Amendments Nos. 1 and 8 are related and may be taken together.
Landlord and Tenant (Amendment) Bill, 1971: Committee Stage.
SECTION 1.
Government amendment No. 1:
In page 2, to delete lines 19 and 20.
Amendment No. 8, which we are discussing with amendment No. 1, proposes the deletion of the reference to the Act of 1967 in section 7. If this deletion is made, the definition of the Act of 1967 at section 1 is unnecessary and should itself be deleted.
Why does the Minister want to delete it in section 7?
Section 25 of the Act of 1967 amends the Act of 1958 in relation to the time for serving notice of expiration of a building lease or proprietary lease. Section 26 of the Act of 1967 amends the Act of 1958 in relation to the fraction of gross rent represented by the rent under a reversionary lease. The provisions of those sections are irrelevant to the grant of a sporting lease. The Bill already contains in section 3 (2) a provision dealing with the time for serving notice of expiration of a sports club's lease. Again, the rent fixed under a reversionary lease granted under the Act of 1958 has no relevance to the rent under a sporting lease which, where fixed by the court, will be fixed in accordance with section 6 of the Bill.
Amendment agreed to.
Section 1, as amended, agreed to.
SECTION 2.
Government amendment No. 2.
In page 3, subsection (2) (b), to delete subparagraph (ii), lines 9 to 11, and to substitute the following:
"(ii) on reconstructing, altering, renovating or adapting any permanent buildings or structures on the land which are so used so as to render them more suitable for that purpose, or".
This is a drafting amendment. Section 2 (2) (b) (ii) of the Bill, as introduced, implies that only expenditure on reconstructing, altering, renovating or adapting permanent buildings or structures that were erected by the sports club can count towards the expenditure required by section 2 (2) (c). The purpose of the amendment is to make it clear that expenditure by the club on reconstructing, et cetera, permanent buildings or structures that were already on the land will also count towards satisfying the expenditure requirements. This amendment will bring the provision into line with the recommendations of the commission. In other words, where, as happens in quite a number of these cases, a sort of mansion house is taken over with the land, working on that will satisfy the requirements. You do not have to build from scratch.
What is the position regarding prefabricated buildings and demountable type structures? Will these stay in the existing category as being only temporary? There is quite a range of prefabs now.
They are building these kind of things now. They are regarded as permanent.
This amendment deals with permanent buildings. I thought Senator McDonald might have raised the point, which to me seems to be relevant, that there is no mention of replacing. This would be particularly relevant to the type of building he is referring to now. This is limited to reconstructing, altering, renovating or adapting.
Of course "erection" is also in. The reason I have amended it in this way is to show that you are not confined to erecting buildings. If you reconstruct, alter, renovate, or adapt you can qualify also.
I think the Minister will agree that reconstruction must be taken as being related to something that is in existence and can be reconstructed, but in the particular type of mobile home building that Senator McDonald has in mind it would be a question of a complete replacement.
"Replacing" would be covered by "erecting". If you replace something by putting something new there you erect something new in place of it.
You are cutting out "erecting". There is no "erecting" in the amendment.
I am not. It is out mentioned in the amendment but it is in section 2 (2) (b) (i). Section 2 (2) (b) (i) is alternative to section 2 (2) (b) (ii).
Can we take it that any expenditure laid out on a temporary type building would not qualify for the £1,000 mentioned later on in the Bill, although I do not think you could even put up a convenience for £1,000 nowadays.
If it is a marginal case I suppose it would be a matter for the court to decide in the particular circumstances of each case. I am sure the court would take into account that nowadays a lot of building consists of structures of a type which ten or 20 years ago would have been regarded as temporary but which are expected to last a good period now. This is so in relation to school building and matters of that kind. It is very hard to lay down hard and fast rules. In a Bill of this kind it is wrong to lay them down because you will exclude too many from it. The court would take all the factors into account when the problem arose.
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 3:
In page 4, subsection (7) to delete "3rd day of March, 1970" where it occurs and substitute "10th day of August, 1971".
In moving this amendment I noted the Minister's explanation for this date in his Second Reading speech. My information is that this piece of legislation is designed to meet two or three isolated and individual cases in the country. This would appear to me to be an extraordinary situation. I have put in this amendment which substitutes for the date of 3rd March, which is the one proposed in the Bill, the date of 10th August, which was the date fixed by the House for a Second Reading of this Bill. I do not think people with vested interests should be able to come along and order Bills to suit their own particular isolated cases. For that reason I think it is perhaps setting a rather dangerous precedent. I would prefer to see the date on which Bills usually become law, either from the date of the passing of the Act or from the date, as suggested here, that the Bill was given a Second Reading or ordered to be printed.
On 3rd March, 1970, the Government decided that the legislation concerning sports clubs should operate from that date. An official news item to that effect was issued on that day. As the news item explained, this decision was taken by the Government because of the inevitable lapse of time before the legislation could be enacted. The purpose of giving publicity to the Government's decision was to put all the parties concerned on notice so that any negotiations would be conducted in the knowledge of the proposed changes in the law.
The kind of proposal contained in section 2 (7)—that an entitlement to a right given by an Act of the Oireachtas should operate from a date antecedent to either the introduction or the enactment of the legislation—is not an innovation in the field of landlord and tenant law. Each of the Landlord and Tenant Acts of 1931, 1958 and 1967 contains provisions enabling lessees whose leases had expired up to five years before the date of the passing of each of the Acts, to exercise for limited periods some or all of the rights conferred by those Acts as though their leases had not expired.
