The Bill provides for provisions similar to those contained in sections 97, 98 and 99 of the Housing Bill, 1965, which is at present before the Dáil. Under section 2 of the Bill a county council will be enabled during the payment period to waive the statutory restrictions imposed by sections 17 and 21 of the Labourers Act, 1936, on the charging, mortgaging, sub-division or alienation of a cottage or plot.
Labourers Bill, 1965—Second and Subsequent Stages.
Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time.
May I point out to the Minister that it is impossible to hear him from here. I wonder would he speak a little louder since we have not got the Official Reports.
Have we no amplification in the House?
No.
It will have to be provided by myself.
The Minister might use his political meeting voice.
I hope this is not a political meeting.
No.
I shall start at the beginning, if I may. The Bill provides for provisions similar to those contained in sections 97, 98 and 99 of the Housing Bill, 1965, which is at present before the Dáil. Under section 2 of the Bill a county council will be enabled during the payment period to waive the statutory restrictions imposed by sections 17 and 21 of the Labourers Act, 1936, on the charging, mortgaging, sub-division or alienation of a cottage or plot.
Section 3 of the Bill will enable a cottage purchase annuity, at the discretion of the appropriate county council, to be redeemed by payment to them of an amount approved by the Minister. I may mention that the amount to be paid for redemption will not be the current value of the annuity as mathematically calculated but rather an amount related to the current market value of the relevant interest in the cottage or plot.
Section 4 of the Bill provides that if an annuity is redeemed in full or the cottage and plot are acquired by the county council, all of the restrictions applicable during the payment period as respects a cottage, by virtue of the Labourers Act, 1936, shall cease to apply. If the annuity is redeemed in part, the restrictions will cease to apply to the extent determined by the county council. These restrictions include, inter alia, a restrictions on mortgaging, charging, subdivision, the removal from the plot of sand, soil, etc.
The early enactment of the Bill is desirable to facilitate the operating company at Silvermines, County Tipperary, in the raising of the necessary finance for the development of certain mining operations. Negotiations are going forward, on behalf of the mining company to provide a sum of 22,000,000 dollars which will be required for the purpose of developing and bringing the mine into production. In order to be able to raise the necessary finance the company would, inter alia, have to give a debenture secured on all the property. The land held by the company contains a vested labourer's cottage which the company bought from the former vested owner. Since this cottage and plot are held subject to restrictions on mortgages and charging under the 1936 Act, the company would not be able to give a debenture on all the property. In addition, the company would be hampered in their operations by the restriction on the removal of soil, sand, etc., from the plot. Existing legislation does not give the necessary power to waive the restrictions.
We could, of course, await the enactment of the Housing Bill, which contains the necessary provisions, but to do so might delay the operations of the company unnecessarily. I am sure that the House would agree that this would be undesirable in view of the considerable investment and employment which would result in the area from the mining project.
I would like to point out that it is my intention to retain the provisions of the present Bill in the Housing Bill. This will not, of course, affect anything done under the present Bill.
I command the Bill to the House.
I do not know why the Minister was so shy in introducing this Bill because I am sure he anticipates it is one which will command itself to all sections of the House. It has been a very wise procedure on the part of the Minister to agree to taking these sections out of the present Housing Bill and enacting them in this way. When I heard this first, I was wondering whether or not there would be in the year 1965 two pieces of legislation dealing with houses. I am glad to see that it is the Minister's intention to leave the existing sections in the Housing Bill and I take it that these will then be repealed in the Housing Bill. I am sure that is so because it is very desirable to have the whole of the legislative provisions relating to housing in one enactment. I do not think anything much needs to be said upon the Bill. Obviously there was the difficulty in which county councils and county managers found themselves in when they had not got power to waive the restriction on mortgaging and it is desirable that that authority should be vested in them. Of course, the county councils still held the right to retain whatever other restrictions they like in respect of these houses which will be vested in the tenants.
Just one matter occurs to me. I am quite certain it is right, but it appears that it is only county councils that build cottages under the Labourers Acts. I would ask the Minister to confirm that that is so.
Another point arises under section 3 and perhaps the Minister might deal with it in his reply. Upon the redemption of an annuity, on receipt by the council of the amount of the annuity, the property will stand freed and discharged from the payment of the annuity. I am wondering if any further formality is required to discharge the property in question from the annuity, whether any instrument has to be executed by the county council to indicate that the property is discharged from the payment of the annuity. The section seems to suggest that as soon as the county council receives the money, then the burden on the property is discharged.
