not clear, because this Bill does not lead to the abolition of existing residential ground rents. There is nothing in it which states specifically that existing residential ground rents will be abolished. It is a measure, as was the National Coalition's measure, designed to facilitate tenants purchasing existing ground rents. This Bill changes the approach slightly. It fixes a fee, which is to be approved, of £5 in relation to legal fees. That is an improvement, as Deputy Fitzpatrick said earlier. This Bill is very similar in its approach to the question of existing residential ground rents to the National Coalition's Bill. The House has been misled on this whole question.

The Minister also said:

It will be evident to any one who takes the trouble to read our undertaking and to study the contents of this Bill that we as a Government are fulfilling our undertaking, in accordance with the letter and the spirit.

That is wrong and I reject it. The letter and the spirit of the undertaking have not been fulfilled. The spirit of this Bill is very similar to the spirit of the Bill introduced by the National Coalition. There are no sour grapes. Obviously I wish the National Coalition Government were in office, but we all agree with this legislation which goes some way along the road to making ground rents less of a social evil.

The Minister said:

If we can solve the problem of legal costs then, I would suggest, we have solved the problem of ground rents.

That again is a misleading statement. Of course, fixing a fee of £5 goes some way along the road, but it does not abolish existing residential ground rents. No Minister could come into the House and say: "We have solved the problem of ground rents." The Minister has not solved the problem he set out to solve. He has not abolished ground rents as such. He has done exactly what the National Coalition Government did in office. He has introduced a Bill to make the purchase easier. He has not done what he told the people he would do, that is, abolish ground rents or introduce a scheme which would lead to the abolition of existing residential ground rents. That has not been done and this House should understand it clearly.

The Minister said:

I may be asked if I am saying that the scheme will, in fact, lead to the abolition of existing residential ground rents. While I have no crystal ball...

At least he admits that much—

...my answer is that I think it will.

That is only an opinion, and you are entitled to your opinion. In fact, it is an admission that this proposed legislation is not specifically abolishing existing residential ground rents.

Deputy Fitzpatrick also said that while this Bill is an improvement on some aspects of the Bill discussed last year, nevertheless the Bill introduced by the National Coalition was more comprehensive and was much more a consolidating Bill. In relation to sporting leases it is unfortunate that this Bill was not consolidating in its objective. It is a piecemeal measure. It is much more preferable to consolidate the law rather than bring in one small Bill after another. That would be much better than the piecemeal approach you have adopted——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I would ask the Deputy to address the Chair rather than refer to the Minister as "you". That is a rule of the House.

Mr. E. Collins

I was merely pointing out that a consolidating Bill would be more helpful.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It is not in order for the Deputy to speak across the floor of the House to the Minister and to address him as "you". He should address the Chair.

Mr. Keating

It takes all the fun out of it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That may be, but it is a rule of the House.

Mr. E. Collins

The establishment of the £5 fee is welcome and nobody will cavil at it. It was the proper thing to do. While it was not specified in the Bill introduced by the National Coalition it was to be dealt with by an order. The situation with regard to local authority tenants who may wish to buy out their ground rents has been improved. I do not think there is any major problem in relation to local authorities. From my experience of local authorities I have found that the cost of sites, and particularly serviced sites, has become so high that tenants initially prefer to buy them from the local authorities by way of rent. What is being done in this Bill merely extends their option.

The question of rights of re-entry has been dealt with in the Bill. The Minister pointed out that the relatively little interest of a ground landlord in his property does not justify eviction and, therefore, the move to abolish his right, or to say to him that, like every other creditor, he has a recourse in civil litigation, is putting the matter into perspective. I do not think that we in Ireland have been too fond of absentee landlords. There is the feeling that all landlords who collect ground rents are to some extent absentee landlords.

I hope this legislation will settle the question of ground rents. I should like to see them abolished by some means or other, but the information available to the National Coalition Government was that there was a constitutional problem. They would have incurred enormous expense if they undertook to pay the costs of acquiring ground rents. I have not any other information to establish a mechanism whereby this could be done.

ACRA have been conducting a campaign for people to withhold ground rents, but that does not appeal to me. If a legal charge exists, people should pay their ground rents until legislation is passed to change the situation. There is a campaign to withhold ground rents in a part of Waterford. I am saying now that it is my opinion and recommendation to honest householders who have bought houses in Waterford that they should buy out their ground rents under this legislation as soon as it goes through the Houses of the Oireachtas or they should pay their ground rents when they are due. As a public representative I cannot, and will not, be seen to be two-faced in this matter. I will not recommend to any tenant to withhold his ground rent. For as long as this is a legal charge I am saying to people to pay their ground rents or else to buy them out within the law. I cannot accede to the ACRA position which recommends withholding ground rents.

So far as it settles the question of ground rents for the foreseeable future, this legislation sets out a model whereby ground rents can be bought out relatively cheaply. It is very similar in spirit to the measure introduced by the then Minister for Justice, now Senator Cooney, on behalf of Fine Gael and the Labour Party. I do not think Fianna Fáil can say they are doing something we were not doing. That would be wrong; it would be a lie, and I am satisfied they will not try to say that. This is merely a reintroduction of part of our Bill dealing with ground rents, slightly improved so far as the £5 fee is concerned.

You misled the people on a very serious matter in so far as you led them to believe you would do something which you knew in your hearts was not constitutionally possible. In doing so you misled people into taking a stand on a matter——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I must again remind the Deputy to speak through the Chair.

Mr. E. Collins

By "you" I mean the Fianna Fáil Party.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should say "Fianna Fáil" or "the Minister".

Mr. E. Collins

Fianna Fáil misled the people and then they left them in the cold. They gave the impression that they would abolish ground rents. What they did was bad for Irish politics, for democracy and for those who serve in this Parliament. I do not say that in any spirit of sour grapes. It is bad for the spirit of the people to be misled as they have been misled by Fianna Fáil in relation to ground rents.

Mr. B. Desmond

I welcome this Bill in so far as it deals in a clear manner with the proposals of the Government and indeed of the previous administration also on the question of existing ground rents and the purchase of such rents. Apart from one major change in the Bill, namely, the abolition of the landlord's right of re-entry for non-payment of ground rent —a substantial change that is welcomed universally—the policy being pursued is by and large the same as that of the previous administration, having regard to the understanding then and to the legislative initiatives taken in this area. Perhaps it is well that future ground rents, in so far as the first Bill was concerned, and existing ground rents in this Bill, as well as other aspects of the law on landlord and tenant relationships, are being contained in separate legislation. There has been a considerable degree of drafting, redrafting and preparation of this legislation both by Fianna Fáil up to 1973 and more recently and by the Coalition during a period of three or four years. This Minister has had the very substantial benefit of having had many of the drafting and legislative problems cleared up on his resuming office. He found that the legislation had been put into a more manageable and coherent form for the benefit generally of the country.

I recall a previous Minister for Justice, Deputy O'Malley, saying that when he was given the Bill first he more or less threw the whole thing back and said: "Let us have a look at the entire Bill again." I do not think that in saying that there is any unfair reflection either on the then internal drafting section of the Department or on the parliamentary draftsman's office. Again, the legislation came forward in the form in which it was introduced by the former Minister, Senator Cooney. I recall pointing out to him some sections of the Bill that were more a source of confusion than of enlightenment. He, too, took the Bill back and had a hard look at it during the best part of 18 months. The unfortunate Minister at the time had an enormous amount of work on his plate as he had during the entire term of office of the Coalition. Nevertheless, I badgered him continually about the legislation until finally it was brought forward in a revised version. Unfortunately we did not succeed in enacting that legislation but the Coalition need not give any apologia for that. The legislation could have been enacted had we given it the priority it deserved. Unfortunately, the Cabinet for reasons best known to themselves did not give it absolute priority as a result of which the Bill fell on the dissolution of the Dáil. The present Minister has had the benefit of the voluminous file in the Department on the legislation going back to the best part of five years but I am not in any way taking from his ability or his concern in this matter. He has been able to expedite the Bill in a period of six or seven months.

Perhaps, though a little straight-forward, open political bluntness on the part of the Minister would have been preferable to the very defensive two or three pages of his introduction on Second Stage. I refer to the attitude of "what we really meant was so and so" and "we did not give an undertaking this way or that way." The reality was quite different in June last.

Prior to the election Deputy Horgan and I attended a meeting at Sallynoggin Comprehensive School. At that meeting which was organised by ACRA we were graced by my constituency colleague, Deputy David Andrews, and by Professor O'Donoghue who was then aspiring to elective office.

Also there was the other Fianna Fáil candidate, both aspiring and perspiring. In addition there was a galaxy of other candidates, about 13 in all, including that very excellent candidate, Mrs. Una Higgins O'Malley. About half way through the procedures when the then Senator Horgan and I were endeavouring to explain constitutional problems relating to ground rents and when we were getting a very severe hearing, Deputy Andrews produced a piece of paper which he claimed had been given to him that evening by Deputy Collins. Deputy Horgan is my witness to this. Deputy Andrews read the paper to the assembled gathering. He told them that Fianna Fáil could not envisage any major constitutional problem regarding the abolition of ground rents. When the very tall Deputy gesticulates he is noticed. He gave the assembly to understand that the matter was merely one of phasing out ground rents.

The question of vendors and so on did not arise. There was a Jaundiced reaction from some people there, while there was silence from those on the Coalition side because we knew that it was not possible to improve that kind of situation. I noticed that Professor O'Donoghue remained silent. He decided to stay out of the matter. I teased him about it afterwards saying that Deputy Andrews had really gone to town. Subsequently, the paper concerned was issued to the newspapers. Perhaps that is why there has been a trilogy of measures. There was a trilogy of promises at that time. It is said that all is fair in love and war and I suppose that in an election campaign if one can gain an advantage one way or the other in terms of votes, that is all right if that is precisely what one is after. At that stage the candidates probably did not see anything wrong in that They could not have known whether their party would be returned to power. In any event some of the people present believed the Fianna Fáil spokesman.

An Ceann Comhairle

I understand we are discussing the Bill.

Mr. B. Desmond

Yes but I am merely giving a reminiscence, not of any chagrin because we were chagrined that evening.

Mr. G. Collins

The Deputies were shanghaied.

Mr. B. Desmond

By the time the ACRA representatives and the Fianna Fáil people were finished with us we felt like selling our ground rents to the cheapest bidder. I accept the viewpoint expressed by Deputy Collins regarding the promise not having been contained in the manifesto because the manifesto clause in this regard is ambiguous. It is open to any kind of expediency of interpretation and has been bandied around sufficiently. The Minister says that the commitment regarding the provision of a scheme that would lead to the abolition of ground rents has always been clear to him. I share his view but would remind him that there is much difference between the impression people get of what something means and the reality. Undoubtedly there was created the explicit impression—certainly this was so in the constituency I represent—in the minds of many householders that one way or another ground rents would be phased out over a period, though not abolished outright. That was the most dominant impression. There is a big difference between impressions and intent, and that is the point we would make.