I cannot accept Senator McDonald's statement that this Act was brought in to cover two or three isolated cases throughout the country. That is not so. There are a great many sports clubs of one kind or another in difficulties of tenure and they are under increasing pressure, and have been for some years past. It is not a question of just two or three or anything like it. It is very much more than that. I can only talk about the ones I know of, those who from time to time over the years made representations to my Department or to the commission about it. I am sure there are a lot more who have not discovered as yet that they may be in difficulties or that they could be in difficulties because of this.
One practical effect of Senator McDonald's amendment, although I do not like to talk about specific cases since he suggested that there were only two or three, would be that the two clubs in particular that I could name offhand, whose leases expired since 3rd March, 1970, would be wiped out overnight. They are Abbeyleix and Lucan. So far as I know Abbeyleix and Lucan will probably benefit under the Bill, assuming that they fulfil the conditions about expenditure and all the rest of it. One assumes they do that and, assuming they do, if I were to accept this amendment it would mean closing Abbeyleix and Lucan golf clubs straight away. That would be a case of picking out two individual sports organisations and making special laws for them which I would not do.
Is that not precisely what the Minister is doing? He is bringing in a special Bill to safeguard the interests of a few people in these two communities. This is something that certainly perturbs me quite a lot. In one county with which I am quite familiar we have five golf clubs and two of them are presently experiencing extraordinary difficulties. I believe I have seen everything when a special Act of Parliament comes into force, sugar-coated as this one is. The first and latter sections of this Bill are two completely different points. They seem, from my limited knowledge of the law, to be very far apart.
When one mentions the word "landlord" the immediate reaction is that some extraordinary names from either the 18th or 19th century spring to mind. But in the context of this Bill we find that the landlord is an ordinary farmer who, either by being misguided, or through being a little patriotic-minded if you like, afforded club facilities on his land and set it for over 20 years more or less on a conacre letting basis as it was then. We now find that there is a Bill being put through to take this original letting from him. I should like to ask the Minister if this Bill, when enacted will supersede or will take precedence over section 12 of the 1965 Land Act? The 1965 Land Act did many things but one of the better points in that Act is the fact that it makes it difficult for the creation of any additional uneconomic holdings.
In one of the cases the Minister mentioned this Bill will create an uneconomic farm holding by virtue of the fact that it will give a club an opportunity of taking this sporting lease. Surely we have not reached the stage that we have all our laws up-to-date to such an extent that we can afford to give time to individual cases like this. In one of the cases mentioned by the Minister the rent being paid by the golf club over the past ten to 15 years was not even sufficient to cover the rates. This man was subsidising the better-off section of his locality by providing them with cheap golf. This is going too far when the Government of the day see fit to carry on this indefinitely by facilitating these people with a 99-year lease.
At the other end of the county we have the Minister affording full-time police protection to a similar club. This is not funny. On the contrary, it is most regretful that our laws should be seen to assist in dividing our community. This Bill will drive a wedge between the urban and rural communities. No matter how many police the Minister sees fit to put on full-time patrol on the premises of the golf club the division will remain and will take generations to die out. There are many more important tasks that the police force can undertake.
The Senator seems to be wandering from the rather limited terms of amendment No. 3.
I am sorry, a Chathaoirleach. Perhaps I went on to the section but the only reason why I put down this amendment is to see if the Minister would be prepared to move one way or the other. He has admitted that 3rd March is the date that will ensure that the facilities continue in Lucan and Abbeyleix. It is an extraordinary thing that we can have legislation put through for two reasonably small clubs.
It is a matter of some amazement to me that it should be the desire of the Senator that golf clubs, both the ones mentioned and any others which are affected by this difficulty, should be closed down. The Senator referred to five clubs in his county; presumably that is County Laois. He referred to five golf clubs there as if they were too many. My only comment on that would be that I would like to see ten, 15 or 20 golf clubs in County Laois, and in every county for that matter.
One of the difficulties at the moment is that it is very hard for any group of people to afford to raise the capital that is necessary to establish a golf club. We have had the fortunate development in County Dublin that the Dublin County Council showed their enlightenment in this matter by opening a municipal course. That is a splendid development. It is something that I hope to see more of not alone in Dublin but in other parts of the country. The difficulties of providing new courses are immense. Because of that the duty on the community to try to preserve such limited number of courses as we already have is very great and the duty devolves on the Government to promote legislation for the preservation of this limited number of clubs. It appears from what he says that Senator McDonald is in profound disagreement with the principle underlying this Bill. I note that this is so, but it is in considerable contrast to the enthusiastic welcome which was given to the Bill by this House on Second Stage, and indeed, in contrast also to the very enthusiastic welcome that has been given to it by the general public. I have had many letters saying that it was an excellent development. I can recall only two or three people criticising it. They were very much in the big landlord or tycoon category and I would not have expected a Member of the Oireachtas to have taken that approach to it. His amendments are in line with some amendments that were suggested to me by a certain organisation but which I felt unable to adopt.
I am afraid I cannot accept the Senator's suggestion that this subsection that he wants to delete, or, indeed, any part of the Bill, is unfair to the landlord or to the owners. Section 6 fixes the rent to be paid at a fair rate. It is a matter for the court, an independent judiciary, to fix it at what in all the circumstances they consider to be fair, taking into account not just the circumstances of the club alone but the circumstances of the men who owned the land and let it or leased it to the club.
As well as that, in order to overcome any inequity to an owner which might be brought about by inflation, we have provided for periodic reviews that will enable the rent to be brought up to compensate for whatever fall there may be in the value of money. Speaking personally, I am very glad to have been of assistance to the two clubs mentioned and indeed to a dozen or more other clubs. I am very glad that they are in a position to continue their activities and I hope they will be able to extend still further and increase their membership.
