This Bill is rather urgently required. At the moment only about four hundred and twenty Civic Guard Stations have been established. The total establishment provides for eight hundred and seven stations, and there has been considerable difficulty in placing the Civic Guard, even in such important towns as Mallow, Carrick-on-Suir, Claremorris, and other large centres. I have a recollection that it took considerable negotiations before we could open a station in Tullamore. The underlying principle of this Bill is simply that in the face of a big common need, an urgent public necessity, I submit it is necessary to ask individual citizens to waive the fullness of their legal and property rights. We ask power for the Board of Works to acquire premises compulsorily. Naturally, in the exercise of that power the greatest possible care will be taken to see that the minimum of hardship or inconvenience is inflicted on citizens, but that it is necessary to get the Guard out quickly should be obvious to everyone. We are within, I suppose, a couple of months of an election, and generally, it would greatly expedite the return of the country to normal conditions to have a full police establishment in the shortest possible space of time. I think that there will be very little question about that. The State has always, in the face of public needs, encroached upon the property rights of individuals to a greater or lesser degree. They have taken land compulsorily for railways, and public works of that kind, and we now ask for compulsory power to acquire premises for the establishment of the police. Section 1 of the Bill provides for that power, and Section 2 provides that due notice be given by the Board of Works to people whose premises it is proposed to acquire. Section 3 is an important section, and deals with the terms on which premises may be acquired:—
"All premises acquired by the Commissioners under this Act shall be acquired for such term of years and at such rent as may be agreed between the Commissioners and the occupier, immediate landlord, or owner (as the case may require), and in default of such agreement shall be taken by the Commissioners on a yearly tenancy terminable at the end of any year of the tenancy by either party on giving three months' previous notice in writing, and subject to a yearly rent to be fixed by the Commissioners.
Whenever the Commissioners acquire any premises under this Act any person (other than a caretaker) who was put out of occupation of such premises or any part thereof in order that the same might be used for the accommodation of members of the Civic Guard shall be entitled to reasonable compensation for disturbance, the amount of which shall in default of agreement be fixed by the Commissioners."
That seems arbitrary, to say that in default of agreement, the amount of compensation shall be determined by the party taking the premises compulsorily, but that is simply a starting point. There is a provision under 5 for an appeal from the decision of the Commissioners, and in order to appeal they must have something to appeal from. The Commissioners, therefore, state the amount they are prepared to pay in compensation, and the aggrieved person has his right to appeal, under Section 5 to this panel of referees appointed under Sections 33 and 34 of the Finance Act.
The Bill is retrospective. It will deal with a few cases where a certain degree of compulsion was exercised in the acquisition of premises. Compensation and the rent that will be fixed under the machinery provided by the Bill will go back to the date on which the Civic Guard entered into occupation. I doubt if it is necessary to urge again on Senators the absolute imperative need of an early distribution of this force in full strength.