I welcome the Bill; it is an excellent Bill as far as it goes. I would have preferred an amendment of the Constitution in that regard. We have sidestepped the constitutionality aspect. There is no doubt that the people have a great social tenacity and a positive detestation of anybody who would interefere with private property—anybody who would do so would be facing revolution—but the constitutional aspect could have been better dealt with by a simple constitutional Bill abolishing ground rents. It would have required a referendum, but I would have been in favour of such a referendum. It would have been a cleaner job, instead of giving ground landlords a nominal payment. It will not break anybody's overdraft to pay six or seven times his ground rent plus £5, but as a general principle I would have preferred an amendment to the segment of the Constitution dealing with private property so that many other aspects which require amendment could have been brought in, such as the aspects of local authority purchases of land and of rents, such as the implementation of the Kenny Report, which cannot be done as long as that section of the Constitution remains with a degree of rigidity which is absolutely prohibitive. Unfortunately, it looks as if for the lifetime of this Dáil the Constitution will be given sacrosanct protection. It will be given a sanctity which is, perhaps, excessive. With that reservation I welcome the Bill.

It is proper that the parity in the Bill between public and private leases should be introduced, and I welcome the decision of the Minister to extend the right of purchase of fee simple to the ground rent tenants of local authorities. Overall, this will be good and will lead to the removal of a very bureaucratic attitude towards the owners of local authority houses and tenancies. There was a strong feeling in many areas of bureacracy, both in the Department of Local Government and to some extent in terms of social attitudes within the Department of Justice, that one could not fully trust local authority tenants, that they have to pay a nominal shilling a year in ground rent so that the whip can be kept on them. While I could understand that in the context of the deficiencies in the 1963 Planning Act, I certainly could not understand it in the context of the amended planning legislation put through this House by the former Minister for Local Government, Deputy Tully. Once that went through there was no reason why ground rent right of purchase should not have been extended to local authority tenants. I welcome the change of policy inherent in the Bill.

I welcome also the publication of the Explanatory Memorandum; it is very useful in relation to this Bill. Some Minister, both of the previous and current administrations, have failed to provide elaborate and essential explanatory memoranda. I consider this one to be very valuable and useful and I commend the Department in that regard.

One is not quite sure at this stage what it is that ACRA want. We were under no illusion and knew that they wanted us out because they were quite convinced that Fianna Fáil would abolish ground rents. They said they understood the compensation aspect, but there seems to be some confusion as to what precisely ACRA want in relation to amendments to this Bill. They have not been in touch with us. Presumably we are persona non grata since last June and will probably remain so. This Bill did not meet their view at that time as to the legislation to be enacted in relation to ground rents. We pointed out that the kind of legislation they wanted and the issues they raised could not be met without completely changing the Constitution. I was adamantly in favour of changing the Constitution, but the previous Cabinet and the current one have not been in favour of doing so in relation to that segment dealing with private property rights. With that in mind, the very tentative objections currently being voiced in a rather muted way are unlikely to be met in any Committee Stage discussion of the Bill.

This Bill has been a source of considerable jaundiced cynicism on the part of a number of politicians. There was a widespread public impression from what one might call the unwritten manifesto of the Fianna Fáil Party. I met this impression on the doorsteps in Dún Laoghaire. The Fianna Fáil candidates were singing a totally different song in relation to ground rents to that which was being sung in Abbeyfeale.

Mr. Horgan

There are not too many of them in Abbeyfeale.

Mr. B. Desmond

There are a few ground rent landlords around there, some of them from decades past. The song was sung and listened to and made an impression in the ballot box. The chorus of the song was knocked out today with the Minister's speech, but the reality is there that this is the legislation which the Coalition Government, after a lot of messing and toing and froing, eventually produced and were ready to enact. Unfortunately that was not the evolution.

I would urge the Minister to remove the five-year period. It is purely cosmetic. In four-and-a-half years' time the Minister will be abolishing television licences, not just ground rents, and I can see the statement issued by the Minister four years and two months hence saying 4,231 people have bought out their ground rents and there will be another glorious opportunity presented to the remainder to buy out theirs and we will have a three line Bill extending the period for yet another five years.

This five-year limit is arbitrary. It has no relevance to the Bill. It is just a piece of political cosmetic surgery. There should be no time limit. The period should be left open-ended. If I, in my wisdom, decide not to buy out my ground rent of £18 a year and I drop dead why should not whoever succeeds me be put in the position of being able to buy out the ground rent eight, ten or more years ahead? I would not bother about this five-year limit. It will only muck things up. This is the only amendment I would strongly suggest to the Minister.

I come from a constituency which has the highest number of ground rents in the Republic. It is also the highest rated. One should really see the Proby Estate ground rents. Most of the landlords are absentee landlords and here they are getting a very polite little minor kick in the groin. I shed no tears for them and I hope the people in Dún Laoghaire and south Dublin will buy out their ground rents thereby removing that particular inhibition on their property. Many of these rents will become extinct in the near future. Some have only ten, 15 or 20 years to run. I hope the people will avail of this provision and I hope the Minister will extend the period.

I have no particular observations to offer on the merits of the transfer from the county registrar to the Registrar of Titles. I have the highest regard for the staff of the Land Registry. They have been very overworked and I gather the Minister and his colleagues have files going backwards and forwards keeping things humming in respect of the Land Registry. No doubt the staff there would be capable of doing the work but I trust the Minister will allocate extra personnel. He said he will increase the staff. The Department of the Public Service will have a say in the increase and I sincerely hope the Minister will get all the staff required.

I would urge the Minister to issue a short explanatory leaflet. My colleague, Deputy Horgan, suggests coupons or saving stamps for buying out ground rents. One cannot buy out a ground rent with Green Shield stamps. I suggest the Minister issues a leaflet that we can give to tenants and property owners explaining in simple terms the half dozen steps to be taken in order to buy out ground rents. There are people, including some members of the legal profession, who manage to make life very complicated for even the most perceptive among us. I have seen legal luminaries getting involved up to their tonsils in a matter of a transfer which the Minister and I, neither being a legal luminary, could handle by the exchange of two or three letters at no cost to the tenant. Lest this should become a new growth industry— the capacity of the legal profession to develop such industries is almost incredible—I urge the Minister to make a leaflet available. He might too publish draft letters. This would be of immense value to tenants purchasing their ground rents. It could be distributed free of charge, as no doubt it will be by every Fianna Fáil cumann, and the Minister will get undying credit and political kudos for his exercise. Since he has been doing this sort of thing ever since he was in UCD, he should have no difficulty whatsoever.

Mr. Keating

I presume it is fanciful for me to surmise the Minister is leaving the House because of the withering attack I am about to bring down on his head. I rise principally to add my voice to those who seek to nail the lie implicit in this Bill presented to this House subsequent to the understanding by the people that, if Fianna Fáil were returned to office, ground rents would be abolished. I propose to show that both the spirit and the letter of that Fianna Fáil promise are now in dishonour. Both are important because the defence of the Government, and it is a defence, hinges on the letter—not, mark you, the letter of the many colourful and attractive advertisements, not even the letter of the many local manifestos, but the letter of the national manifesto copies of which are increasingly rare and increasingly difficult to come by which makes me cherish all the more the original bound copy I have at my bedside.

Mr. Tunney

They are becoming invaluable.

Mr. Keating

Actually I expect the price to be very high around the time of the next general election so I do not bring my copy out.

An Ceann Comhairle

There is nothing in the Bill about it.

Mr. Keating

It is very relevant. The Bill is in the manifesto. The Chair will find that that is what this argument is about. It is understandable that Members of this side of the House would feel a little piqued, to say the least, at losing the election in the magnificent way in which they lost. Part of that pique derives from the fact that when they were asked prior to the election about ground rents some of them put their hands on their hearts and more of them put their hands in their pockets and said that in all honesty they could not give an unequivocal pledge to rid people of this centuries old burden. However, Fianna Fáil did not have any scruples about that and they rapidly responded to unanimous acclamation all over the country by saying in the almost classical words of one of their now Ministers, about ground rents like about so many other things "there is no problem".

With regard to ground rents in concept, I consider them to be essentially unacceptable and against the elements of natural justice, if you like. They are, and I think Fianna Fáil would feel that they are, part of a legacy that we inherited many centuries ago and they are repugnant to what that party and this Dáil stands for. It is accurate to say that ground rents exist because they were wrested from people by force and because they were the accoutrements of oppression and subjugation. In general, their origins are lost in the mists of history but those origins are questionable in many cases. We are talking about the right to own ground rent. In so far as we are talking about the land of this country that right is synonymous with our right to breathe fresh air, and it would be just as ludicrous to tax that or to pay rent on it as it is to tax land.

It is against that background that I was disappointed when I saw the pitiful response of the Government, a Government who would like to think that they had an exclusive corner in the republican tradition in so far as they are now proposing to provide a scheme leading to the abolition of ground rents. I should like to make it clear that the Minister should not have the gall to come before the House and tell us that his pledge is now being honoured. It is not being honoured. Unless he abolishes ground rents, as the people were led to expect, it will remain in dishonour. There is not a Member of this House or a member of the public who does not know that up and down the country among the grass-roots and what I choose to call the cobblestones it was hawked that Fianna Fail would rid the country of ground rents once and for all. That is what was whispered in the doorways and broadcast from the platforms around the country. That is what was propagated and expressly commanded to be propagated by Fianna Fáil canvassers in all constituencies.

It was clear to me, however, for the first time in the Private Members' Motion on this topic prior to Christmas that all was not well. There was too smug a smile on the face of the Minister for Justice. His backbenchers were also in possession of an attitude and a knowledge which I clearly was not, and it led me to believe, to quote Shakespeare, that something was rotten in the State of Denmark. At that stage I knew there was no intention to do as the people were led to believe would be done. Do the Minister and the Government stand by the local manifestos of their Party organisation which were published and used as canvassing material in the general election last June? Would the Minister be willing to make a comment on that?

An Ceann Comhairle

It is not relevant to the Bill.

Mr. Keating

With respect, we are talking about——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Landlord and Tenant Bill.

Mr. Keating

Which is the mechanics of the commitment to abolish ground rent. I am trying to marry this Bill with what was said and printed at election time.

An Ceann Comhairle

It is relevant to discuss what is in the Bill or what should be in it.

Mr. Keating

It would not take long to get a simple yes or no from the Minister. Does he feel bound by what Fianna Fail candidates, some of whom are now successful TDs, said they would do?

Minister of State at the Department of Education (Mr. Tunney)

Would they have said that the Fine Gael Party would feel bound by the respective statements of their individual candidates in the Deputy's area?

Mr. Keating

As we are painfully aware, there is a distinct difference.

Mr. Tunney

Nobody disagreed.

Mr. Keating

I accept that. Part of that problem is the reason why you are sitting over there and I am sitting over here. The Minister will also acknowledge the fact that his job, as we were reminded succinctly yesterday by the Minister for Health, is to legislate. We would feel bound to implement whatever we put into print.

Mr. Tunney

We stand by the manifesto.

Mr. Keating

The Minister has answered my question. He does not feel bound to honour what was said locally and printed in a myriad of forms during the election campaign by various candidates. The manifesto is an increasingly rare document; indeed, the majority of the people never read the manifesto, particularly the part on ground rents. What they read were the various submissions from local candidates and what they heard was the speeches and canvassing material propagated at their doors, and that is not being honoured in the Bill before us. Everybody on the far side of the House knows that that is absolutely true.

The spirit of the Bill should be that ground rents would be abolished either by decree in some way or by constitutional amendment, if such was judged to be necessary, or by the Government buying them out. That would be honouring the spirit of what people have been led to believe.

I should like to draw your attention to the letter of the manifesto. As you know now, and you are probably sick of listening to it, the manifesto states that Fianna Fáil will provide a scheme that will lead to the abolition of existing ground rents. Some other speakers have said that there is a degree of ambiguity about this matter, that is a question of semantics. I do not accept that. The Minister of State who, like myself, has experience in the classroom will be the first to admit that that "will" is not conditional. It is not a "may" or a "would" or a "should" or a "might". It is a positive commitment.

