I desire to move an amendment to this section. When this Bill was introduced in the Dáil it was thought by town commissioners in country districts that it would be of great benefit to them, but on examination of Section 14 it was found that it was only applicable to the County Borough of Dublin or to such urban county districts as may by resolution passed, have adopted it. I have been asked by numbers of different town commissioners to move an amendment to make the Bill applicable to towns with over 1,000 population. But I find now that there is a Money Resolution tacked on to the end of the Bill which, I believe, takes away from this House the power of amending it.
STREET TRADING BILL, 1925—THIRD STAGE.
Sections 1 to 13 were agreed to.
SECTION 14.
(1) The council of any county borough (other than the County Borough of Dublin) or of any urban county district may by resolution passed after such notice as is hereinafter mentioned adopt this Act, and upon the coming into operation as hereinafter provided of such resolution this Act shall apply to such borough or urban district subject to the following modifications, that is to say:—
(i) references to the City of Dublin shall be construed as references to the borough or urban district of the council by whom the resolution was passed,
(ii) references to the Corporation shall be construed as references to that council,
(iii) references to the Commissioner shall be construed as references to the principal officer of the Gárda Síochána in that borough or urban district.
(2) The council of any county borough or of any urban county district which has duly adopted this Act under this section may at any time thereafter by resolution passed after such notice as is hereinafter mentioned rescind the adoption of this Act, and upon the coming into operation as hereinafter provided of such resolution this Act shall cease to apply to such borough or urban district.
(3) A resolution under this section adopting or rescinding the adoption of this Act shall not be of any force or effect unless not less than one month's notice of the meeting at which the resolution is passed and of the intention to propose the resolution thereat has been given to every member of the council and been published by advertisement in at least two newspapers circulating in the borough or urban district.
(4) Notice of the passing of a resolution under this section adopting or rescinding the adoption of this Act shall within one month after such passing be sent to the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Local Government and Public Health and be published in at least two newspapers circulating in the borough or urban district and the resolution shall come into operation on such day (not being less than one month after the first publication of such notice) as shall be specified in the resolution.
(5) The production of a copy of a newspaper in which notice of the passing of a resolution under this section is published shall until the contrary is proved be evidence that the resolution mentioned in such notice was duly passed in accordance with this section.
CATHAOIRLEACH
I do not quite follow that. This Bill is not certified as a Money Bill.
Then, if I am in order, I should like to add an amendment to sub-section (1) with a view to making the Bill apply to towns with over 1,000 population and having a local body.
CATHAOIRLEACH
Have you given the Minister in charge of the Bill notice of your intention to move this amendment?
No, but there was a similar amendment moved in the Dáil and the Minister objected to it there.
CATHAOIRLEACH
Then he will not be so much taken by surprise.
We were told that there were ample powers to be found in the Towns Improvement Act of 1854, but I think that is going rather far back, and I think it would be of great benefit if we had an amendment such as I propose. The Minister seemed to think that the object was entirely to prevent competition in trade. I do not think so. One of the principal reasons why we desire the extension of this Bill is to prevent certain persons coming in with stands and lorries and creating dirt in the streets and causing a nuisance. In some of these towns the market day is Saturday, and the result of the street traders is that the streets are left in a filthy condition on Sunday. There are certain towns in the country that have a certain amount of civic pride and like to see their streets clean, particularly on Sundays. There are also some towns in the West where the streets are very narrow. In Tuam, in Roscommon, and in Castlebar there are streets in which two cars could not pass, even without having any stands or carts in the way, and I think it would be of great benefit if the town commissioners in these towns were able to say whether such stands as those erected by street traders would be permitted in very narrow streets.
CATHAOIRLEACH
May I suggest that the terms of the amendment are too vague? It speaks of towns with local bodies.
Towns that have town commissioners.
CATHAOIRLEACH
That would not meet your purpose, for there are towns governed by local authorities that are not commissioners. If you put it this way: "towns under the control of a local authority," I think that would cover the case, unless you like to put in a definition and set out a limit of population so as to avoid a place that might be described as a town but would be too small for your purpose.
Towns under the control of town commissioners would do as well.
CATHAOIRLEACH
I think you would be wiser to put in "under control of local authority."
Very well. I will ask the Minister to reconsider the attitude he took up in the other House in regard to this matter. The Minister referred us to the Act of 1854, but that is going back very far, and he also said we could get civic powers. Well, Tuam is an instance where they tried some years ago to get civic powers, in fact there was a big lawsuit there, but they failed to get these powers, so that it is not so easy to get civic powers as may be thought.