Just in case I might be misunderstood, I meant that we had five clubs in our county. I do not say that it is too many. I certainly feel that we should have adequate recreational facilities. We have over 25 GAA clubs, but the difference between a golf club and a GAA club is that the golf clubs consist of people who are more richly endowed with the better things of life. I think the GAA clubs are more homogeneous. They want to get something done and take off their coats and do it.
The GAA have the benefit of that, too.
They do not look for charity or something on the cheap from their neighbours. I think this the kernel of the problem. An organisation which would not pay sufficient to a landlord to enable him to meet the full rates on a club is a body of people not worth very much. They would allow an ordinary family man to be at a considerable loss for ten or 12 years.
I presume they had an agreement. I think it is very unfair to attack like this those who are members of golf clubs. They pay what they contracted to pay.
Yes, but they do not want to pay any more. They want land for nothing, just for hopping around on, whereas people with land——
I wonder if this extraordinary attack on golf clubs is Fine Gael policy?
Is this a new concept of the Just Society?
The Senator should see the Minister with four gardaí on duty for 5,000 people in Laois. He is able to put three of them on full-time duty in a golf club when there are only four to look after the town.
First, the Senator complains that the golf club is ripped apart——
Then he has the rest of them drafted up to the Border.
The Senator is doing a good job of inciting hatred against golf clubs in County Laois.
I am not.
I am sure when the Senator's remarks get about we will have more of this sort of activity in relation to golf clubs because I can find a strong——
The Minister is going to get it because he is not able to protect them. He is not able to protect them because he refuses to recruit a sufficient number of gardaí. It is extraordinary when we have to have our sports places policed now by the Garda.
It is no wonder when hatred is incited against people who happen to play golf.
The Chair would prefer that the discussion on golf were carried on in an orderly fashion.
The only reason why this is an extraordinary discussion on golf is that——
It must be somebody's bogey.
——I object to vested interests. Just because a golf club has a Minister as a member it can come along and get specific legislation to look after itself. I do not think that this is right.
In case the Senator is making any suggestions about me, I am not a member of any golf club.
The purpose of this amendment was really to isolate the individual clubs for which this legislation is intended. The Minister has given me that assurance and he has actually named the two clubs.
It seems to me that in this kind of discussion one should probably start by establishing one's credentials. In this connection, may I say I speak as a former six handicap player. Certainly, I have no animosity at all towards golf clubs or the game of golf, in which I engaged for quite a long time. Even though I have not played golf for some years I should be very glad to challenge the Minister to a match at any time, either in Abbeyleix or Lucan, or anywhere else, on the condition, of course, that he pays the green fees.
This is getting Senator McDonald off the hook.
It seems to me that the problem that has been posed by Senator McDonald should not be associated with individual clubs, whether they be golf clubs or any other sporting clubs. I think the point he has been making is that you may have a state of affairs where a sporting club has had a lease for a number of years at a rent which, so far as the landlord is concerned, is not worthwhile. He gave the example of the rent not covering the rates. The Minister was right in the point he made—even though it may have been by way of a disorderly interruption—that presumably the club are paying the rent that has been agreed to be paid over the years. As I see it, what happens under this Bill, assuming such a club qualifies for benefit under it, is that there cannot in future be any question of the club getting the ground below value as regards rent, because the rent will have to be fixed in default of agreement under the provisions contained in the Bill.
I could see that a very difficult and possibly unpleasant situation from the point of view of farmer landlords could arise if this Bill was going to allow a continuance of a situation where in respect of land which they might have in the past out of civic spirit allowed to be used for the purpose of any particular sport, whether it was football or golf or show jumping or anything else, a claim could be staked to that land continuing to be in the occupation of a club at a rent which was being unjust or unfair to the landlord.
My approach to this Bill—and I hope it is the right one—is that the sections of the Bill dealing with the fixing of the terms of the sporting lease and fixing of the rent, either by agreement or by the court, will be such as to ensure that the landlord or lessor will get a reasonable and fair market rent for the occupancy by the sporting club of the land. I recognise that you have a difficult position if you have cases where the lessor does not, for any amount of rent, no matter what it is, want the land to continue to be used and occupied by the club or sporting association. I do not know how you can get over that kind of case and at the same time try to give some kind of reasonable security of tenure to sporting clubs and associations. It may be that that is a difficulty that may be encountered when this legislation gets under way. But, so far as the income accruing from the land is concerned, I am hoping that what the sections of the Bill dealing with the terms of the sporting lease and dealing with the fixing of rent mean is that there will be a fair return to the owner who has, in the first instance, made the lease.
I should like to take up a point which Senator McDonald made about the members of golf clubs having financial status not equivalent to average members of other clubs. I think that this reflects the fact that there are not enough golf clubs around the country. The demand for membership in the clubs is so high that clubs have to restrict their membership. Surely we should be providing more facilities and better clubs. Young people who play such sporting games as association football, gaelic football, hurling, or rugby tend to join golf clubs later on in life. Perhaps they are more affluent at that stage but when the private means of members are compared one should take this into account.