Mr. Tunney

It is subject to what follows "will lead to".

Mr. Keating

I am saying that it may not lead to anything because the Minister cannot guarantee that people will respond in sufficient numbers to carry out that promise. What should have been said and what this Bill accounts for is that the manifesto promise may lead or might lead to the abolition of ground rents. It will not lead to the abolition of ground rents unless everybody unequivocally and spontaneously buys out their ground rents, and of course they will not. Therefore it clearly does not lead to the abolition of existing ground rents, and no amount of ambiguity or half-truth can distort that fundamental fact. That is the essence of it.

Mr. Tunney

It will.

Mr. Keating

It may lead to a partial abolition. It will certainly lead to an abolition of existing residential ground rents for whoever chooses to buy them out, as it would have led to the same thing five years ago or under the Coalition's Bill it would have led to the same thing, but it will not lead to the abolition of existing ground rents period. Anyone who says that— with respect, I was going to say is either a knave or a fool—has not looked closely at the implications of what is here.

If the Minister for Justice is to tell us that this Bill will lead—not may lead or could lead—to the abolition of existing ground rents then we have a Government who are masters of the half-truth, who indulge in ambiguity and exercise, in a politically advantageous way, in semantics and doubtful tactics.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should now get back to the Bill.

Mr. Keating

I take the Chair's point, but my exercise will be futile unless I can show beyond a reasonable doubt that this Bill does not lead to the abolition of existing ground rents. It will lead to that only if there is a unanimous response from all people now paying ground rent, and that is not guaranteed. As Deputy Desmond hinted a few moments ago, in many cases it will not be bought out at all. Many of us feel that the next Government may grasp the nettle and abolish ground rents completely. In the meantime inflation will take care of the existing ground rent price. I am not talking about the spirit or the letter of the manifesto at all; I am talking about the degree to which that manifesto is carried out in the Bill. It is not there. I do not know whether this exercise in semantics is a natural characteristic of the Irish people. Perhaps in Abbeyfeale they would say: "It is a soft day, thank God", when there is torrential rain. However, it seems to be a very unwholesome example, indeed to be a cynical exercise in obtaining power by any means. It is clear to me now—perhaps it should have been clearer earlier— that the document which gave rise to this Bill was a carefully worked out piece of literature which allowed sufficient trapdoors for escape when the time came, and we have not seen the last of it yet.

The Minister is essentially cowering behind this most extreme and unlikely interpretation of a few words in the manifesto. I spent some time today looking at the dictionary definitions and I defy contradiction on what I have stated. "Will lead" is not what the Bill has in it. It will not lead because there is no way the Government can guarantee that people will respond. Therefore, they are not entitled to say unequivocally that this Bill "will lead" as they promised. The Government could have tackled this problem in a number of ways. Some of us felt the Government would have bought out the ground rents. This would have meant an enormous sum of money, but that pales into insignificance when one thinks of the sums we were talking of last week. It makes it seem to me all the more likely that it could have been considered as a reasonable option for carrying out in an honourable way what was a major and popular political election plank of the Government. The Government could have decreed that ground rents were at an end because they were unconstitutional under Article 40.3.2º which states:

The State shall, in particular, by its laws protect as best it may from unjust attack and, in the case of injustice done, vindicate the life, person, good name, and property rights of every citizen.

There was a constitutional way of vindicating the property rights of every citizen. The Government could then have let the courts decide on the constitutionality of the matter. There would not have been any critics on this side of the House if the Government said: "Our intentions are noble and genuine; ground rents are at an end and let he who wishes to complain go before the courts." That would have been acceptable, and if the courts found against the Government the people would have felt that they were honourable.

This Bill is the path of dishonour. It is a cheap and cynical way out of a major promise, and I will not be found wanting in terms of reminding the Government of their responsibility in this area. How does the Bill fall short of what Fianna Fáil said they would do? It is not my intention to go over what our spokesman said this morning in regard to the differences between this and the proposed Coalition Bill. That Bill was dealt with by the Coalition with a degree of conscientiousness and seriousness which perhaps did not match the political climate at the time and the kind of short cuts some people say were justified. The Coalition felt that there were major problems involved and they had the honesty to say that. This Bill only proposes to put a veneer on what the Coalition proposed to do. It makes it slightly more attractive. There are those who will say that it is going to be more expensive now than it was due to a number of factors, not the least of which is the multiplier which was upped in the budget last week.

It could be stated that comparison between what the National Coalition were going to do and what the Government are about to do in relation to ground rents and other matters is not valid because the people rejected the National Coalition and voted for Fianna Fáil. Therefore, it is not acceptable that Fianna Fáil speakers should now say that the National Coalition promised only certain things. That is not relevant. In the middle of the spotlight is the Fianna Fáil promise unequivocally put to produce a scheme which will lead to the abolition of ground rents and that is what we are talking about. Admittedly, the immediate response of ACRA seemed favourable, but when they had a chance to look at this scheme and consider it they had second thoughts. I do not blame them. They had been courteously received by the Opposition prior to the election and treated, I am sure, to the hospitality befitting the occasion and in character with the Minister for Justice. I am afraid they were also—perhaps not deliberately— conned into believing that in Fianna Fáil on the ground rents issue they had a winner. We know what happened and we are seeing it now.

There is an attempt to push through this Bill as meeting in the letter and the spirit the pledge given by Fianna Fáil. ACRA, who do not speak for all those who pay ground rents but for a substantial body of organised opinion in the urban areas, now have second thoughts, and their opposition to the Bill is so strong that they continue to say to the people they represent that they should not pay ground rent. In effect, that means to break the law. That is the degree to which these thoughtful people reject the proposal before us. I can see no reason to modify that stance except to say that I would dissociate myself from any suggestion that people should act outside the law although I can understand the chagrin and the ire they must feel.

The Minister said a number of other things which cannot be allowed to pass without comment. He tried to answer the point vis-à-vis the manifesto, using it as the escape hatch, that the people who were opposed to this Bill in what it contains but not opposed to it being at least an indication of some progress although not the progress which was promised, would like that undertaking construed as if it were a promise to abolish ground rents directly. He stated at column 787, Volume 303, of the Official Report:

But of course we never said that.

The record is there for all to see.

At this stage it is possibly a matter in this House of semantics, but I believe some action should be taken by those who were so vocally critical of the National Coalition to ensure that this promise is lived up to. Certainly it is the duty and the intention of those on this side of the House in the coming years to pursue the Government at every opportunity on living up to their promise to introduce a scheme which will lead to the abolition of existing ground rents. It will not be this scheme which may, if we are lucky, if people have the few bob if they feel like it and the lease is long enough so that it is worth their while as well as a lot of other ifs, lead to the abolition of ground rents. We are talking about a scheme which was promised which would lead to the abolition of ground rents. Part of what we are talking about here is the belief by some that there is somehow an escape for the Government by virtue of the words that are here. I am not an expert in the English language, but even a child at the back of one of the classrooms where I was privileged to teach until last June could tell me that there is a very major difference between an unconditional "will" and what we have in this Bill.

The Minister said that this Bill is one of the best buys for a long time. It is a bargain but, like many other bargains that we will pass on the way home, we do not have to go in and buy. The same applies here. I believe that some people will buy out their ground rents but many others will not bother because they will feel that sooner or later a very genuine scheme which will abolish ground rents along the lines they spoke about will be introduced by the Government. The Minister said that he has no crystal ball. He must be the only member of the Government who has not one. My reading of Government documents is that the Minister for Economic Planning and Development has a crystal ball and the Taoiseach also has one.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Neither the Minister for Economic Planning and Development nor the Taoiseach has anything to do with this Bill. We will stay on the Bill. We could deal with the crystal ball that the Minister for Justice has or has not, but we do not want other Ministers on this Bill.

Mr. Keating

This Bill is, as the Minister admits, one which may help to produce a solution. He said that if he was asked if the scheme would lead to the abolition of ground rents he would answer: "I do not have a crystal ball but I do not think it will." Is that what he promised before the election? Is that the way the Government are going to deliver on this pledge? There was no "think" about it in the manifesto. They said they would deliver on it, and when they came knocking on the doors and spoke to the old and the young they said: "Trust in Fianna Fáil and we will abolish ground rents". They did not say: "We think we have a scheme which may abolish them". They said quite categorically: "We will". The Minister is forced to admit in his speech today that he thinks it will. He then tacks on a five-year period, after which the price, which is the only attractive aspect of this particular offer, may be changed completely.

The Minister said that the fees to be charged were nominal. Nominal is a relative term. It may be nominal where the Minister for Justice comes from, but it is not nominal in my constituency. The Minister could very quickly point out to me that people on very small incomes may not pay ground rents, but many of them do. There are people with incomes of less than £20 per week who have to pay ground rent who will not find the price nominal. The Minister goes on to rub salt into the wound and say that this fee could possibly be changed in order to avoid purely frivolous applications under the scheme. I would like an explanation about that, because I cannot understand how a Minister could seriously put forward the view that someone would frivolously indulge in embarking on buying out his ground rent when it means parting with hardearned money. In an inner city of Dublin constituency money is scarce. When we go to visit our constituents we are shocked by the amount of poverty that exists.

The Minister said that the Bill proposes to provide strong encouragement for ground rent tenants to exercise their rights. Of course it does and so did the previous Bill. Some might argue that this Bill will provide stronger encouragement. We should not be talking about providing encouragement. We should be talking about the mechanics of ending a system which has its roots in centuries of questionable acquisition of these ground rents. My view is that ground rents should be abolished. I believe that is the view the Government and many of the Government TDs share. They will not say it now because they have lapsed into what I understand is the perpetual silence of the Government backbenchers.

Mr. Tunney

Would the Deputy like to say how he would abolish them?

Mr. Keating

If I had the answer to that I would be sitting in the Minister's place. The Coalition Government conscientiously looked into their souls to try to give the answer to the Minister of State's question. There are at least three answers. The first is to say that they are abolished and let the courts worry about it. I would not recommend that because it is clearly unfair. The second is to say that they are abolished and we will talk about compensation in cases of proven hardship and let the courts decide the constitutionality of the issue. Each of those at least has the merit of being honourable. The third way is for the Government to say: "We will buy them out". In view of the large amount of money which was spent last week with great largesse that should not present a great problem to the Government. Those are the three ways, which I, as a relatively new Member of the House can think about. There must be others, but it is not my job to say what they are. It is the Government's job, which they should be getting on with.

I reject the view that this fee is nominal. It is not just £5. It is more than that, and is also subject to review if people do not grab the bargain while it is going. It is not so long since a widow was able to show me her total financial possessions at that moment amounting to something around 5p or 6p which is all she had to keep body and soul together. That lady also had to pay £3 per year ground rent. That is not nominal. It is nominal in relation to the lush plains of Abbeyfeale in the Golden Vale. It may even be nominal in relation to one's substantial income but it is not nominal if one is born and reared in a deprived area of the city and has been forced by an iniquitous system foisted on one from birth to pay ground rent to people one never even met, who provide no service for you and who have the dubious power of owning the piece of ground which the Government give you to stand on. That is how ridiculous the whole concept of ground rent is.

