Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 28 Mar 1962

Vol. 55 No. 5

State Lands (Workhouses) Bill, 1961— Second Stage.

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

Minister for Health (Mr. MacEntee)

The purpose of this short Bill is to transfer the workhouse lands and buildings from the State, in which they are at present vested, to the local health authorities.

Prior to 1922 the lands on which the workhouses were built—totalling some 1,700 acres—had passed to the Local Government Board for Ireland. Under the Constitution of Saorstát Éireann, these lands became vested in the State. There was no provision in that Constitution, however, under which these lands, or indeed, any other State lands, could be sold. However, under the State Lands (Workhouses) Act of 1930, the appropriate Minister, now the Minister for Health, was authorised to grant leases of workhouse lands for terms up to 99 years and in fact many of the lands have been so leased.

Article 10 of Bunreacht na hÉireann, provides that "all lands... which belonged to Saorstát Éireann immediately before the coming into operation of this Constitution belong to the State to the same extent as they then belonged to Saorstát Éireann." That Article also provided that provision may be made by law for the management of property belonging to the State by virtue of the Article and for controlling the alienation, whether temporary or permanent, of such property. The State Property Act, 1954, provides for this as respects State lands generally, but this Act does not apply to workhouse lands. Therefore, under the present law, the position of these workhouse lands remains as it was under the Constitution of Saorstát Éireann and the 1930 Act.

Under the 1930 Act, the Minister for Health, as I have mentioned, was empowered to grant leases and licences in respect of the lands for periods of up to 99 years. The local public assistance authority, acting as the Minister's agent, may also grant licences for shorter periods. The income from these leases and licences, whether granted by the Minister or by the local authority, is applied to offset the cost of local expenditure on health services. The receipts from the leases of the lands granted by the Minister to date amount to about £2,250 annually. Additional amounts, much smaller in aggregate, are received by the local health authorities in respect of licences for shorter periods which they have granted.

While the legal position is that the Minister is the principal party in the leasing and the local authority may be his agent, from a practical point of view, I think we can nearly say that the opposite is the case. When the Minister collects the rents he must pass them over to the local authority. His position is in reality little more than that of an estate agent for the local authority. The whole arrangement, imposed by the Constitution of 1922, is anomalous, cumbersome and wasteful and the limitation on the power of disposal is anachronistic and unnecessary.

Professor Hayes

The Minister surely wrote that sentence himself. It is a collection of adjectives which no one but the Minister would think of. The sentence seems to me to be anachronistic and unnecessary and it is also untrue.

Mr. MacEntee

We will leave it to the judgment which students of history will eventually pass upon this transaction. The purpose of this Bill is to rationalise the administration of these lands and bring it into line with the administration of other lands held by local authorities for public purposes.

As to the Bill itself, Section 1 contains the necessary definitions.

Section 2 provides for the transfer of the lands to the local health authorities. These transfers will take effect automatically, on the commencement of the Act, without further legal formalities. The interest in any parcel of land which will pass to the health authority is the present interest of the State in the parcel, that is to say that, if the parcel is not held freehold by the State, the rights of the successors of the person who granted the lease originally for workhouse purposes are preserved.

The section also provides that the benefits of any covenants or agreements, which may be contained in an existing lease or licence granted since the lands were acquired for workhouse purposes, will be transferred to the health authority.

It is also provided in the section that lands which are at the present time being used by a local authority for purposes other than the health services can continue to be so used and can indeed be regarded as having been acquired for such purposes. One important and beneficial result which should spring from this provision is that, in cases where labourers' cottages have been built on workhouse lands held by the State in fee simple, the county council concerned will be enabled to vest the ownership of such cottages in the tenants who occupy them. Up to now this has not been possible as the county council, as housing authority, would merely have held a lease of the lands for 99 years or less, and, consequently, would not have held the kind of title to the lands which is necessary to enable them to vest the cottages.

With this exception, the lands will, under the Bill, in their future use and disposal be subject to the provisions of the Health Act, 1947. That Act prescribes the procedure to be employed when the disposal of lands held by the health authorities is being undertaken. It contains very full safeguards in regard to such disposals and applies the provisions of Section 83 of the Local Government Act, 1946, to all disposals for more than one year. The section in question provides that the elected members of the local authority must be supplied with very full information concerning any proposed disposal and, if they are not satisfied with every aspect of the disposal, they may veto it. Disposal is also subject to the sanction of the Minister for Health.

Under Section 3 of the Bill, the Minister for Health will be obliged to present half-yearly reports to the Houses of the Oireachtas on disposals of workhouse lands of which he has approved. Leases for less than 21 years will be exempted from this requirement. Similar provision as respects other State lands is contained in the State Property Act, 1954. Though the workhouse lands will not in future be State lands, I have thought it preferable to maintain the practice whereby the Oireachtas is kept informed of important transactions concerning them.

Section 4 provides for the short title and commencement of the Bill. I hope that it will be possible to bring it into operation at the same time for all the lands concerned but in case some unforeseen legal or other difficulty may be encountered in a particular case, the section is so framed that the coming into operation of the transfer of ownership can be deferred for particular lands if that proves necessary.

The proposals in the Bill constitute a minor but, I think, logical step in improving the statute law with which I am concerned and I recommend it to the House.

Professor Hayes

I am in entire agreement with the Minister's last sentence that the proposals in the Bill constitute a minor but logical step in improving the statute law in regard to workhouses and workhouse lands. I shall not follow the Minister into what the poet called the "old unhappy far off things and battles long ago" in any adjectival conflict. The Bill is necessary and desirable and the provision by which the Oireachtas will be kept informed of the proposals for disposing of land is a good one. Therefore the Bill is one to be approved of and accepted.

Miss Davidson

This Bill is a very welcome one in many ways, not the least being the provision which concerns the position of cottiers on these workhouse lands. As the Minister explained, the Bill is for the purpose of transferring the lands and buildings of former workhouses to the local authorities. Local authorities who had such lands will be enabled to permit the occupants of cottages on the land to be vested, which was something they were prevented from doing while they did not own the land.

Mr. Brady

I welcome this Bill very much. I am very pleased about the position of labourers' cottages. We carried out a housing scheme on the lands of one workhouse. Now the houses can be vested in the occupiers. I remember the old Scariff Workhouse which is a half a mile from where I live. We established a creamery there. We also gave leave to people to build houses. There are about five or six more workhouses. We had about nine and now there are about six more on hands. Now they can be disposed of to advantage, for instance, for factories or something like that. As I was saying, the cottages built on those workhouse lands will be able to get the benefit of vesting.

Mr. MacEntee

I am grateful to the Seanad for the manner in which it has received this Bill. As for the "battles of long ago" I suppose they are now more often a subject for jest than real earnest debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining Stages now.

Bill put through Committee, reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.