On behalf of the Labour Party, I should like to support the Bill. It is very desirable that the Bill be passed at this time rather than, as the Minister pointed out, that we should await the enactment of the 1965 Housing Bill. I should like to ask the Minister if he could elaborate a little further on section 3 dealing with the redemption of annuities because during the discussion on this Bill in the Dáil information was disclosed that this section would appear to give extraordinary powers to the county managers in the event of redemption of annuities. I had hoped that the redemption of the annuity contained in the Housing Act of 1965 would mean the paying off of the amount for the period within which the house was on the annuity basis, but it appears from what we have discovered on the discussion of this Bill in the Dáil that that is not so; rather it is to be on the up-to-date valuation of the property. That, to my mind, will nullify any effect the redemption of the annuities and the making of the labourers' cottages freehold would have. It would appear that only those with a very good bank account will be enabled to redeem the annuity and make the property freehold.
Perhaps the Minister would also explain what effect this section is likely to have on the subdivision of vested cottage plots because in the 1965 Housing Bill provision is made for the subdivision of vested labourers' cottages. Will this section have any effect, or will it mean that the county manager or the local authority can say to the owner or the vested tenant of a cottage: "You can only sell or sub-divide that plot provided you pay the market value which I am about to place on it." I should be glad if the Minister would clear up those few points.
(Longford): While I realise this is a piece of ad hoc legislation in relation to a specific case, I take it it will remain part of the permanent legislation on this matter. I wonder if the operation of this section will not create a situation whereby county council cottages built under the Labourers Acts and vested in tenants under a purchase annuity can pass out of the hands of the type of people for whom they were originally intended. To some extent, I am inclined to hold the view that this has happened already. I realise that the principles of the legislation were hard to achieve at any time. I always regarded it difficult to marry two principles that were not easily marriageable, that is, the right of the tenant purchaser to acquire ownership of the house and the desire on the part of the local authority to preserve that particular house for the type of person for whom it was originally intended. Because of pressure in housing and so on, a situation has arisen whereby a person with very little vested interest in a very short time after a vesting order can succeed in getting fairly substantial sums by way of saying to another person: “The local authority, or the manager acting for the local authority, has the duty of ensuring that the sale is made only to a person who would normally be entitled to be housed by the housing authority, during the period of the currency of the annuity.”
Because of that fact, I am wondering if this piece of legislation will make it easier for people who own or who enjoy a vested interest in a county council cottage to sell it advantageously and at the same time sell it to a type of person or to an undertaking for that matter, in this case it is a business undertaking, I understand, and achieve a situation that the house would pass to the sort of person or to an undertaking that it was never intended for. As things are, when a person who has a vested interest in a county council house and during the currency of the purchase and payment of the annuity, that person can sell it but it must ultimately devolve to a sort of person for whom the county council would have responsibility for housing.
I see in that a certain amount of danger because it was so hard to make an Act like that work in practice for the reason I pointed out originally, that it is very hard to achieve a situation whereby the house will only pass by way of sale of the vested interest to the person who should be housed by the housing authority, a person who the housing authority would normally have responsibility for housing, and at the same time to achieve the principle of ownership in a county council house by way of a vest. I should like the Minister to say something on this matter because I feel that this is a means whereby subsidised houses built substantially at public expense, when becoming vested, will ultimately pass, that a large number might pass through this avenue of escape into the hands of people who have no real interest in them except to get them for convenience purposes. It might be a company in one case. Everybody seems to agree on the desirability of this particular issue.
I can see situations develop where a very large farmer who might regard such a house as a nuisance could acquire ownership of a house if we allow this form of thinking to develop. I think there is a principle involved here that we should just have a close look at the direction we are going and how far we are prepared to go in this direction.
This measure is more or less an emergency measure in anticipation of the Housing Bill which is before the Dáil at present. It has come in by reason of the very important mining enterprise which has gone under way recently and, of course, the cottage which was more or less the subject of this Bill was in the very centre of the site—the most important position on the site where they intended to set up their plant and machinery. The 1936 Act did not permit the demolition or the removal of the cottage from that site in order that these mining people could carry out their plan and carry out the development, using this plot, of course, as a portion of the general plant to be established there.