Also, I feel it is not our duty here to talk about one group of people playing one sport being more affluent than another. A good cross-section of the community plays golf in this country. I should like to see more and more people play golf. I myself have a very long handicap. I am no authority on the game, but I support this Bill and I supported it on the Second Reading. To argue about clubs because one feels that certain clubs attract a certain type of people and certain other clubs attract people of less financial means is looking at the thing the wrong way round. We should be setting up facilities to allow more people to play more games. We should be widening the scope of the games involved. This Bill helps to do that. Although I do not like Senator McDonald's argument along this particular line, I do not know anything about the individual club he refers to. I do think that golf clubs throughout the country are making an effort to recruit members from all sections of the community. Anything we, as legislators, can do to help this on should be done and, as I did on the last stage, I welcome the provisions of the Bill.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section 2, as amended, agreed to.
SECTION 3.
I move amendment No. 4.
In subsection (1) to delete paragraph (a), lines 26 and 27, and substitute the following:
"(a) not earlier than two years before the expiration of the lease, and"
While I agree that clubs should have an opportunity of making their plans well in advance, I feel that the 15 years which the Minister has inserted into this Bill is an inordinately long option to give to a particular club. The two years that I have proposed in my amendment should be quite adequate. This is very important, especially when section 3 (5) is taken into account, where the sporting lease can be granted in default of agreement on the date of the application. This is weighted altogether too heavily against the landlord.
I again want to emphasise the fact that the landlord in the vast majority of cases throughout the country is an ordinary landowner or farmer. From that point of view he will need to get a fair return for the land. Many farmers throughout the country have met their neighbours in a very public-spirited way and have made available portions of their land, be it for a football pitch or a golf club. If this Bill is to do anything it should be seen to encourage this type of development throughout the country. We should look towards the tourist potential of rural Ireland. It is only by providing these recreational facilities that we will do that.
Is the Minister seriously suggesting that by the provisions of this section and by loading the dice completely against the landlord or landowner these people will be encouraged to facilitate sporting clubs and organisations by making their land available for this type of development. This is very important. If any club has plans the two years I have suggested should be long enough to formulate their proposals to extend or apply for the sporting lease.
In the past the system in the country has been that, where farmers were concerned, they gave the lease of the land for golf clubs and retained the grazing rights. It is not clear in the terms of this Bill if the grazing rights will be left with the individual farmer. That is why I asked the Minister the question relative to section 12 of the Land Act to which he omitted to make reference. I feel that the ordinary farmers need this Bill of protection if we are to foster the provision of additional recreational facilities throughout the country. With the price of land mounting as it is and the fact that it would take about 40 or 50 acres of land to lay out a nine-hole golf course, the capital cost of a golf course in most parts of the country is something between £30,000 and £40,000, which is a large amount of money. If we are to have more of these facilities in the country it will be necessary to depend on the goodwill of the landowner. I contend that section 3 (1) is unfair and I would sincerely ask the House to accept this amendment and reduce the 15 years to a two-year period.
I, again, should like to oppose this amendment because I have had some experience of attempting to buy land for sporting purposes. I have always felt that landlords in such a circumstance act as landlords do in other circumstances. They get the maximum amount they can for their land and I do not think—this has been my experience of buying land for a sporting purpose—that there is a question of goodwill coming into it. I think they try to get the highest price and you try to buy it for the lowest price.
I cannot see Senator McDonald's question of goodwill coming into it at all. It is not a bad thing, seeing that we spend quite some time in this House protecting the rights of landlords in various situations, to turn our attention to a tenant such as a sporting club, who I think have a particular claim, if they have been in occupation of the land for a sufficient length of time, to conditions. I am very pleased that they should have legislation such as this to help them in the situations which have been outlined. For that reason I should like to oppose the amendment.
I fail to see any great cogency in Senator McDonald's argument. I do not think it makes a great deal of difference to a landlord when he gives a sporting lease because the sporting lease would normally run from the expiry of the existing lease and he is only affected after the existing lease has run out. Indeed, it might be of some advantage to a landlord to be able to give the sporting lease at the earliest possible date because a fair rent would be fixed and the fair rent that would be fixed might be considerably more than the rent the club might be paying under its existing lease or tenancy. I do not think there is any great advantage to landlords in having this figure reduced from 15 years to two years by the organisation concerned, as suggested by the Senator in his amendment. I have no strong feelings one way or the other about this. If I could see any validity in it I would accept the amendment.
Could I ask the Minister the origin of the 15 years?
The origin of the 15 years is that it is the appropriate figure in the 1958 Act. It is the figure used in relation to reversionary leases and a sporting lease here is, in effect, a reversionary lease because it is subject to many of the usual types of covenant and the types of the terms which are contained in reversionary leases under the 1958 Act. Fifteen years is the figure recommended by the commission but I am sure they have no strong feelings about it either one way or the other. In the absence of any cogent argument for changing it one might as well leave it at 15 years.
However, it does not seem to me to matter greatly. Although the argument is made on behalf of landlords that it would suit them better to have it the other way I wonder if that is so, because very often in the granting of new leases under these Acts the landlord agrees and one of the terms on which he will agree to give the lease is that the tenant surrender the existing lease because the existing lease might be at a very nominal rent. He is quite happy to do that. He would say: "Right, we will scrub the residue of your existing lease and start off your new lease as and from now." He may then get ten, 20 or 50 times more rent.
Is the Minister satisfied that this can happen having regard to subsection (3) of this section?
Of course, that would be where the court was giving it but the parties can consent to anything.
I thought that section 3 referred to where it was being done by the parties and section 5 dealt with where the court comes in. I wonder if section 3 precludes the kind of operation the Minister mentions. I do not think it should but, if it does, I imagine it is unintentional.
It is a contractual matter and the parties have freedom to contract if they see fit. The terms of the Act would be binding only where a court has——
I am sorry. The last few words cover it where it says "or such other date as may be agreed between the parties."
