As the Chair has stated, amendment No. 1 is in the nature of a recommittal amendment which did not arise on the previous stage in this House, or indeed in the other House. It is designed to deal with a matter that has come to my notice fairly recently, in fact, since the last hearing here and I think it should be remedied.
The object of the amendment is to extend the protection of the Rent Restrictions Act, 1960, to occupiers of houses holding under long leases, provided that they are occupying the houses at the passing of this Bill and continue in occupation right up to the expiration of the lease. In that event, when the lease expires they will at least have the security of tenure provided by the Rent Acts on paying a rent which, while higher than the existing rent under the lease, will nevertheless be well below the open-market rent.
The amendment remedies what seems to me to be a defect in the 1960 Act in that it did not continue protection for sitting tenants under long leases in the same way as it did for sitting tenants on shorter terms. It was one of the objects of the 1960 Act to decontrol owner-occupied houses, so that any owner-occupier could subsequently, if the need arose, let his house free of control. Many of these owner-occupiers — probably the great majority of them—would be leaseholders themselves paying rents in the nature of ground rents, and it was necessary to classify these as owners so as to enable them to let their property free of control. Otherwise very little accommodation would have been made free of control because, as I have said, most of the owner-occupied property is ground-rented.
An incidental effect of this decontrol was, however, to remove the protection of the Rent Acts from all these houses, even when they remained in owner-occupation; and when the long leases expired these tenants had no longer the security of tenure and the restricted rent provided for by these Acts. This situation did not give rise to difficulty in the years following 1960 because, presumably, the leaseholders concerned had rights of renewal under the Landlord and Tenant Acts 1931 and 1958 and, in the case of a renewal under the 1958 Act, their rights to a 99 year lease at a fraction of the letting value were far more valuable than those they would have under the rent restrictions code. Quite recently I have been informed that there are a number of leases in the Dún Laoghaire and Sandycove areas and indeed, very probably in other areas also, where the lessees have no rights of renewal at all under these Acts. Some of these leases have already expired and this amendment does not apply to them but I understand that others are due to expire in the comparatively near future.
The amendment I propose should remedy this lacuna in the code and ensure that these tenants will have protection under the Rent Restrictions Act.
Under the amendment these leaseholders, provided they remain in occupation until their leases terminate, will have the protection of the Rent Acts against eviction and arbitrary increases of rent. I think this is fair. The persons concerned have all paid substantial sums for their houses and they have a greater equity than tenants on shorter terms to such protection. The amendment might be more appropriate really to Landlord and Tenant legislation but whether it is more appropriate to that code or the present code—both codes are really related—I feel, now that this defect has been brought to my notice, that inequities have arisen and a greater number of inequities are likely to arise in the future. I think the Seanad should pass this amendment to remedy the situation.