I am interested to know from the Minister whether, in fact, or what the position was before the 1936 Act was introduced. Apparently it was as a result of the 1936 Act that the emergency measure now before us was necessary to bring in. Of course, I know that the Housing Bill, coming before us very soon, is going to deal with that very situation created by the 1936 Act. It would be interesting to know why it was considered in 1936 to bring in the clause which we now find it necessary to remove. This measure, of course, is in anticipation of the Housing Bill. A very big enterprise is concerned here. We are hoping that if the project is successful a large number of people will be employed and, whether or not they are, we know that a large amount of capital will be invested in seeking the minerals from this land which would bring success to the proposed mining enterprise.
Several points arise here. First of all, the question of selling the cottage over the head of the tenant arises and also the rights of the tenant and the rights of the local authority. If the tenant had not taken steps to have the cottage vested for him, I am sure that the decision would be different. The law might not be much different but the position in relation to compensation would be different than if the tenant had, in fact, taken steps to, what they call, buy out his house. He would at that stage have a vested interest. Cottages are subject to different periods for purchase—in relation, of course, to the cost and the Act under which they have been built. You have a situation, I would be interested to know from the Minister here exactly what was the vested interest of the tenant. For example, was it a 75 per cent vested interest? Supposing it was only four years or 20 years on the cottages to go: his vested interest in one case would be lower than in another. I should be interested to know the position from the Minister. Supposing this plot had not been vested in the tenant, would he have a right of compensation apart from disturbance and rehousing? I presume he would have a right to rehousing and compensation for disturbance. If he had a substantial vested interest here, in what way would the compensation be divided? Would the local authority be entitled to a proportion of the compensation paid for the site in which this mining firm is interested and a proportion, of course, to the tenant in relation to his vested interest?
It also raises a point here in the case of land which is owned by a local authority where a tenant is not entitled to have his vested interest measured, such as the site on which a corporation dwelling house stands. I should be very interested to know from the Minister whether provision is made in the Housing Bill for an adjustment with that corporation, particularly Dublin Corporation, because I am not sure that the same situation arises in connection with all corporations such as Limerick Corporation, Galway Corporation and Waterford Corporation where houses under the Labourers Act and under the Working Classes Act have been erected. These are various points that would be useful to clear at this stage. In the course of what Senator O'Reilly had to say, he brought up the question about portion of the plot. Supposing only a portion of the plot was being taken away from the vested tenant or from the land authority, whoever happens to have the right of ownership there, would arrangements be made in relation to the remainder of the plot?
This measure, of course, is agreed and acceptable. It is meeting the demands of the present time and meeting problems which are confronting us. The previous Senator, I think, expressed a view or a fear that if we are to accept this type of legislation we may have a situation where a farmer might go to the county council and says he wants to buy a cottage over the head of some local tenant who might not be a farm labourer but would be a tenant of a particular cottage, the farmer stating that he wanted a farm labourer to reside near him and that this particular man was working in a factory and was not working on the land and pointing out that the cottage was built under the Labourers Act.
There is another situation. If the county council decided to take possession for reasons other than the reason we have in mind now, could they take the cottage from a farm labourer, put him out and hand the cottage, for instance, to an engineer just because they wanted the engineer to live in that particular locality? Does the Housing Bill give power to the county council to put out a man, compensate him and re-house him in order that the county council can use the cottage themselves for other purposes? Generally speaking, I believe the measure before us now is designed to meet a situation where demolition of the cottage is required in order that the earth underneath it may be utilised for the removal of sand, gravel or material. These are some of the points I would like the Minister to deal with in his reply.
Some Senators mentioned ad hoc legislation and emergency legislation. It seems it might be emergency but it certainly is not ad hoc in that it merely refers to the Housing Bill which was before the Dáil prior to the recess. It has now reached the Committee Stage. It is a long Bill and the sections dealing with this matter are sections 97, 98 and 99. As the matter is urgent, we have merely taken out those three sections which are well suited to this particular case and have put them into this smaller Bill, which is before the Seanad, to facilitate the operation of Silvermines. It will have application to all other cases in the interim. When those particular sections are agreed to they will become law but we will not have, as mentioned by Senator O'Quigley, two 1965 enactments dealing with this matter. We will merely have the Housing Bill and this smaller Bill containing those three sections, which will be repealed and contained in it.
