When I saw Senator Staines' amendment I found it very difficult to understand what he was trying to achieve. He has, to some extent, made his intentions clear in his speech to-day, although the confusion was rather accentuated by what Senator Brown said. As Senator Johnson has stated, this amendment achieves nothing. Its insertion in the Bill will only disimprove its appearance without altering the legal position in any way. The Bill provides that there shall be paid from the County Borough of Dublin a sum equal to the amount of a rate of ? in the pound on the rateable value at the beginning of the immediately preceding financial year. There is nothing sacrosanct about ?. What is required from the City of Dublin and each of the other boroughs is a fixed sum. The rate they will have to levy in one year or another has to produce that fixed sum. It may vary and it will vary, but the amount required for the purposes of the Bill is a sum equal to the amount of ? in the pound on the rateable value at the beginning of the immediately preceding year. Senator Staines obviously wants to alter that to ensure that an actual rate of ? will be leviable upon each tenement and hereditament. The amount which shall be paid by each county borough for the purposes of this Bill will vary from year to year. The rate will not vary. It will be fixed at ? and will be payable irrespective of the amount the rate will produce. It is obvious, apart from other considerations, that it would be undesirable to have a variable amount payable. The Bill was framed on the basis of a fixed revenue from certain sources and variable expenditure from the Central Fund. A fixed revenue was required from the Unemployment Insurance Fund, the county boroughs and the urban districts. It would make very little difference to the country, as a whole, if the amount payable from the county boroughs and urban areas varied, but it would make a lot of difference in the financial administration of the Bill. However, there is another consideration.
I want to make it clear that the amendment, in the form in which it has been moved, achieves nothing because it proposes to add an addendum to the sub-section and makes reference to "such hereditaments and tenements." These are hereditaments and tenements rateable to the municipal rate and, as the municipal rate is itself leviable, subject to reductions, variations and remissions, provided by the Local Government and the Housing Acts, no change is in fact achieved. I would like the Seanad, and particularly Senators on one side of the House, to take into account what is proposed. In the first place I may say that the full ? is payable in respect of the added urban areas under the 1930 Act. The Act of 1930 exempts from the limitation imposed on rates leviable in these areas for the purposes mentioned "any charge levied to defray expenses incurred or to meet demands made under any Act passed by the Oireachtas after the 31st March, 1930." As Senator Johnson pointed out, the reduction in the rate in the added urban areas of the Act of 1930 does not come into this question at all. The ? is leviable on the added urban areas as upon the old city. Senator Staines, however, mentioned the case of reductions in valuation or remission of rates granted under certain Housing Acts in order to encourage the building of houses. People did build houses on the strength of that encouragement, and bought houses at prices which were fixed, taking into account the fact that these reductions and remissions in rates for different periods were available; and to come in now and change the law in that respect would be very similar to a definite breach of contract with these people. I think that would be a very serious principle for this House to adopt without clearly knowing where it is going.
In so far as the Bill is concerned, it is essential, in our opinion, that there should be a fixed sum payable for the purposes of the Bill from the county boroughs and the urban areas. The Bill, as it stands, provides for that fixed sum, and the change which Senator Staines obviously intends to make would make that sum a variable sum, and an indeterminate one, changing from year to year in accordance with the changes in the valuation of the area concerned, or the enactment of legislation dealing with the remission of rates, or other changes made by the local authority or by an Act of the Oireachtas. That is the essential thing, in our opinion; but, apart from that, the other arguments which I have mentioned hold weight also. The amendment, as it stands, does not achieve anything. In fact, the amendments are contradictory amendments, and the purpose of the first one, even if it were properly framed, would be nullified by the second amendment if carried. It has been supported by Senator Brown, I think, on a misunderstanding obviously, and I suggest to the Senators that the matter be reconsidered. From the point of view of the Minister responsible for the Bill, I would oppose any amendment which meant that a variable instead of a fixed sum was to be payable, and from the point of view of other considerations, I think that members of the Seanad should oppose these amendments in any case.