Amendment put and declared lost.
Section 3 agreed to.
SECTION 4.
Question proposed: "That section 4 stand part of the Bill."
I should like to ask the Minister about section 4 (b) (ii) which says "that it is reasonable that a sporting lease should be refused". I am, in no sense of the term, a lawyer but I think that is the sort of clause that lawyers dislike because it is obviously open to individual interpretations. I should like the Minister to say under what circumstances would it be reasonable that a sporting lease should be refused which was not covered by the other sections of the Bill?
Of course, the word "reasonable" is in the 1931 Act and it is in all the subsequent Acts because it is one of the conditions of the granting of any lease that it be reasonable. It is defined and has been haggled and argued about in umpteen cases as to what is reasonable and what is not in a particular situation. I would really be misleading Senator West by trying to tell him in ten words what is reasonable and what is not. There is a lot of legislation about it. It is a well-known word in landlord and tenant legislation and it was specifically recommended by the commission in page 25, paragraph 93, of their report that it should go in. The reason it is there is that it allows the court to weigh up all the circumstances to try to get over cases where particular hardship would be caused either on one side or the other by otherwise operating the Act if there were some very special circumstances.
So the court makes a decision on it?
Yes.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 5.
Amendment No. 6 is an alternative to amendment No. 5 and I suggest they should be taken together.
Government amendment No. 5:
In page 5, subsection (3), to delete paragraph(a), lines 26 to 29, and to substitute the following:
"(a) that the amount of the rent shall, on the application of the lessor to the Court, be subject to review once at any time after the expiration of thirty-two years of the term granted by the sporting lease and once at any time after the expiration of thirty-three years from that review, and".
Paragraph (a), as it stands, is needlessly restrictive since it would mean that the reviews of the rent, if they were to take place at all, must take place during the 33rd year or during the 66th year. If, through inadvertence, a lessor failed to act in time he would de deprived of any chance to have his rent reviewed. In order to overcome this defect the amendment provides that the amount of the rent shall, on the application of the lessor to the Court, be subject to review at any time after the expiration of the first 32 years of the term and thereafter be subject to a second review after an interval of not less than 33 years from the first review.
Could the Minister say where these periods came from? It seems to me that 33-year reviews are extremely long. As regards ordinary business leases or industrial leases the normal review nowadays would probably be about seven years. I can appreciate that something longer than that would be appropriate in cases of sporting leases. Thirty-three years seems to be a very long interval.
I do not normally pick these figures out of the air. The commission recommended that precise figure at paragraph 93 in the summary of their recommendations, where they say that the lessor should be entitled to apply for a review of the rent during the 33rd year and during the 66th year of the term granted by the reversionary lease the rent should remain unchanged until then.
Inevitably this means that in a 99-year lease you can have only two rent reviews, and heavens knows what the value of money would be in 100 years time.
I think I am correct in saying—the Senator will correct me, if I am wrong—that under an existing reversionary lease granted under the 1958 Act there would be no review.
That is so, but if you take the ordinary commercial leases that are made of business or industrial premises, such as a lease on an industrial estate or shopping centre, the normal for rent reviews would be something in the region of five, seven or eight years. I think seven is the usual.
The Senator will agree that there is a very big difference because that is in no sense a building lease. In those cases there may be a regular review at five or seven year intervals. The landlord has erected the premises, such as office blocks or supermarkets. These were all built not by the tenants but by a development company. The tenant simply goes in and rents a portion of it. Therefore, the whole cost of development has fallen on the landlord and I think that it can be regarded as more equitable that he can have reviews of the rent.
Surely that is reflected in the rack-rent that is fixed at the time.
If he is trying to get a return on his money. However, in this sort of case the club has spent money and has developed the land. The land would be just a few old fields were it not for the fact that the club spent money on developing it, and therefore the club should have the benefit of what they put into it. The landlord should not be allowed unduly to reap the benefit of the hard work or the investment of the members of the club. Do not forget that the commission recommended such lengthy reviews as 33-year reviews.
I would be with the Minister on the question of development. However, when one looks at this from the point of view of the erosion in money values which is going on all the time—we all know that it is going on by inflation, increases in cost of living and so on—and if you relate it to that only, it would be rather unfair to a lessor that he should be stuck for effectively something more than a generation with whatever rent is fixed.
Do not forget the ordinary reversionary lessor. He is stuck for 3½ generations. He is stuck for 99 years.
He is, but that is a different case. We are considering this legislation now; and this is a question of trying to be fair to a lessor who, up to now, had to bear the burden of a lease being capable of being renewed. We must try to be fair. His income is going to be out of the land. There are safeguards written into the Bill as to how that income is to be determined at the start—in other words, how the rent is to be fixed at the start. However, as long as the period is left for such a length as 33 years, the value could be completely eroded. The value of money over a period of 20 or 30 years might only be a fraction of what it is now. The landlord is not going to have anything to protect him in those cases. Let us accept the Minister's argument as regards commercial leases where the developer has incurred the cost of development and erecting the building. Even in those cases the developer probably gets his money back more by reason of the fact that the rent initially fixed is a large rent which is commensurate with the value of the building that has been occupied by the lessee. It is fixed on a different basis from this case. I am doubtful about the fairness of rent reviews at such long intervals, even in the case of sporting leases.
Perhaps I am misreading section 5. I took it that under subsection (1) you do not have subsection (3) coming into force unless there has not been agreement between the parties. Subsection (3) deals with agreements determined by the Court. Under subsection (1) the parties may agree, and I would have thought that you could write revision into the lease every five or seven years.