The Housing Bill was before the Dáil before this matter arose. Senator O'Quigley asked whether it was only county councils who were concerned with this matter. That is so. They are the only people who are interested in this particular enactment. He also asked whether anything else is required to clear the case, to make it freehold. The plain straight answer is that there is nothing else required but it may well be that Senator O'Quigley may have had something further in mind when he asked about that. If he has we might hear further from him on the section.
Senator J. Fitzgerald and, indeed, Senator O'Reilly raised the matter of the calculation of annuities. Senator Fitzgerald raised this directly and Senator O'Reilly as to the effect of what we are proposing to do. I do not think both Senators were heading in the same direction but they were certainly talking about the same thing. As of now there is no way in which an annuity can be redeemed if it is expired before it runs its full course. The reason for this twist in the section is that we are not only giving this right but we are also saying in the calculation of the amount to be paid it need not necessarily follow it is a purely mathematical calculation or multiplication of the annuity by the number of years yet to run. This is for the straight purpose of ensuring that the fears of Senator O'Reilly are not realised to the degree he foresees. It is intended that this would be used for the purpose of not allowing any commercial venture, company or other source to get their hands on property, to extract from the real owner of the property their property without due compensation. In other words, the annuity outstanding must be calculated as more than the actual value in order to compensate for taking over the property.
It is not unreasonable that we should seek from the new owner or the developer who is going to make something out of this property and make it very much worth his while that the council should get back as much as they can within reason so that they will be enabled, financially, to replace the house which has gone out of their jurisdiction. They will be enabled to replace this house by the money they receive without any undue cost to the ratepayers who originally provided the cottage and contributed towards its cost. If the house is merely for some family settlement or convenience or something like that and the cottage will be retained within the family or near relatives, then clearly the mathematical calculation would be the one which would be operated on.
The other possibility is there for the reason that we do not agree that the property on which the cottage and plot now exist, and which were provided by the State, should be given to a new owner without compensation. If five years of the annuity have to run and the annuity is £2 per year, then the value that will be placed on it by the council would be £10, whereas it might be worth £2,000 or £3,000. If a petrol company wanted a cottage whose frontage was sited on a road they should be required to pay much more than the value of the annuity. It would be very advantageous to them as a petrol filling station and would be of great interest to them. It would be unlikely that the owner of the cottage would sell it unless he was fully compensated for it. There is no reason, if this is what the cottage will be used for, why some of that money should not go back to the council which provided the house in the first instance. The house will disappear as a dwelling and the money could go to the local council to provide another house. There could be a business and it could be objected that you may have a cottage and a plot adjoining this business which may have grown up through hard work by a private individual. It could well be that there is no reason why the particular cottage or plot of land adjoining that shop might not be passed on by virtue of what we are proposing now. It might be passed on to another person, or indeed, utilised by the existing occupant or tenant, who is the vested owner.
He would really have available to him subsidised property to compete with his neighbour who had helped to subsidise it by rates and taxes over the years. He could go into competition with his neighbour who by his own hard work had built up his business, and to take it to the extreme conclusion he might possibly in the last analysis put his neighbour out of business. That is the sort of circumstance we have to take into account in talking about a departure from mathematical calculations.
Senator J. Fitzgerald does not seem to agree with this, and I do not expect that everyone does agree with it, but I think the fears expressed by the Senator as to the implication this may have in restricting the freedom and goodwill that may be said to be now reposing in the long term tenant or the vested owner or purchaser, will not be realised in its actual operation. In the case of a person who for genuine reasons redeems his annuity or subdivides his plot so that his son or his daughter or his son-in-law may build another house, I think the Senator can take it that his fears will be groundless. If I thought otherwise and if I were not able to give that assurance in this type of case, I would look at it again to see if there were not another way of doing this. I have no fears that any damage will be done, or that there will be any loss to these people who may feel that while we are giving with one hand we are taking back with both hands. That is not so. The real intention is to avoid this taking with two hands what is provided by the ratepayers and the taxpayers for the housing of the people under the Labourers Act, 1936.