Many unfortunate people who have to pay ground rent pay up because they do not understand anything better and have no will to fight for a better system. They will have to keep fighting, because this Bill does not give any help to them. The Minister said that this bargain would be available only for the coming five years. How can one put a limit on what is right and wrong? Why it is right, as this Bill proposes, to put forward those measures for the next five years and not right after that? What has five years to do with it? I admit it happily coincides with the cyclical pattern of Irish public life and that we can expect an election in five years. I do not know if that has anything to do with the possibility of a review. That is another aspect which was not talked about. Perhaps that will be dropped in Committee. It should, because clearly it would be unfair to some people. For instance, people might inherit a house or property from a mother or father and find the ground rent had not been bought out. They would be deprived and inequities arise. Surely the whole purpose of this Bill is to establish what is right in natural justice and in law. One cannot place time limits on that and any such suggestion ill becomes the Government.

In his speech this morning the Minister referred also to the manner in which the work was to be carried out. I do not accept the assurances he gave that all would be right in that regard. I can foresee major difficulties. I do not want to create some where none may exist but I am worried about the degree to which existing facilities and staffing may or may not be augmented to cope with the problem. Undoubtedly there will be a substantial number of people who will be sufficiently interested in this offer to take it up although it does not at all meet what was promised or even the standards of ACRA, which organisation, to say the least, could not be said to be hostile to the Government. I have been tempted to think one or two less charitable thoughts in recent times. If ACRA say this Bill is so unacceptable that people should continue to break the law by refusing to pay ground rents, there must be something wrong with it. Therefore, it is not pure politics about which we are speaking and I would like the Minister of State to bear that in mind.

I should like to say to the people who agitated so strongly for change— many of them from all political walks of life—that, regardless of this Bill, they should continue to fight for justice. Justice just does not happen. It has to be willed and worked for. People should persist in pressurising their public representatives on all sides to ensure that this Parliament has the courage to grasp this admittedly difficult nettle: it is too close to questions concerning the rights of private property for many in this Chamber. As far as I am concerned it is a fundamentally important question.

I have had letters in recent weeks about the content of the Bill, about the proposals that appeared to be in the Minister's mind around the time of the discussion we had on the Private Member's Motion. I can assure the Minister of State that people are not happy, the public are not happy. Happiness, like everything else, is relative; but there is strong concern and a feeling that they have been let down. I do not think the Minister of State at the Department of Education would like that. I know him to be an honourable man, a person who would not be willing to believe that people should not honour their commitments. I should like some indication from him—if he feels he can give it—that this Bill may be reviewed, that perhaps the attempt being made here to escape that commitment will be examined again, because he knows as well as I do that this is not what was promised. More important than he or I knowing this, there is a growing volume of people who know that it is not what was promised. I have had letters explaining with chapter and verse better than I could where parts of the Bill fall down. I should be happy to pass them on to the relevant Minister and see his response. I should not take any particular glee in that exercise because it is a very serious issue.

When the election was contested and lost by the outgoing Government I felt that there is a time and tide in the affairs of men which comes and goes, ebbs and flows, and that perhaps it was even wholesome for democracy that we should have change. But if the price of that change is to be government by deceit, by dishonour, taking the path of power by means, methods and words which are questionable, then that price is too high. Although I am getting older I should like to think I speak in a particular way for young people who want to have faith in this sometimes gloomy Chamber, who want to believe that men and women in politics say what they mean and will act according to their word. In this Bill there is very little evidence of that. Quoting Shakespeare again, I have been tempted sometimes to brand the Minister for Justice as a villain smiling at the cheek, a goodly apple rotten at the heart. I do not want to do that because it is too early yet. Certainly he has a perpetual smile which conceals, shall we say, a mind which is complex. Perhaps that is necessary for ministerial posting. I would say to him, through the Minister of State, to look at this Bill again, to try to restore confidence not merely in the Government —because this Government are birds of passage: in five, ten, 15 or 20 years they will be gone——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should discuss the Bill.

Mr. Keating

I am endeavouring to make a fundamental point about the question of confidence in a Government.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

But it has absolutely nothing to do with this Bill. The Deputy should keep to the Bill. We are only discussing a Bill before the House; we are not discussing confidence in Government or anything else.

Mr. Keating

I am discussing the Bill in relation to what was promised. Is that in order?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is quite in order. But discussing Governments and the length of time they will last and so on has nothing at all to do with this Bill. Nobody knows that better than does the Deputy.

Mr. Keating

I will shorten the length of time the Government will last. In five years they will be gone. This House will be in existence beyond that. What I am saying is that young people witnessing the spectacle of a Government that got into power by promising one thing, doing a somersault and giving something totally different is a disgraceful one.

Mr. Killilea

We know the Government who did that; they are gone.

(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Please, there is a Deputy now speaking from outside the barrier. The Deputy may not be in the House but surely he understands the rules of the House.

Mr. Keating

I apologise for the Deputy outside the House but, in all fairness, he was provoked.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I know, but no Deputy from outside the barrier should be provoked. I would ask the Deputy in possession to adhere to the Bill. If he does, Deputies will not be provoked whether inside or outside the House.

Mr. Keating

I do not know whether or not the Chair can give that sort of guarantee about Deputy Killilea. I have watched him within the confines of the House and he is tempted to intervene time and again regardless of whether or not people adhere to the Bill. There is a fundamental issue involved here. It will be my job and that of the Opposition generally to remind the Government time and again of the degree to which they match their words with actions. This Bill falls fundamentally short in that respect. I look forward to a detailed response—not on the spirit of it, because that can be evaded by reference to the manifesto, but on the letter of the manifesto and the degree to which this Bill meets it—from the Minister of State, the Minister for Justice or somebody. If that does not happen then it will be my job to continue reminding them. If they do not do better than this, then I will have to say that the Government are being dishonourable. I should not like to say that at this stage but that is the way it appears.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Horgan.

Mr. Horgan

I will defer to Deputy Killilea if he chooses to get in now.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Killilea has not offered yet. I will call him when he does. Deputy Horgan is in possession.

Mr. Horgan

I was not clear from the Deputy's stance whether or not he was offering.

Mr. Keating

Offering what?

Mr. Killilea

Deputy Horgan is aware of my stance. He was four or five years with me in the other House.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy's stance is not under discussion. What is under discussion is the Bill before the House. Deputy Horgan on the Bill.

Mr. Killilea

If Deputy Horgan wants to spend half an hour talking about me I do not mind.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do.

Mr. Horgan

When Deputy Killilea's speech is over I will be happy to address myself to the Bill—a model of oratory, indeed. In his introductory speech the Minister for Justice referred to this Bill as one of a trilogy. It is not by any means unusual that a new Government, coming into office after a general election, should introduce a Bill or Bills which were in their major part fashioned by the preceding administration even if they were of a different political persuasion. It is not even unusual, I suspect, that for the first year of their existence, such a Government should produce virtually a majority of Bills whose genesis was in the administration of their predecessors in office.

It is, I suspect, faintly unusual that one Bill which was drafted by the preceding administration should, with several strokes of the sword, become triplets and emerge as three Bills. This Bill we are discussing here today is only part of one major Bill introduced but not completed by the previous administration. The other two parts of the trilogy to which the Minister referred are also parts of that same major Bill.

I should like to welcome the Bill as far as it goes. In common with many other speakers, I too would welcome the day, if it ever should come to pass, when ground rents would be completely a thing of the past. I doubt that that will happen in the immediate or even in the foreseeable future. This Bill, culled as it is almost in its entirety from that presented by the preceding administration, is a step along the road to that. We have heard a great many allegations in this House and outside it, but especially in the past few hours, as to whether or not this Bill meets the campaign pledge offered to the electorate by the then Opposition. The pledge itself was read out by the Minister and commented on, parsed and analysed by himself and a number of other speakers.

I do not intend to go over all that ground in detail, but I want to say one or two things about it, perhaps one or two things which have not been said before. I have been working with words for about 20 years. I am something of a connoisseur in the use of words. Occasionally I make mistakes and the former Tánaiste, Mr. MacEntee, is not slow to point out when I make them. I am probably right in saying that, of all the delicately and carefully phrased sections in the manifesto presented to the people before the last election, this section on ground rents is among the most spectacular in its aims and results. Probably more than any other section of the manifesto it achieved the result most political documents no matter what party issue them strive to achieve, that is, to give the appearance of a commitment without actually giving the solid ground of such a commitment.

When I saw that phrase: "Fianna Fáil will provide a scheme which will lead to the abolition of existing residential ground rents," I was fairly clear as to what it meant. I knew it was highly unlikely, to put it mildly, that the Fianna Fáil Party in Government would expropriate existing residential ground rents. I regarded it as my political duty to go about saying at the top of my voice, and to the maximum possible extent to all who would listen to me, that this was not what the Fianna Fáil Party were proposing to do. To some extent the fact that this message did not get across to many members of the electorate may be counted a political failure on the part of the then Government.

But—and this is a very big but—we had also to contend not just with the manifesto itself but with a sub-stratum of argument which was often advanced to undercut our claim that Fianna Fáil were not, in fact, promising to abolish ground rents. Part of this sub-stratum of argument was of the kind already referred to by Deputy Desmond. At a meeting organised by the Association of Combined Residents Associations on the borders of our two constituencies the present Minister for State, Deputy David Andrews, not only stood up and averred that this was what Fianna Fáil were proposing to do but said that Fianna Fáil had legal advice to the effect that there was no constitutional difficulty about the abolition of ground rents.

Either they have discovered since coming to office that the advice they then got was bad advice and could not be acted on, or they have not. If they have discovered that the advice was bad advice, they should at least have the decency to tell us. My real quarrel is not so much with that aspect of it as with the single word "abolish". Obviously it was the connotation of this word which was responsible more than anything else for a general public impression about what would happen to ground rents, an impression which this Bill does not fulfil.

The dictionary definition of "abolish" which I consulted in great haste about half an hour ago is to annul or make void. So, the translation of this pledge is that it is a pledge to introduce a scheme to annul or make void existing residential ground rents. With all respect, it does not do that. It does something else, and that something else can be explained in very plain English as well. It is a scheme which will lead not to the abolition of existing residential ground rents but to their exchange for a sum in cash.

There is a fundamental difference between abolishing something and exchanging it for cash. You can exchange almost anything for cash, but that is not to abolish it. That is where I believe the fundamental, dangerous and unfortunate ambiguity was contained. We are dealing here with a scheme which will allow people to exchange ground rents for cash. It has got nothing to do with the abolition of ground rents. This is the message that should go from this House, and particularly from this side of the House, to people who are watching the progress of this debate and who are wondering what happened. In order to explain to people what happened we must first explain to them what they thought would happen as well as explaining why it is not happening and why something else that is quite different is happening.

Having dealt with what I believe to be the fundamental problem in regard to the relationship between the manifesto and the Bill, I should like to deal with some aspects of the Bill itself. The matter of the five-year limit has been mentioned by many speakers and I will do no more than repeat my agreement with them that the limit should be removed. There are a number of other problems that deserve attention. I am worried that the Bill does not attack satisfactorily the problem created by the pyramid of ground rent interests by the simple difficulty of ascertaining not necessarily the primary ground rent landlord but also subsequent and head ground rent landlords. This may give rise to problems in the future and I would be glad of the Minister's assurance that this section of the Bill is watertight in all respects.

There are individual problems that the Bill may not touch. For instance, I am thinking of an example brought to me by a lady living in this city who pays ground rent. As part of her general ground lease she has an obligation not merely to pay her own ground rent but to collect ground rents from half-a-dozen or more ground rent payers resident in the neighbourhood. What will happen to people in that unfortunate situation? Do they find themselves in the position that they have bought out their own ground rents but, because of the other terms of the lease, are being forced to collect ground rents from other unfortunates? That would be a perversion of the spirit behind even this Bill and it is something that the Minister should consider. The Bill should attempt to ensure that any conditions of a lease that are connected to or bound up with the ground rent should be extinguished by the exchange of that ground rent for cash.