The Bill as it stands applies primarily to the County Borough of Dublin, and it can be adopted by any urban council. The purpose of the Senator's amendment is to extend the Bill so that it can be adopted by the town commissioners of any town. An amendment substantially similar to that moved by the Senator was moved in the Dáil, and, on consideration, rejected. I think the Senator's point about the Money Resolution is that I remarked in the Dáil that the Money Resolution did not cover an extension of the Bill to the case of a town which had town commissioners, or the case of towns other than those controlled by a county borough council or an urban council. I suggested that possibly if there was a feeling in favour of extension to the borough towns governed by town commsisioners it might be necessary to secure an altered financial message from the Governor-General, and to bring into the Dáil a new Money Resolution. Apart from that, and simply taking the Senator's amendment on its merits, I objected. The Bill was introduced not to eliminate street trading but to control and regulate it, and also it was introduced primarily from the traffic angle—the angle of preventing obstruction. In the Dáil an attempt was made to give a swing to the Bill in an entirely different direction, and to alter and use it so as to exterminate the street trader. That is not the purpose of the Bill. It is not its purpose to lay down what form of competition is or is not legitimate with the traders of a town. It is not the purpose of the Bill to say whether the shop of the future is going to be a stationary shop or a movable shop.
We simply approach the matter from the point of view of keeping the streets and pathways of the towns and cities reasonably free from obstruction, and not from the point of view of wiping out and eliminating the rather harmless class of people who make their living by traffic in small wares without having attained to the prosperity which would enable them to have premises on which they would pay rates. The Senator's point about fair-day obstruction is to be treated very carefully, and for the reason that the Bill will not apply at all to that kind of sale and purchase which takes place in any market or fair. The very idea of a market or fair is that the people will come together to buy and sell. There is this peculiarity, that the people who are anxious to outlaw the street traders in the country towns on the grounds of obstruction, the cleanness of the streets, and so on, will not enforce the powers they have under the Towns Improvement Act of 1854 to keep the fairs or markets within reasonable limits. When the Guards make any attempt to prevent a fair straggling down the length of a town there is considerable indignation on the part of the traders whose premises are scattered along the streets of the town.
Not only will the town commissioners not attempt to keep a fair or market confined to some open space, but they resent strongly any tendency on the part of the police to do that, and yet from the same quarter you are urged to extend to towns governed by town commissioners, or others, so that the street traders may be legislated out of existence. The street trader may be not merely a very harmless but a useful individual, a man who comes into fairs or markets to sell cattle or pig troughs. He may be to the farmers of the country a very useful person and may enable them to secure goods of that description cheaper than they would get them in the shops; so that it is not entirely a one-sided matter, and the Senator ought not to jump to the conclusion that the street trader is necessarily prima facie a pest to be exterminated by statute. That certainly is not the outlook which inspired this Bill. It was simply that street trading, particularly here in the city of Dublin, is rather outstepping the limits, and that powers are needed by the police and local authorities to keep it within reasonable measure and see that it does not develop into abuse and obstruction, and spoil the amenities of the city. I have not just the same sympathy with the move to extend this Bill wholesale through the country. Everyone knows it is not the same problem. You have not got it in the same proportion in the country towns that you have it here in the County Borough of Dublin. I think we have gone quite far enough in agreeing to allow the state of affairs whereby urban councils may adopt this Bill by resolution.
The suggestion that town commissioners should have that power is scarcely acceptable. The Money Resolution, as I say, can confine the matter to the county boroughs and the urban councils, and the long title of the Bill does likewise. Apart from technical difficulties of that kind, I am not of opinion that any strong case can be made for the inclusion of towns controlled by town commissioners. Most towns that have not an urban council but have town commissioners are small. There are a few exceptions; Mullingar would be one, and Tuam, which the Senator quoted, would be another.
The adoption by a town of a system of control by town commissioners, or the retention of that system of control, is largely due to the desire for small rates. Town commissioners are confined to a rate of 2/-, and the objection very often to applying for urban powers is simply that it is felt it is just as well to have that limit on the rates. If a real case is made for the extension of this Bill to towns controlled by town commissioners, it is scarcely too much to expect that such towns would apply for and obtain from the Minister for Local Government and Public Health the power to establish an urban council. In towns controlled by town commissioners the only congestion of traffic which could arise would be on the market or fair days, and, as I have said, the powers of the Bill do not extend to fair or markets. If town commissioners let their fairs straggle through the town for business reasons they cannot complain. They could prevent that under the Act of 1854. Even if they had the powers of this Bill they could not prevent a street trader trading wherever the fair or market can be said to exist.
If the Senator had in mind the idea that if the town commissioners could get this Bill they could keep street traders from selling on the streets on fair or market days, they could not. There must be the right of free trade wherever the fair or market exists. If town commissioners have made up their minds that a fair or market is to extend right down the street and run, perhaps, up the side street, then the street trader can go wherever the fair is. I think the real trouble is that the far-reaching powers which the town commissioners have under the Act of 1854 are scarcely used, and when the Senator says, "Do not let us go so far back as the Act of 1854," the Act is current law and can be used by town commissioners if they want to use it. They do not want to use it. They consider it good business to have a straggling fair. If they have a straggling fair, they must put up with the attendant inconveniences, and one of the attendant inconveniences is that the street trader has the fullest liberty to sell wherever the fair goes.
In view of what the Minister has said I ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question—"That Section 14 stand part of the Bill"—put and agreed to.
Sections 15 and 16 and the Title ordered to stand part of the Bill.
The Bill was ordered to be reported.
The Seanad went out of Committee.
Bill reported, without amendment.
The Seanad went into Committee.