Senator Rooney raised a number of other questions which, as he said himself, are directed towards the Housing Bill. He asked whether we are providing this, that or the other. I think we will probably have a long stint on the Housing Bill in this House eventually, so perhaps the questions raised by Senator Rooney might be left over until then. I do not intend to reflect on the wisdom of the questions, but I think we should keep to what we are discussing at the moment.
I was wondering whether this Bill lays down the specified purposes for which the plot is being sold, and the conditions.
No. It does not lay down anything in that way.
Question put and agreed to.
Agreed to take remaining Stages today.
Bill considered in Committee.
Section 1 agreed to.
SECTION 2.
Question proposed: "That section 2 stand part of the Bill."
I should like to thank the Minister for his attempted assurance but I am not altogether satisfied with it. The Minister spoke about specific cases but I do not think the petrol companies will be interested in labourers' cottages. They may be in a very, very, few instances. I do not think a situation will arise in which a mining company will be interested in a labourer's cottage. In the exceptional circumstances referred to by the Minister, if a cottage were about to be demolished, I would have no objection to the local authority getting the money to replace that cottage. I am concerned with the ordinary individual who for family settlement purposes would like to redeem the annuity and have it freehold. In the rural areas the Land Commission can take over a cottage from a local authority and consolidate it with a holding. This has been done by two State Departments. I do not think it is right that anyone should put a valuation on a cottage that was built 70 years ago for £100 and say: "Your cottage is worth £1,000 today. You paid £50 by way of annuity, and you have another £50 to pay. We will charge £1,000 for the cottage." I do not think we are conferring any great favour on the tenant of a cottage who wants to redeem his annuity on a basis of that kind.
To come back to subdivision of a vested cottage plot, we have no assurance that there will not be a visit from an executive of a local authority to put a valuation on a rood or a half acre of land that a person wants to subdivide to provide for his son or his son-in-law, or his neighbour for that matter. He can be told: "We will value this at £200. You have already paid £50." I would like an assurance on that matter.
The first thing we should recall is that we are not proposing in this Bill to take something away from people. In fact, we are proposing to give them something they did not enjoy up to now.
At a very high price.
That is not quite so. I have already covered that and although the Senator said he does not feel assured by the assurance I gave, I cannot go any further except to say that in the case of these outside interests being concerned or interested commercially in such cottage plots we are not here providing for something I think will happen. I know of a number of specific cases that have already arisen where these commercial enterprises have been seeking to get cottages and cottage plots for commercial ventures. This is not confined to petrol companies only. I have had cases of public houses and licensed houses before me where the cottage and land in question were required by those people for commercial purposes of various natures. That has been my experience.
So far as subdivision is concerned, it will not be necessary under this provision for the vested owner of a cottage plot to redeem it in order to have subdivision take place. It would be the normal way and probably the most straightforward way, but he need not necessarily do so. In the case of sub-division for the purpose of providing a second house for a member of the family or a near-relative, I imagine the mathematical calculation would be the calculation that would apply in that case, but that is not to say that, in fact, the local authority may not decide some further safeguard is required in certain cases or in all such cases that some covenant would have to be devised and entered into that the house so redeemed before its time would not for so many years thereafter be used for other than residence. This would be to keep everybody honest and, if it were honest, then nobody would be losing anything. That type of undertaking would be understandable where the pure mathematical calculation of the annuity would be the cost of the redemption. Where it was not so and where it was needed for other purposes, then I can see no reason why the local authority should not get back some of the value that this site has grown into; which they provided with ratepayers' and taxpayers' money over the years. But we should keep in mind at this juncture that nobody is forcing the vested owner to redeem. If he is redeeming for other than family reasons then he is doing so for a commercial gain. I take it the total commercial gain would not be going to the local council. In other words, in those circumstances, if the vested owner were not getting something out of it he would not redeem. The only thing I can say is that the local council is entitled to something out of it in circumstances such as those. In any formal arrangement and so on I feel the local council's decision would be the mathematical calculation, possibly with a safeguard that for so many years afterwards the property may not be used for other than a residence.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 3.
Question proposed: "That section 3 stand part of the Bill".
I raised a point on this section on Second Stage and the Minister has given a limited kind of answer. Since the Bill is required urgently and since I raised the point and thus reserve my position when the section comes up on the Housing Bill, I shall leave it over until the Housing Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 4 and 5 agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.