Would not the lessee be a fool to agree to that if he knows that by not agreeing he is going to get a 33-year rent review?
That is true, but at least the lessor has subsection (3) to look at and when he is fixing it, if he does not agree when it is mandatory on the court to make it 33 years, it would be wrong to assume that in every case an agreement cannot be reached between the lessor and the lessee, and that subsection (3) will have to come into force.
I should like to support strongly the case put forward by Senator O'Higgins. Referring to the "few old fields" that the Minister so glibly talks about, I consider that the property of a golf club would, at the very minimum, from a farm value point of view, be worth at least £30,000. When we accede to the European Economic Community this figure will appreciate at least 100 per cent. Therefore, the value of the property of the landlord or the farmer—whichever we prefer to call him—is something that cannot be considered lightly. In addition, it would be much easier on the members of an organisation if they had smaller reviews at the seven or ten-year period. It would mean that there would not need to be a huge increase in green fees and membership fees if it was left to the 33rd year. With the present trend of galloping inflation it is ridiculous to suggest that rents can be fixed for such a long period. Perhaps the Commission and the Minister are forecasting a long period of ultra-stability to which we can all look forward.
Landlords affected by this legislation can be divided into two classes. There will be a small number who might be termed the wealthier traditional type landlord around the capital city. The remainder will be in rural Ireland and will invariably be a farmer who is prepared to rent 40 or 100 acres of his farm, excluding the grazing rights, to the local club. This is the type of landlord I am interested in. If we are to retain the amenities we enjoy now and if we are to increase the facilities available throughout the country, a landowner must be encouraged and it must be made appear that he will get some reasonable return for leasing portion of his property to a local organisation for the purpose of recreation.
These are not cases where he wants to do it. It will be imposed on him.
I quite agree, but if you leave them as they are, it will deter people from meeting an application from a local club to take the initial step and set up a new club. If this Bill is passed in its present unamended form any man who would entertain an application or listen to a suggestion that he should lease some of his property to any sporting organisation would need to have his head examined unless he was a very wealthy person and could afford to make a present of some of his land. This is too harsh. With the shorter term and the more frequent review it would be easier to reach agreement. The present network of clubs has, in the main, been set up by agreement, by people talking together without any restrictions or regulations. The simpler the thing is the more progress will be made. The Minister is loading the dice too heavily, and it will have the opposite effect. It will not foster more sporting facilities. I cannot see many local authorities having £100,000 to spare for golf clubs or any other sporting facilities. We have not got the money in the country to do this. Any development must come in a cooperative or sportsmanlike way. The regulations laid down in this section are detrimental to encouraging people to meet and establish a club as has been done in the past.
I hate to see the day arrive when I find myself in agreement with Senator O'Higgins, but I am afraid it has come today. A review of every 33 years is an unreasonably long period with inflation as it is. If there is a review in 1971, the next review will be in 2004. Without going into sordid statistics, what would be a fair and equitable rent today would not be worth collecting in 2004. The landlord is entitled to justice, as are the members of the club. Where the lease is being forced on them, as it is under this section, 33 years is an unreasonably long period. The landlord has a financial interest just as the developer of a shopping centre or any other block; and inflation will eat away his capital, whatever it is worth today. Thirty-three years is not giving him a fair crack of the whip and the Minister might well reconsider his ideas on this.
I sympathise with the points raised by Senators O'Higgins, McDonald and Norton. I have been a member of a cricket club for a good many years and the landlord, since the foundation of the club, about 100 years ago was a brewer who, even in the 1870s must have been generous because the rent for the very fine premises in which we played the game was 1s. per year. This did not change until about two or three years ago when the land was sold to a developer whose sole purpose was to make money. Unfortunately, at that time there was no Bill like this on the Statute Books and so the club was forced to buy the land for an absolutely outrageous sum to prevent this character building skyscrapers or whatever he wished to build on the cricket ground and the club has been in serious financial difficulties since.
I am convinced it will survive; but if there had not been this minimal rent, the game would not have survived in Cork where this ground is. Although 33 years is a long time between reviews of the rent paid there is a special case for sporting clubs and this is what this Bill is setting out to deal with. As time passes, recreation will become more and more important in this country and the spirit and most of the letter of the Bill should be supported. Although there are inflationary problems, because of the special position in which sports clubs find themselves, I must support the Minister on this.
There are two points which should not be lost sight of. The term that must elapse before a new rent is fixed should be determined on the basis of these two points. One is that, the shorter the term is, the lower the initial rent to the landlord will be. The longer the term before revision occurs, the larger the initial rent.
The second point is that if we are leasing land for sporting facilities, the club, committee or whatever body is actually running this sporting facility and which will be providing this amenity must know beforehand what its outlay will be. It must know what the rent will be for such period of years to enable it to provide amenities on the land which is leasable. In other words, if the period of revision is too short, the proper amenities for the sport involved will not be provided. This is a fear shared by Senators McDonald, O'Higgins and Norton—that the period of revision will be too short. I, too, fear that the proper amenities for the sport will not be provided if a sufficient length of time is not given to the committee or whatever body is running this sporting facility. That is what I fear in this amendment. If we are going to provide facilities for sport we should not do it in a halfhearted way. We should enable those people involved to know where they are going, to be able to foresee how they are doing and to provide proper facilities for the sport.
I should like to support Senator West. This is a clause for the protection of existing sports grounds. I listened to Senator McDonald and I thought it was very funny that he should talk about these 40 and 50 acre farms worth £30,000 or £50,000. I cannot understand that these businesses are worth so much when we hear so much from farmers about the small income when they have such valuable holdings, holdings which if they did not work at all and let them out in conacre would bring them in far more than the salaries they maintain they get from working them.