Perhaps there is a difference of opinion between the Minister and myself as to what is the major issue. In his speech the Minister said:

I have always been clear that the real problem of ground rents in the problem of legal costs.

I do not deny for a minute that the problem of legal costs is a very substantial problem in relation to ground rents. I hope that the mechanism adopted by the Minister in this Bill will be as efficient as it is inexpensive, but he must have been deaf for the last four to ten years if he seriously believes that the real problem in this area is the problem of legal costs. For the entire duration of the ground rents campaign the real problem, as depicted by the organisations and individuals who wanted them abolished, was whether the rents would be abolished without compensation. It was a fundamental plank of the campaign launched by the Association of Combined Residents Associations that there should be no compensation to ground rent landlords, that most if not all had been compensated 100 times over in terms of the money they had taken out of their properties. While it is true that legal costs are a substantial part of the problem, it is by no means true that they are the only part of the problem. The other much deeper issue is the question of compensation and that raises the issues of private ownership which were referred to earlier.

We are not just talking about private ownership. When we talk about ground rents we talk about private ownership of land and this has been one of the most serious and longstanding problems in relation to this matter. In this country, as in so many other countries, land is probably the greatest single source of wealth. John Stuart Mills said it all 130 years ago when he argued with some wit that "owners of land make money as it were while they sleep". That is a classic definition of the ground rent landlord.

If I attack the private ownership of land in the sense the ground landlord understood it and benefited from it, it is not by any means to attack the concept of private property generally. In fact, the constitution of my own party explicitly recognises a right to private property. I believe there is a legitimate right to private property and indeed to the private ownership of the house in which one lives and a reasonable amount of land to enjoy it. However, the problem we have failed to face, which this Bill fails to face, and the problem that would take a constitutional amendment to resolve, is that the ownership of land is a separate issue completely. In my belief it is quite inappropriate to consider land in general within the context of the debate about private property because land is fundamentally a common resource, a community resource, and should be treated as such in our Constitution and in our legislation. I am sorry that this Government have not taken this basic lesson to heart, although from the financial legislation which they propose to introduce it is easy to understand the reason. I would remind the House, and beyond the House the people who are following this debate, that this problem which is being dealt with in this Bill is only the tip of the iceberg. The rest of that iceberg is related to the ownership of land in Ireland.

Mr. O'Toole

I welcome the opportunity to comment on this Bill. I wish also to welcome some aspects of the Bill. There has been much discussion in this House on this Bill since the Minister introduced it. Some of the comments have been by way of interruption and others by way of inference and they should not go unchallenged.

I am reminded to say this because of an interjection by the Minister of State at the Department of Education, Deputy Tunney, when Deputy Keating was on his feet, when he asked him how he proposed to abolish ground rents. The National Coalition never claimed to be in a position to abolish existing ground rents, but they said that they would prohibit the creation of new ground rents. Indeed, the Minister's predecessor went to great lengths to explain to people who sought information on this point about a year ago that what they wanted done could not be done easily. Anything is possible, but the then Minister was of the opinion that the cost involved in abolishing existing ground rents was such as to be prohibitive.

Towards the end of May the Fianna Fáil manifesto was published. After-wards many of my supporters, having read the document, approached me and asked why the Minister was maintaining that existing ground rents could not be abolished while Fianna Fáil held the opposite view. This was the accepted interpretation of the manifesto in this regard. The Minister today said, referring to the extract from the manifesto that has been quoted here repeatedly that it was clear that the legislation would provide a scheme leading to the abolition of residential ground rents. Clarity is relative. What may be clear to one person may not be clear at all to somebody else. The Minister might be tempted to reply by saying that something might not be too clear to the dim-witted among us. This may be a fair comment, but let me remind him that to say that would be saying that there are many thousands of dim-witted people and many dim-witted members in organisations concerned directly with this problem. There is a note on the cover of the ACRA document which claims that as an immediate step the first-stage Bill to prohibit the creation of future ground rents results from the Minister's action in respect of a specific ACRA request made at their July 20 meeting. The note continues that while retaining the original commitment, comprehensive legislation abolishing existing ground rents would be introduced within six months of Fianna Fáil being returned to office. The association understood that they interpreted the manifesto correctly and that ground rents were to be abolished. Eight months later we find that this is not so.

The Bill is welcomed in so far as it can go in present circumstances to alleviate hardship and to rectify the problem, but, having said that, it must be said also that the way in which the statement was framed was misleading and, worse still, was meant to be misleading. As has been pointed out by people more qualified than me to make such assertions there are ways in which ground rents can be abolished. The problem is one of constitutional difficulties but there are also money problems. Perhaps the cost involved would be prohibitive. I do not know whether the Minister has costed the exercise in the light of the manifesto. He, also, in good faith may have intended to abolish ground rents but having costed the exercise decided they could not be abolished. Now he has put the onus on the people concerned to purchase their ground rents, if they wish.

The other aspect towards which much comment has been directed during the day is the cost in so far as the tenant is concerned. The Minister has referred to the matter as a bargain buy. That is so provided it works as the Minister thinks it should work. However, it may not be as simple as it looks. Many tenants who would wish to purchase their ground rents could be told to go to the Land Registry where, on payment of £5, they would be given a certificate stating that they are now the registered owners of the properties on which their houses stand. The people must realise soon that the situation is not as simple as that. What will happen is that many thousands of tenants wishing to buy out their ground rents will seek a solicitor to handle the documentation, thereby incurring some expenses. The ceiling of £5 for this part of the exercise is a definite advantage, but it will not be possible to sidestep the legal costs because people, perhaps because of their failure to realise how simple the exercise is or because of fear of the unknown, will seek the help of a solicitor. They have been conditioned to act in this way in regard to titles and so on. In any case such action is required in almost all cases concerning dealings in property.

Having regard to the nature of what we are dealing with here and of what the tenant is expected to do is the Minister envisaging a situation where, for example, a queue of people will form outside the Land Registry office holding £5 in their hands to demand certificates that will state clearly that they are now the registered owners of their properties? The matter is not as simple as that, as anybody who endeavours to act in this way will find out.

As the Minister has pointed out rightly the cost involved has been the kernel of the problem down through the years. This problem has been alleviated to a major degree by what is being done here, but I would not oversimplify the situation. I would hope that in the course of the debate on Committee Stage the people will be told in detail what they are to do in order to avail of this "bargain buy" which the Minister is putting before them. I would suggest that the Minister should take great pains in explaining the matter because of the ignorance in this regard. I include myself among the ignorant. I have not any legal training and if I were paying ground rent the first person I would run to would be a solicitor. A solicitor is entitled to his hire in the same way as anybody else.

The Minister has inferred that people set out deliberately to misinterpret what was promised. This is not so. The public at large and the media accepted at face value what was said and the Minister and the other members of the Government did not try to quell the aura of enthusiasm concerning the abolition of ground rents until it actually came to the crunch and people had to be brought to their senses. By their silence I suggest that there was some degree of misconception planted in the minds of the people by some degree of deceit. To be charitable, it may not have been done deliberately; but that is how it turned out. Whether the Minister likes it or not, he is now seen to be backtracking on what was expected of him and on what was said at the time of the election.

The other matter which concerns me is the question of compensation. I should like to know whether this matter has been examined in detail. Would it be possible to simplify the matter through the purchase of ground rents by the Government? I appreciate that there may be constitutional problems and it might be unfair to landlords. I would not regard the ground rents charged by landlords as rack rents, nor would I regard landlords as exploiters. They have a perfect right to income from property which they own. One cannot grab that right and tell them that this is something they should never have had. The only other option is that the Government should purchase the ground rents on behalf of the people. In the light of the wording of the promise, I should like to know if the Government have ascertained the cost of such an exercise and, if so, I should like to know the result. I am fully prepared to accept the word of the Minister if he says that upon scrutinising the cost of such a scheme it was found to be absolutely prohibitive because of the state of the economy—despite last week's splurge. I would accept that if I knew that an effort had been made to find out the sum of money involved.

Regarding the cost of ground rents, I am not quite clear what is meant. I presume this will be clarified during the debate on Committee Stage. There are certain types of lessees to whom the Bill applies and other types to whom it does not apply. There is a third group in relation to whom discretion will have to be used in deciding whether they come within the scope of the Act. I am sure that the Minister will give a comprehensive answer on Committee Stage.

There is a lack of staff in the Land Registry and every Member of the House is aware that this is the reason for the long delays. I notice that the Minister has given a specific undertaking on the matter of staff.

Mr. G. Collins

Already 57 people have been brought in to deal with the arrears of ordinary work in the Land Registry and there will be additional staff to deal with ground rents. A new section will be set up to deal with this.

Mr. O'Toole

This is good news and I am delighted to here it. The Minister's predecessor was thinking on the same lines in that there was to be a clearing house for ground rents business, which was to be the office of the county registrar. The county registrar's office would be the proper place to deal with this business for the simple reason that these offices are in close proximity to people and more accessible than the Land Registry. The extra staff will expedite business but it will also involve solicitors. A householder who is now paying ground rent is not likely to handle this matter on his own. Extra costs will be involved.

As I said, I am in full agreement with the abolition of ground rents but the manner in which this matter was approached originally leaves a great deal to be desired. The Minister's party would have got on just as well had they come out straight and said they knew, as everybody else knew, that existing ground rents could not be abolished for the moment. They could have left it as vague as that in the hope that some bonanza would come our way later and the State would be in a position to buy out these ground rents. The double-think and the semantics are not worthy of comment. People paying high ground rents are not interested in the meanings of words. They are interested only in whether or not they have to pay exorbitant sums to buy out their ground rents. This they will have to do now. The formula has been simplified somewhat but it is a long way from what the people expected.

Mr. Mitchell

I am glad this Bill has been brought before the House at an early stage. My main concern is in regard to the morality of ground rents, how to go about their abolition and whether or not the Government promised to abolish ground rents. The Minister and one other Fianna Fáil speaker today claimed they did not promise to abolish ground rents. In the manifesto they certainly used a very clever wording: "provide a scheme which will lead to the abolition of existing residential ground rents". That was paraded throughout the length and breadth of the country by every Fianna Fáil candidate. Fianna Fáil were going to abolish ground rents.

The previous Government, apparently correctly, argued that it was constitutionally impossible to abolish ground rents. The Fianna Fáil stand was that they did not accept this and they would find a way to abolish ground rents.

An Ceann Comhairle

The debate is not on the merits or demerits of the manifesto but on the provisions in the Bill.

Mr. Mitchell

The Minister referred to the Fianna Fáil manifesto in his speech.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am not objecting to the Deputy referring to the manifesto but I do not wish him to base his entire speech on it.

Mr. Mitchell

That will not be the case. The fact is the impression was clearly given, and it was taken up by every ordinary decent member of the Fianna Fáil Party, that Fianna Fáil, if returned to power, would abolish ground rents. What they propose to do is almost identical with what the National Coalition proposed to do. There is very little difference. Whether or not there is a constitutional problem, I would go further than any other Member of this House. I would seek a constitutional amendment to enable us to abolish ground rents. I believe they are absolutely immoral. Ground landlords are extracting thousands of pounds from young married couples in every housing estate in the country. It is nothing but extortion and the Constitution was never designed to protect extortionists and to prevent justice being given to the people. If there is some loophole, then there should be an amendment of the Constitution to close that loophole. I do not believe there would be any opposition to it.

