I move:—"That the Bill be read a second time." This is a Private Member's Bill, and it is necessary that some member should move that it be read a second time. The Act of 1926 made provision for houses being decontrolled in three successive stages. The first decontrol took place last year in the case of houses of a high valuation. The second batch of houses would be decontrolled in a month. I think they are houses over £25 valuation. All control will cease on the 24th June, 1929. If no Bill is passed in the interim, five or six thousand houses would be decontrolled on the 24th of June, the rents might be raised and evictions take place, as the case might be. As originally introduced the Bill provided for the continuance of control of houses that will not be decontrolled up to 1934, but, as a result of an agreement between the Government and the authors of the Bill this compromise was agreed upon. This Bill passed the other House in its present form as an agreed measure, all Parties supporting it. The Commission appointed to inquire into the relationship between landlords and tenants is, I think, only about to present its report, and the Government does not seem to be in a position to introduce any legislation of its own pending consideration of that report. This Bill is therefore an interim measure, and, as it passed the other House as an agreed measure, I hope it will also pass this House as an agreed measure.
PUBLIC BUSINESS. - INCREASE OF RENT AND MORTGAGE INTEREST (RESTRICTIONS) BILL, 1928—SECOND STAGE.
I second.
Although I do not formally ask the House to reject this measure, I hope that will not be taken as an indication of agreement on my part. I and others for whom I claim to speak view with the utmost disquietude this tendency to prolong the period of control of property over a class that has been restricted by legislation—in fact the only class you might say that has been restricted continuously since the war—and prevented them sharing the full play of market and economic conditions. It is notorious that house property is the most unpleasant and burdensome class of property one can possess, yet, at the same time, that very class was singled out for a limit, I will not say on their profits, but they were placed on a totally different basis as regards money to any other class of the community. While those engaged in ordinary trade and commerce were able to take full advantage of the market, buying and selling, unrestricted, owners of property were restricted in this way. The period has long since passed when that has any pretence of justification. In this case we know that there is a Town Tenants Commission considering the matter, and that it is about to report. There is the further limitation that this Bill is only for one year. Still I want to make this protest at the tendency to perpetuate these most irksome and unjust restrictions on one class in the community who would be rendering a far greater service by providing further houses. Further houses will never be provided by private enterprise as long as restrictions of this kind are on the Statute Book.
I would like to suggest to Senator Sir John Keane that he is rather inconsistent in complaining of landlords not being allowed to raise rents, seeing that at the last two meetings of the Seanad he complained of the terrible difficulty with which landlords were faced in trying to collect present rents. Notwithstanding that, he wants the right to raise rents although the landlords are not able to collect the present rents. I thought the old argument about rent restrictions militating against the building of houses had been blown sky-high long ago, seeing that control does not apply to any house built since 1919. I cannot see how anyone could seriously suggest that the controlling of old houses is going to operate against the building of new ones.
When this Bill was originally brought in, is it not the case that the extension of control was for very much longer than the period in the present Bill?
That is correct. I introduced certain amendments in the Dáil which were accepted, reducing the Bill to the position in which it is now before this House.
It is only for one year.
For one year. It expires in June next year, and before that we hope to introduce a measure which will deal with the entire relationship of landlord and tenant.