That is really not the point. The point is that farmers are not going to let a sporting ground. Farmers, particularly those without any legal knowledge, make sure that they are letting for 11 months in the year. They do not even go the statutory 12 months. They make sure they do not run to a three year lease or run the danger of having a 21 year lease. They make sure they have it back in their hands after 11 months. Where they allow a sports ground to be let for a period of a year they make sure that the goal posts are taken down for a month every year. I do not wish to waste the time of the House on this but I support this amendment as a protection for existing sports grounds because, as Senator West has said, in many cases attempts are being made by people in a capitalistic way to take over the existing sports grounds and turn them into building sites. We cannot blame them.
This refers only to the question of rent reviews. It does not refer to terminating.
I understand, but a seven year rent review could terminate it very quickly.
No one is suggesting that.
Section 5 says a fair rent.
A fair rent determined by the court but 33 years is a fair period for a fair rent. After all, it is only a few years in a lifetime.
Several generations.
I support the section as it stands.
I should like to say this before we adjourn for tea. There is a lot of validity in the argument put up by Senator Belton on the need for a club to be able to plan. I am not committed to a period of ten or 15 years, but I think the Minister should look at this period of 33 years again because it seems to be long when you want to give cothrom na féinne both to the lessor and to the sports club.
Business suspended at 6.5 p.m. and resumed at 7.30 p.m.
I have mental reservations about the 33 year lease. I do not want to go beyond asking the Minister to reconsider this. As Senator O'Higgins has said, and as has been said by a number of Senators, we may well have difficulties in cases where a person is to give land to one or other sporting club. I foresee that a 33 year lease is likely to be very difficult. I do not know whether it should be 12 or 15 years, as is suggested in the amendment, but it is quite obvious to me that, if I or anybody else here had property and rent was fixed on a 33-year basis, it would be asking us to do too much for the sporting activities of the country. The Minister might reconsider the 33 years. It does not seem reasonable to me.
I have listened to the many views expressed on this and it is probably fair to say that, although there has been a difference of opinion on certain points, the majority opinion seems to be in favour of shortening the 33-year review period. I accept that as the view of the Seanad, but my difficulty about this is that at the moment a reversionary lease, of which this is only one type, is a 99 year lease without any review at any time. The main Bill, which I have already introduced in the Dáil will deal with reversionary leases as well as other kinds of leases and the Bill will contain certain provisions for rent reviews. The Bill has not yet been published because of the length and complexity of it and the difficulty of drafting. When that Bill is enacted it will be a comprehensive Act repealing and re-enacting, with a good many amendments, all the modern Landlord and Tenant Acts, the 1931 Act, the 1958 Act, the 1967 Act and this Bill. As a result this Bill, or Act as it will be then, will become absorbed into the new overall Act.
I do not know what periods of review may be fixed in the main Bill, and the kind of lease comes into it also. For that reason I am loath to prejudge the issue by departing from the recommendation of the commission on this particular point here and now. What I will do is to give an undertaking to the Seanad that the 33-year review period would be reviewed when the comprehensive Bill comes to be dealt with. It is possibly unfair to a landlord of property which is used for sporting purposes that he may be put at a disadvantage or at an unusually greater disadvantage than the landlord of another kind of property.
At the moment, although I accept the need for a somewhat shorter period of review than the 33 years, I am also impressed by what Senator Belton has said on this point. It is plain from what he has said—and I must say that it is an aspect of it that did not occur to me— that to some extent it cuts both ways. You have also to take into account that sporting clubs generally are not commercial organisations. They are less geared to paying frequent increases of rent and you might find the position where you would tend to squeeze them out if you change it too quickly. I feel that it would be wrong for me at this stage to change the recommendation of the commission until such time as a review period has been fixed for one or other kind of lease in the main legislation. I will review at that stage the 33-year period for the review of rents in sporting leases. In the meantime I would ask the House to leave it at this figure in view of the fact that these different kinds of leases must all be reviewed shortly.
I would ask the Minister to reconsider the matter before Report Stage because there must be a very clear distinction between what this Bill proposes to do for sporting organisations and what the Landlord and Tenant Acts do for ordinary commercial undertakings. It must be very clear to all who have studied this Bill that there is an urgency to ensure that the terms of the leases will be attractive to the land owners. There would be no further leasing of land, unless these people see that they can——
I think the Senator missed the point of this. All these leases will be compulsory.
I know that.
The land owner will not be going to——
I realise that. The Minister does not accept that we should have any increase in the numbers of sporting clubs throughout the country. I think that there is a crying need for more facilities.
That is the very point, and all these are going to be closed down if we come to the day——
No. I do not accept that. I said that they will remain, but I said that we should divorce them from the general commercial run of things. I think that the clubs and organisations throughout the country will not expect to be dealt with as commercial concerns. Therefore, I think that the people concerned would prefer to have the shorter period of review. The ten years that I proposed is somewhat longer than the normal period for ordinary commercial and industrial purposes but it is much shorter than what is recommended by the commission. There is not much point in bringing legislation before the House if the Minister is rigidly to stick to what a commission recommend.
I think the Senator's point on that is scarcely valid. I have accepted amendment after amendment after amendment on this Bill and on the previous one. I have accepted more than 20 amendments on the last Bill, most of them suggested by the Opposition. To say that I am rigid is just stretching the thing a bit too far.
The Minister has quoted the commission, not the Opposition, and said he was loath to depart from their recommendations.