Some may argue that abolition would amount to confiscation. Confiscation in Irish historical terms is a very emotive word. Even if we cannot go to the expense of holding a referendum to amend the Constitution in order to abolish ground rents, I do not see why another idea of mine could not be put into operation. I suggest that in the next budget income from ground rents should be taxable at 99 per cent. That would be a positive disincentive. The Government could pay 99 per cent by way of grant to those who have to pay ground rents. That would not be confiscation and it would be no less penal than is the brunt of taxation on those who have to meet PAYE.

I am told that initially ground rents were designed to allow people to rent land for building where they could not afford the purchase price of the land. That reason has long since disappeared. I live in a housing estate in the south of the city. There are 320 houses and the ground rent on each is £52 a year. That is a massive income to a ground landlord, an absolutely unjustifiable income. I am not in the least bit thankful to the Minister for providing me with an opportunity to buy out my ground rent because I believe he is not protecting my rights and the rights of thousands of other vulnerable people who have to pay ground rents. Young married couples will take a loan at almost any cost as was evidenced by those who took SDA loans at 12½ per cent. They are now stuck with this rent for the rest of their lives. That highlights their vulnerability in their anxiety to provide themselves with a roof over their heads. High rates of interest still obtain and nothing is done about them. The ground rents charged for houses built in the last ten years are exorbitant. The effect of this Bill will be to give those exploiters a huge lump sum. We know money is diminishing in value but if everyone buys out his ground rent an enormous capital sum will become available to ground landlords, to the exploiters, and they can reinvest this and exploit others possibly in the process. That is what this Bill is doing.

What I am saying is not a criticism of the Minister or of the Government because, as the Minister said, the Bill is substantially the Bill of the National Coalition Government.

There are three ways in which ground rents could be abolished. If you talked about it long enough you would find other ways. One way would be to seek constitutional amendments to prevent or to remove the reputed ground ownership of land to someone other than the owner of the house that is on that land. The second way is that it could be taxed at a rate to make it attractive for the landlord to present it to the tenant. That is what I would do, and I would make no bones about doing it. The third way in which it could be done, and this would be more honest and would meet the commitments which Fianna Fáil are understood to have given, would be for the State to purchase the ground rents and to leave the property remaining in the ownership of the person concerned. I am not advocating the nationalisation of ground rents, but if the Government were to nationalise ground rents or if they were to pay for it themselves, they would be living up to their commitments.

Many people that I canvassed during the election told me that Fine Gael would not abolish ground rents and that they were voting for Fianna Fáil for that reason. I was confused by some of the statements of some of the officers of ACRA. Their vice-chairman, I think, made what could only be described as a party political speech which was to embarrass him later when he realised that he too had been conned. The speech indicated that Fianna Fáil would abolish ground rents. However, I did not hear too much about it from him when he realised that that is not what the Minister intended, whatever their canvassers said. Like the Garvey question, the Taoiseach did not say it but his canvassers said it. He did not read that it would provide a scheme which would lead to the abolition of existing ground rents. He read that ground rents were going to be abolished if Fianna Fáil were returned to power.

Judging by some of the political columns, the members of the Press Gallery are tired of Opposition Members waving documents showing Fianna Fáil commitments during the election. It happened six or seven times and there was adverse comment in the Press. We are not supposed to show that Fianna Fáil are not keeping their promises. When I asked the Minister for the Environment if he was going to introduce improvements or changes for purchasers of corporation dwellings prior to July 1973, in relation to whom grave injustices exist and where, in my constituency, the local Fianna Fáil manifesto committed them to reducing the difference of the dearer pre-1973 prices to the lower prices of July 1973, the Minister said that he never saw the document, notwithstanding that on it there were photographs of a shadow Fianna Fáil Minister and two other Fianna Fáil candidates one of whom was Mrs. Eileen Lemass. That is an instance of a deliberate disparity in Fianna Fáil's policy, cagily produced at national level. It was deliberately distorted to give the most favourable impression, the impression most likely to gain votes. Many ordinary members of the Fianna Fáil Party must feel deceived, and they have every right to feel that way.

It is clear from events since the general election, particularly in regard to the budget and in regard to the abolition of household rates, which benefits the owner of the mansion——

An Ceann Comhairle

We are dealing with the Landlord and Tenant Bill. I have been very tolerant, and it is only creating a bad precedent to the Deputy to continue in this fashion.

Mr. Mitchell

The point I am making is that the concern by the Government to meet the whims and criticisms of the wealthy few, such as the abolition of wealth tax and the abolition of rates, does not benefit the poor local authority tenant, but someone living in a big house in Malahide——

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not relevant.

Mr. Mitchell

I am leading to the point that the poor have suffered from many of this Government's measures. In yesterday's debate Deputy Smith supported the cry that the poor did not receive anything in the budget. I am glad to see him in the House. He is one of the few Fianna Fáil Deputies to appear in the House during this debate. In fact, and this is where the concern of Fianna Fáil for the welfare of the ordinary people comes in, apart from the Minister and one backbencher we have not had a contribution from a Fianna Fáil Member. We did have an interruption from Deputy Killilea who is fast becoming the Government's heckler-in-chief. That is an indication of Fianna Fáil's concern for ordinary people, because this Bill will affect ordinary people; it will further extend the exploitation of them and further enshrines the protection presumed to be given by the Constitution to exploiters and speculators.

I do not believe the Constitution was intended to do that, and I do not know whether a test case to the Supreme Court would be found to be unconstitutional. If necessary a Constitutional amendment should be introduced and this would not be opposed here if the Government sought to clarify the Article which purports to make the abolition of ground rents unconstitutional. The Minister said:

They would like that undertaking construed as if it were a promise to abolish ground rents directly, leaving landlords either with no compensation or to be compensated by the State.

That is the impression that was abroad until the Bill was introduced. It is still the impression many people have. It was the deliberate policy of the Fianna Fáil organisation to give that impression, and the Minister has the gall in his speech to say: "but of course we never said that". How many times have we heard that since the election, even when it was in print as I stated earlier in relation to a number of other items?

The Minister also stated:

Moreover, nothing that I have said in this House or outside it can reasonably be taken as indicating that I, or the Government, favoured abolition in that sense.

I would love the Government to conduct a public opinion poll on that subject. They should ask how many people understood the manifesto to say that they were going to abolish ground rents. I would be surprised if the figure was less than 80 per cent. If a poll of Fianna Fáil backbenchers was carried out it would give the same result. Of course, Government backbenchers have no say in the running of the country, because if they had the Government would pay more attention to the man in the street and less attention to the wealthy.

Later, the Minister stated:

I should like to add that concentration on the question of compensation tends, to my mind, to cloud the real issue.

As I see it compensation or the payment of money by people for what they really own is the real issue. They must own the land on which their houses have been built. I cannot see how it could be construed otherwise, except in legal fiction. Many people feel sore about having to pay more money for their houses. This matter affects local authority houses also. Many local authority tenants are now purchasing their houses. In this regard one of the few ground landlords who could not be termed as exploiters are local authorities because they charge a ground rent of 5p per annum, when asked and, of course, it is never asked for. This does not create any problem. I represent a constituency which consists mostly of local authority houses and the people there are quite happy about the situation.

Most people cannot understand why they should have to pay money to fictional companies set up as ground landlords. Under the Bill local authorities will be compelled to sell their ground to the tenant purchasers of local authority houses. The ground rent for local authority houses was deliberately fixed at a notional figure, so that local authorities who must continue to provide houses for those who cannot afford to build their own will now be penalised when this Bill becomes law in that the compensation they will get will be very little. At the same time the private landlord will get a lot. I am very much opposed to this, and I am against local authority tenants or tenant purchasers being treated differently to any other purchasers. In my view it would be unconstitutional to have terms for local authority tenants different to those for other houseowners. That is provided for in the 1966 Act. Under that Act a purchaser of a local authority house can be asked for a percentage of the notional profit on his house if he resells it within five years. Some people purchased their houses for £2,000 even though the houses were worth in the region of £7,000. They were given this concession because they had been paying rent for 30 years. The price they were asked to pay for the house related to the original cost of building it. This offended some wealthy people. I heard wealthy people, including wealthy public representatives, calling such people speculators because they were selling their houses and making some profit.

I was Lord Mayor of Dublin when this was discussed and I was in charge of many meetings of Dublin City Council when this was raised. I was not very fair on that subject because I deliberately delayed and adjourned meetings to avoid that imposition on local authority tenants and to avoid having any discrimination against local authority tenant purchasers or to have any second class ownership of houses in the country.

The local authorities will now be required to sell off land at low cost. I can see possible problems in the years to come, not in 20 years' time or 30 years' time, but probably in 60, 70 or 80 years' time when the present local authority redevelopment areas will be slums. The local authorities will then have to repurchase all that land for public development at a huge cost to the State. The Minister should look at that point. This is where nationalisation of the land would possibly be a better answer than the one provided in this Bill, because at least the land would be in the ownership of the State for future public development in the generations ahead. One has to talk in the long term in relation to houses.

I would not like there to be any differential treatment of local authority tenant purchasers against anybody else, but I believe there is a problem there of land now in the ownership of the State through the local authorities being given away because of the deliberate policy of only having nominal ground rents and that land having to be repurchased at exorbitant prices in 60 to 100 years' time, thereby increasing the future cost of local authority dwellings. That would be a bad legacy to leave to our successors.

The Bill is a step in the right direction. Legal costs were a problem for those who decided to buy their ground rents. Many people were put off by them. I believe, therefore, that this Bill is a small step in the right direction. I believe ground rents are immoral and that the Government should do what the Fianna Fáil canvassers told the people they would do, do away with ground rents and not ask people to pay anything for what is truly their own.

Mr. Enright

This is a further Bill dealing with ground rents. Before the election the National Coalition brought a Bill before the House dealing with the abolition of ground rents. Our Bill succeeded in going further than the two Bills Fianna Fáil have brought before the House, the Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) Bill which was before the House recently, which prevented the creation of new ground rents, and this Bill. Our Bill was better than those two ad hoc Bills regarding ground rents.

Steps should be taken to try to bring in a comprehensive Bill in the next two or three years to encompass all the Acts dealing with rents, ground rents, leases, proprietary leases and building leases. A similar effort was made with regard to company law. Our company law was codified and brought in under one comprehensive Act. The comprehensive company law Act did a lot to have all the company legislation under one Act which could be dealt with by students of law, practitioners and people involved in the different types of rent.

We have two small Bills dealing with ground rents. Many people who are not involved in this Bill will read in The Irish Times, Irish Independent, The Irish Press or The Cork Examiner tomorrow what the Minister said in the House today. They will find that he said:

The Landlord and Tenant Acts have since 1931 sought to distinguish between those two types of rents and to provide for the rights of the parties involved as appropriate to each type. The Acts did this initially by developing the concepts of a "building lease" and a "proprietary lease" as the types of leases which were taken to reserve a ground rent as distinct from an occupational rent. The problem, was however, that as time went by these concepts were found to be inadequate to describe all the types of lease which were found to reserve ground rents. As a result, in the 1958, 1967 and 1971 Acts new types of leases and tenancies had to be added to the concepts already established in 1931.

We had Acts in 1958, 1967, 1971 and we now have two in 1977. There are also other Acts dealing with rents. There are the Acts dealing with local authority housing, the old vested cottages and many others. There are so many different Acts dealing with many different types of rent that I believe it is necessary to have all brought in under one umbrella. If I do nothing more this evening than put that idea into the minds of the people empowered to bring in such legislation, then I will have done a lot for the people involved in ground rents.

Going back over the history of leases in so many different situations, leases and tenancies in regard to local authorities with regard to, say, fee simple, life interests, life estates, it is very difficult to read through all of the legislation: it is becoming well nigh impossible. If all of this could be incorporated in the one Bill it would be of tremendous assistance to everybody. I do not minimise the enormity of the task involved. It would necessitate a vast amount of work in the Department of Justice to introduce such legislation, but its benefits would be enormous to all concerned. I put it to the Government that this will prove necessary. Otherwise we will be left in a situation in which this will recur.

My reading of the terms of this Bill is that they will last for a period of five years only. In other words, tenants who apply to buy out their ground rents will have to do so within a period of five years. The point to which I am referring is the vesting of the fee simple in dwellinghouses. Section 18 of the Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) (No. 2) Bill 1977, dealing with the vesting of the fee simple in dwelling-houses says:

This Part shall have effect only in relation to applications made under it during the period of five years beginning on the commencement of this Act.

My reading of that is that, when this period of five years expires, we will have to have further legislation to cover the position of people who did not make the effort in the meantime to buy out their fee simple. If they have not bought out their fee simple within that period we may have to revert to the situation as it obtains at present, and that will continue. For that reason it is important that an effort be made to codify all of this legislation, bringing it under the one umbrella.

Everyone in the House is agreed that whatever the usefulness of ground rents in the past that has now been outlived. Deputies on all sides of the House welcome their abolition. They may have served a purpose in earlier years when there were no planning authorities, no restrictions in regard to planning or development. Were it not for the regulations often imposed by landlords at the time a lot of housing estates were being built, they would have gone to rack and ruin. Let us take the example of a street such as Leeson Park or any other street in Dublin where there were very good houses, well built and properly looked after. In the past, were it not for such restrictions, people living in those houses could have converted them for use in the exercise of any type of business, or converted them into any other type of premises if they bought out the fee simple. That might not sound too bad until one day, in the middle of some very nice housing estate, somebody came in and started a blacksmith's shop or perhaps somebody else might come in and start banging away at motor cars late at night. Such exercises were prevented by the covenants in the leases. They were imposed by the landlords but were of benefit to almost all of the tenants living in dwellinghouses, people who had perhaps a 99 years or a 999 years' lease; they had a long term interest in it. Were it not for such covenants their next-door neighbours might have devalued their property. That is the historical context. But ground rents have now outlived their usefulness in that there is now attached to each local authority a planning authority.

Now if one converts one's house from one type of usage to another one may have the planning authority breathing down one's neck preventing one from so doing. All one has to do is get in touch with one's planning department and say that such-and-such a person is changing the use of my dwellinghouse; I do not think it proper that they be allowed to do so, when the planning authority will prevent them continuing. It is of importance because it maintains the standard of the dwellinghouse, of the area, ensuring that a person is not entitled to do something with their house reducing the value of their next-door neighbour's property. The planning authorities have succeeded in that goal.

I note that the Minister is back in the House. I have been dealing with the effect of the acquisition of the fee simple on covenants. I was illustrating how these covenants were of benefit to people in different localities, maintaining a reasonably high standard in the proper development of an estate, and its proper maintenance and upkeep.

Section 28 deals with the effect of the acquisition of the fee simple on covenants. It is relatively clear and straightforward. A number of points spring to mind. How does the Minister envisage the operation of the section which provides:

(1) Where the fee simple in land is acquired, whether under this Act or otherwise, all covenants subject to which the grantee held the land, other than a covenant specified in subsection (2), shall thereupon cease to have effect and no new covenant shall be created in the conveyance of the fee simple.

(2) In the case of a covenant—

(a) which protects or enhances the amenities of any land occupied by the immediate lessor of the grantee, or

(b) which relates to the performance of a duty imposed by statute on any such person, or

(c) which relates to a right of way over the acquired land or a right of drainage or other right necessary to secure or assist the development of other land,

the covenant shall, notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, continue in full force and effect and shall be enforceable as follows:

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy but these would appear to be Committee Stage matters. They would be more relevant to and would be better discussed on Committee Stage.

Mr. Enright

The Minister is introducing a section which completely abolishes covenants in leases with a few exceptions. One exception is in regard to rights of way and another is in regard to protecting the amenities of the land. This is the nucleus of the Bill. In my view the leases will be done away with. I want to find out from the Minister where the covenants will be. They will not appear in the certificate of title obtained from the Registrar of Titles. Where will these covenants be available for inspection? Suppose I buy a house in Clondalkin and I am living in it. I have a lease for 999 years and I buy out the ground rent. Later on I sell the house. There happens to be a right of way across the back of my garden. Where will this right of way be available on the purchase deeds for an intending purchaser? This is important. It goes to the root of the matter.

Mr. Smith

Did the Deputy buy that house?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I accept that this is a very important matter but it would be more appropriately dealt with on Committee Stage where it could be teased out by way of question and answer.

Mr. Enright

I take your point. It appears to me that the Minister is proposing to do away with covenants in existing leases in section 28. I want to know where these new rights will be available for inspection. This aspect of the Bill will create a considerable amount of difficulty with regard to the practical operation of the Bill. Some of the restrictive covenants and the covenants involved in the leases will be abolished. Some specified covenants will not be done away with. There has to be some way of ascertaining where the rights retained will be made available to intending purchasers. A person can purchase a dwellinghouse and buy out the fee simple. An intending purchaser could suddenly discover there were rights attached to the house about which he had no way of knowing. It is important that some effort should be made to clarify the situation so that these covenants will be available for inspection.

I will not embarrass the Minister by trying to make it difficult for him. He may already have the answer, or he may not. I would ask him to look closely at this matter before Committee Stage when he may wish to put down amendments to clarify where these specified covenants will be retained. This is of the utmost importance. If it is not clarified, the effects of the Bill will be minimised.

There are a number of most important items in the Bill. The former Minister, Senator Cooney, introduced a Bill in which cases were dealt with by the country registrar. This was far superior to having them dealt with by the Registrar of Titles. I am not trying to score a political point. Nor am I trying to quibble or make legal arguments. I am not trying to gain any kudos for anyone. I deal with county registrars on a reasonably regular basis. The vast majority of them have quite a number of staff available to them. Their volume of work is not over-burdening them at present. Their office staff can be enlarged, if necessary, by the addition of one or two persons. Giving this job to the Registrar of Titles will cause difficulties and delays.

In the Land Registry offices here in Dublin we have as courteous a group of people as I have ever had the pleasure of doing business with. They are helpful and they will go out of their way to help any solicitor or counsel who goes in to do business with them, or any individual who goes in to them with a query. Rarely have I met people who co-operate so well and help people in any way possible.

Nevertheless, the delays in the Land Registry are unbelievable. Where sub-division, registering of new maps and titles or investigation of titles are concerned there is an extensive backlog of work.

Imposing extra work in connection with the purchase of ground rents will add to the considerable backlog in the Land Registry. An effort is being made to have all titles eventually registered in the Land Registry but I cannot see it happening in my lifetime having regard to the way matters are progressing at the moment. Now there will be the position that matters relating to the purchase of ground rents by tenants will have to be dealt with in the Land Registry. The Registrar of Titles has sufficient work without imposing this extra burden on him.

Section 24 states:

(1) The Registrar of Titles shall deal with applications received under this Part in the order in which they are received so far as is consistent with the efficient discharge of all his functions as Registrar of Titles.

This extra burden on the registrar of titles will affect the efficient discharge of his duties. The Land Registry offices throughout the country are performing very useful work. When a person wishes to obtain a county council loan he applies for the loan and his solicitor sends his title, his Land Registry maps and all the other necessary data to the Land Registry. This job normally takes from six to nine months to complete. There are so many of these applications that the work of the Land Registry has expanded enormously and the addition of an extra burden will add further to their difficulties. In many of the buildings there is no room to accommodate additional staff. The Minister should look into this matter.

There are country registrars' offices in all counties. When an application from a person in Wexford is submitted it is sent to the country registrar in that country and there is no difficulty in having the person involved call to the country registrar's office to explain the position. With the help of the county registrar the application can be made without the assistance of a solicitor. We are trying to cut down on the cost for tenants involved in the purchase of ground rents. With the assistance of officials in the county registrar's office people could save themselves legal costs in preparing their applications.

It costs £5 for the issuing of a vesting certificate and the charge in respect of arbitration is £12. In our proposals we suggested a fee of £2 for a Circuit Court office fee. We are talking about people who are trying to pay off mortgages and who have hire purchase commitments in addition to their day-to-day living costs. The measure proposed by the Coalition provided for a lower fee of £2. In the present legislation the fees will vary from £5 to £12.

It would have been much better if the following steps had been taken. First, the application should be made in the office of the country registrar who is attached to each country. It would be done on a local basis, the applicant would not incur heavy travelling expenses, the county registrar would probably be aware of the circumstances and the application could be lodged by a local solicitor. What the Government are proposing now is that the matter should be sent to the Land Registry where there will be no knowledge of local circumstances. It will mean more expense for the applicant. Secondly, additional staff will be required in the Land Registry office in Dublin to cope with the work.

If the applicant could go to the county registrar's office, with the aid of the county registrar and his staff he could complete his application himself without incurring heavy legal costs. This is an aspect that the Minister should consider seriously because I am convinced it will cause a lot of expense to those affected.

Section 24 (2) states:

When the Registrar is satisfied for reasons submitted in writing by the applicant or any other person concerned that an application is exceptional in that compliance with the duty imposed by subsection (1) in respect of it would result in serious inconvenience or substantial loss to any such person, he may deal with the application otherwise than in the order in which it was received.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

All this is detail on sections and should be raised properly at Committee Stage. When that stage is reached the Deputy will have every opportunity of raising these questions but he is not in order in doing so now.

Mr. Enright

The point I am trying to make is that if there is to be a situation in which I, for instance, made a normal application for the purchase of my fee simple but found that I was left behind in the queue, I would be entitled to know why I was left behind. There would need to be a very substantial reason for me being treated in this way. Therefore, I am anxious to know why this provision is included. It is important that we have some idea of what the Minister would consider to be serious reasons.

The Bill is a comprehensive one and provides for a number of situations. I am sure there will be no difficulty in putting it through. The provision regrading the prohibition of the creation of further ground rents is to be welcomed.

I understand that the purchase price of the leases will vary in accordance with prevailing interest yields on Government securities. Perhaps the Minister would elaborate in specific terms as to what the cost is likely to be in these circumstances. It is important that we have this information. On the face of it the situation would not appear to be satisfactory having regard to the fluctuations that can occur in the prices of Government stock. This cost can vary from 3 per cent to 15 per cent which was the yield on land bonds at one stage. This represents a substantial differential. I can envisage a situation in which there will be substantial fluctuations in regard to the prices that will be agreed.

A difficulty that may arise relates to a situation in which much of the work involved may extend beyond the five-year period. I should like the Minister to tell us to what extent a person will be expected to go in order to prove his claim to title. I am talking of the person who is living in the house concerned. There may be circumstances in which there is a tenant in the house on a weekly or a monthly basis while the owner is living elsewhere. Presumably it will be incumbent on an applicant to produce title documents.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has been on Committee Stage for the past 15 minutes despite the fact that we have not got anywhere near that Stage yet.

Mr. G. Collins

It appears that the Deputy is on a filibuster rather than on Committee.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Nobody knows better than the Deputy that he is out of order by raising these matters on Second Stage.

Mr. Enright

It is not my wish to have a difference of opinion with you. Consequently I accept your ruling.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It is not a question of a difference of opinion. I have told the Deputy about four times that he is out of order.

Mr. Enright

I would merely ask you to listen to one point, that is, that it is not clear from the Bill as to what will be the purchase price that a tenant will be expected to pay. The Bill should have been more specific in this regard. If the Chair considers that I am raising matters that are more appropriate for Committee Stage I must accept his ruling, but it is of the utmost importance and is fundamental to the Bill that this information should be included.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I have agreed that it is of the utmost importance, but the Deputy will have many opportunities of raising it on Committee Stage.

Mr. Enright

I shall not go into too much detail on it. In relation to the legislation in general I submit that the Bill brought in by the Minister's predecessor went at least as far as if not a stage further than this one. It would have been a far more helpful Bill but it was not accepted. The two Bills in the process of being enacted in regard to this matter are merely a padding, with some slight amendments, of what the former Minister proposed.

Much has been said of the promise in the manifesto in regard to ground rents, and I shall not delay the House by dwelling on that now except to refer to the statement that Fianna Fáil, if returned to office, would provide a scheme that would lead to the abolition of existing residential ground rents. It depends upon one's interpretation of it. The most the Minister has done is to resurrect what his predecessor left behind. Many people believed that State help would be given to buy out ground rents. A large number of people were under this impression. In fact, the State could have provided the money to purchase ground rents at very little cost to the Exchequer and the money would have been well spent. The situation is that people may buy out their ground rents if they wish and pay the cost themselves.

The Minister set out the position in regard to Land Registry costs. Why has the Minister specified the five-year period? If the legislation is satisfactory, why is the five-year period necessary? I cannot understand why we must have this five-year restriction and I believe that no specific period should be mentioned. If it is good legislation it should be able to stand the test of time. I imagine that the reason for this restriction is that during this time there will be such confusion in the Land Registry that it will be absolutely impossible to accept any further cases. If there are enormous numbers of applications the Land Registry will not be able to cope. At present the staff are working to their utmost capacity and if there are, say, 15,000 applications each year over a five-year period then the Land Registry will slow down and stop. In three or four years' time the registrar will tell the Minister that they cannot clear the backlog of work. The Registrar of Titles will have to accept the titles furnished by the landlords in trying to get their compensation. The tenant pays his money and gets his certificate of qualification and the landlord then proves his title to his money. At that stage the Land Registry will be unable to cope.

It would seem that the members of ACRA are very anxious to buy out their ground rents. They have a very large membership throughout the whole country and they will urge their members to make application before the end of the five-year period. Probably they will advise their members to lodge their applications immediately and the situation will be such that the scheme will be unworkable. This will cause great difficulty. I would ask the Minister to have this matter dealt with by the county registrars. This would be more efficient and would spread out the work over the Twenty-six Counties.

Irrespective of what the Minister says, the vast majority of people were under the impression that funds would be provided for the purchase of ground rents. Many people are disappointed that the money is not being provided. It would have been well spent in helping people to buy out their fee simple. It is important that this Bill should go through. There is much goodwill attached to it, as there was to the Bill brought in by the Minister's predecessor, I have summarised the situation and it is important that we bring about some necessary improvements. I wish the Bill a speedy passage.

Mr. Bruton

I should like to express surprise at the fact that there have been so few backbench speakers from the extensive ranks of Government supporters coming in to praise this measure, vaunted so much during the election campaign by canvassers and speakers for the party now in power and used by them as a means of winning votes. Why are the Government so anxious that there should not be a full debate on this issue? Why are they muzzling their backbenchers and preventing them from speaking? Since 11.30 a.m. there has been only one backbench Fianna Fáil speaker. In the budget debate Fianna Fáil speakers have been insisting, in contrast to previous practice when there were two parties in Opposition, that Fianna Fáil should get one speaker for every speaker from the Opposition—in other words, there should be two Fianna Fáil speakers for every Fine Gael speaker or Labour speaker. They are so concerned that they should be allowed to speak that it is surprising to me and many others that in this debate, which they pretended to consider important, they have contributed only one speaker. It suggests that they are anxious to have this debate concluded at the earliest opportunity, swept away as quickly as possible.

They are concerned to do so because they realise, as we realise—and the people will realise all too well when they come to operate the provisions of the Bill—that it is not what they were given to believe would be enacted by Fianna Fáil if they were returned to power. Indeed, this Bill is very different, from what Fianna Fáil pretended they would do and it is very little different, if different in any significant respect, from the Bill the Coalition Government had brought to Committee Stage here. No wonder they do not want this debate to be prolonged. No wonder they do not want the Bill to be scrutinised here because, if it is, it will be seen to be what it is, namely, the Coalition's Bill on ground rents dressed up under a new name and delayed for more than six months—in fact, delayed for almost a year. That is all this Bill is. No wonder Fianna Fáil do not want it discussed.

I would like to ask another question and I am sure the Minister will be able to answer it, as he is very anxious to get in to reply, and I am sure he will be able to devote a considerable time to answering not only this question but all the other questions raised in the course of the debate. Why was this Bill not introduced in the last session? Why wait until 1978 to introduce the Bill? After all, the Bill is, as I said, little different from the Bill introduced by Senator Pat Cooney when he was Minister for Justice? The drafting changes are of little significance. In fact, all the work had been done by the parliamentary draftsman prior to this Government taking office. There are some small changes but, that being the position, why was the Bill not introduced last session? Why did they not put it at the top of their legislative programme? Why did they give priority to the Agricultural Credit Bill, a purely consolidating measure containing practically no new provisions? Why did they insist on the Bill going before this one taking up parliamentary time in what, I agree, was a very useful debate and one that I am glad took place, but was certainly not something that was promised in the election campaign and certainly not something urgent because, with a few exceptions, all the provisions were already on the Statute Book and were merely being re-enacted in this consolidating measure which we discussed at great length.

For some reason, best known to themselves, a reason, I am sure, the Minister for Justice will be only too anxious to give to the House when he comes to reply, the Government decided to give the Agricultural Credit Bill priority over this measure. It was introduced and discussed on Second Stage and subsequently on Committee Stage. Before they gave this much-vaunted measure its Second Reading they had the Agricultural Credit Bill processed on Committee Stage. Admittedly, the Agricultural Credit Bill was a new Bill in the sense that, although it was a consolidating measure, it had not been introduced in the last Dáil. But a measure very similar to this one had been introduced in the last Dáil. It had been published. The changes involved were small, as I said, and there was no reason therefore why it should not have been introduced immediately on the commencement of the new Dáil after the summer of 1977. Why was it not introduced then? If the Minister believes the benefits conferred on householders by this Bill are important surely the Bill should have been taken during 1977.

Why did the Minister wait to enact this Bill until 1978, Clearly it was because he wanted the longest possible time to elapse between the general election, when all these elaborate promises were made, and the time when this puny product would emerge into the light of day in this House. He hoped obviously that the people who were made such liberal promises during the election would have forgotten the promises by the time the Bill was introduced if he delayed long enough in bringing in the Bill. I do not think he will succeed in his endeavours in this regard and it is our intention to make sure that the lack of any real difference between this measure and the measure introduced by the previous Government is made abundantly clear to the electorate by the debate here and by every means we can adopt to bring the facts of the situation to the public.

There is another consequence of the delay, the quite unnecessary delay, in bringing this measure in. The terms available to tenants wishing to buy out their ground rents are less favourable because of the decline in the rate of interest on loans in the interim than they would have been under the measure brought to Committee Stage by Senator Cooney when he was Minister for Justice. The interest rate on the National Loan has come down from 13 per cent to 11.5 per cent. The multiplier has been increased and this will mean that the cost of purchasing ground rents will be increased.

Why was this small change made in regard to the agency responsible for implementing the Bill from county registrars to the Land Registry? County registrars are accessible to the public all over the country. The Land Registry is located in Dublin and people living in the country may know the county registrar, some even personally, while they may have little or no reason to be familiar with the Land Registry situated here in Dublin. County registrars are always very helpful when they are approached. No longer will it be possible for people to go to the country registrar in Manorhamilton, Roscommon, Castlebar or elsewhere. They must go to Dublin to the Land Registry. Many of them will not know where the Land Registry is. Even if they are told where it is they may have difficulty in finding it because they are not familiar with the city. Obviously they will have to engage a solicitor.

I agree people should pay something towards the cost of extinguishing ground rents. When they were purchasing houses they were not concerned with ground rents; all they were concerned with was getting houses. It is only when they have the house that they scrutinise the terms under which they are there and that the ground rent seems to be a burden. In theory and in contract they did buy the house with the ground rent and they did, in theory at least, freely enter into a contract. Obviously there would be a considerable burden on the Exchequer if it had to provide all the money that was involved to remove the burden from the tenants. To that extent I agree with the Government. In regard to the requirement that there should be a contribution by the tenant to the cost or buying out the ground rent, there is justification for the measure in the Bill.

The point I want to make is that this was not the impression, rightly or wrongly, that the people got during the election campaign. The impression they got was that ground rents were going to be abolished. Obviously ground rents could not be abolished other than by Government action. To say that ground rents were to be abolished by the simultaneous, by the voluntary action of every holder of a tenancy under a ground rents is illogical. There is no way that one can guarantee that every holder of a ground rent will opt for the provisions of this Bill. If one person does not opt, even though all the others opt, then a ground rent continues and ground rents have not been abolished and the promise has not been fulfilled.

To pretend that ground rents could be abolished by simply allowing people the facility to opt to extinguish them is not abolishing them and is not a fulfilment of the promise to abolish them. The impression was clearly given that Fianna Fáil were going to abolish ground rents. They were not going to allow people to get rid of them themselves. They were going to abolish them simpliciter. That is not happening under this Bill. Under this Bill people can only opt to get rid of their own ground rent.

I understand that a number of local authorities are ground landlords and I know of one. Perhaps Deputy Mitchell will be able to correct me if I am wrong in the assertion that Dublin Corporation own ground rents in Tallaght. They bought land by a compulsory purchase order for house building and in doing so they bought out the right to the ground rent. To all intents and purposes they have now taken over the burden of financing local authorities, certainly in urban areas because they have taken over domestic rates. So they are in a position to call the tune as far as local authorities are concerned and they are in a position to provide the money.

As they have promised to introduce a scheme leading to the abolition of ground rents, I should like to know if they are going to insist that local authorities hand over the rights to the ground rents free to any tenants who are paying them ground rents in places such as Tallaght. Surely where the State itself or one of its agencies is the ground landlord they should lead the way, even if it was not possible for the Government to fulfil their promise. If it is not possible for them to do it where the ground landlord is a private person surely it is possible for them to implement their promise in full where the ground landlord is a local authority, an agent or body acting on behalf of the public, a body over whose financial operations the Government have considerable influence by virtue of the fact that they are now providing the money for the operations of the local authority. Surely the Government have the opportunity of enabling the local authorities to extinguish any ground rents which they hold by giving them the necessary money. I understand that this Bill does not even apply to local authorities. Therefore, the Government have the option to deal with this matter.

When this debate resumes I hope we will see many Fianna Fáil backbenchers discussing this measure and I hope we will hear some critical voices in relation to it. We have been told that the "think-tank" continues. I would ask the Taoiseach or the Minister for Justice to ask the "think-tank" to have a look at this Bill.

Debate adjourned.