If I stuck rigidly to the commission's recommendation you would have a very different Bill to what is there. If I stuck rigidly to the commission's report it would be instructive to compare the two of them. There would be vast rights given to clubs in such a Bill.
I quite agree.
Amendment agreed to.
Amendment No. 6 not moved.
Section 5, as amended, agreed to.
SECTION 6.
I move amendment No. 7:
In subsection (2), line 45, before "to" to insert the following:
"to the rent payable for other lands in the locality and taking into consideration the use to which those other lands are put,".
This is a very important section as far as clubs are concerned, in particular subsection (2). We should all like to see these large outdoor sporting clubs and organisations supported and even subsidised. I think the House would agree with this. If we want to do that we should do it from central funds and not rely on one or two landowners to foot the bill. Again, I want to emphasise that in 95 per cent of the cases these landlords and sporting clubs will be in country areas. The landlord will not be the traditional type, but will be an ordinary farmer who has by his good offices given facilities to a football club or a golf club, or given them the use of part of his farm. I should like to ask the Minister whether the sporting lease covers all the uses of the land or whether grazing rights can be withheld by the landlord apart from that. Subsection (2) states:
In fixing the rent the Court shall have regard to the general intention of this Act in relation to sports clubs which is the advancement of outdoor sports, games and recreations and the preservation of open spaces for the common good and, without prejudice to such other considerations as it considers relevant, may take into account the rent or other sum previously paid for the property by the sports club and any convenants and conditions under which it was so paid, to the rent paid by other sports clubs of the same kind in the same or a comparable locality....
I would propose to write into the Bill an obligation on the court to take into account the use, in addition to the portion of the subsection which I have read out, to which the land adjoining the property in question is put. This is a very fair point. This subsection is quite explicit but it does not go far enough to ensure that the landlord or the farmer will get a fair price and a fair rent. I only want a fair rent for the farmer in respect of his property.
In the long history of land agitation the three "f's" were what the farming community fought for most. The one difficulty I see in this, looking at this Bill from the point of view of having a rural background, is that the older population are inclined to look on the landowner as a landlord. In practice it will be found that this is not so throughout the country. In every town and village in Ireland the sportsfield is situated in somebody's field who may or may not be receiving rent for it. We should preserve this rather easy way of doing things. Unless the landlord or the farmer is given reasonable rights to preserve his own right of private ownership, it may very well deter people from affording this type of facility to his neighbour.
The amendment I am proposing is to put the onus on the court to take into consideration the land use in the adjoining area. If it is in a rural area the price of conacre prevailing in that area should be taken into account. In any county the number of similar sporting clubs will not be that numerous. It is reasonable to assume that no two sporting clubs will have the same type of lease or acreage or the same type of property. It is reasonable to ask that the court take into account the actual land use and the value of land on conacre letting in that area as a guide towards securing for the farmer a fair rent for the property that he proposes to lease to the club at the time of leasing and also at the review period.
I cannot agree with the spirit of the amendment. What we are witnessing here is the difference between the rural and urban approach to this whole question. As I understand the Bill, it seeks to preserve for existing sports clubs that already, for a certain length of time, have been the tenants on land, security of tenure in the future. I do not see that the terms of this Bill will in any way deter anybody in the future from giving new lettings which are not already in existence because those people who might want to give new lettings will, of course, give them in such a way not to come within the scope and the ambit of this Bill.
The Bill, as it stands, is designed to protect certain sports clubs who are in danger of losing their properties, especially those which happen to be in the Dublin area. Those sports clubs which happen to be in the Dublin area, because of their location usually happen to be one of the high islands of open space reservations in that area and if one were to suggest the idea that the rent for those open spaces ought to be reconciled with the rent for adjoining land, which would be in almost every case put to industrial or residential usage, then the rent for those clubs would immediately have to be fixed by the court at such a prohibitive level as effectively to close those sporting clubs down and to prevent them from continuing in existence. The whole purpose and spirit of the Bill would have been defeated and the intention of so many members of political parties to achieve this very worthwhile object would have been lost.
I have nothing to add.
Amendment put and declared lost.
Question proposed: "That section 6 stand part of the Bill."
On the question of the lease, which perhaps I should have queried on section 2, will the lessor enjoy the full usage of the land, such as grazing rights, or is it confined to the sport on the land?
That is a matter for agreement between the parties. A covenant allowing the lessor to use the land for grazing purposes can be inserted in the lease. If it is not inserted, a court, if it thinks reasonable, can insert in the lease a covenant allowing the lessor to graze or to have some other similar partial use as would be appropriate.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 7.
Government amendment No. 8:
In page 5, lines 49 and 50, to delete ", as amended by sections 25 and 26 of the Act of 1967,".
Amendment agreed to.
Section 7, as amended, agreed to.
Sections 8 to 11, inclusive, agreed to.
Title agreed to.
When is it proposed to take the next Stage?
I should like to look over the report of the commission again. There are a few points on which I am not too clear. If it is not too inconvenient I should like to have an opportunity of looking back and perhaps tabling one or possibly two amendments on Report Stage.
I do not wish to disagree with the Senator but I wonder if it is in order for me to say that the Bill is very urgent. There are clubs on to my office every day of the week.
It is retrospective.
Apart from that, unfortunately, there are several instances where ejectment proceedings have been taken by landlords and where the defendants' counsel have been making the case to the judge that the Bill is there and have handed up the Bill to the judge as introduced here. The judges are very properly replying: "Well, that may be a Bill. It may be law shortly but it is not law now and there is nothing I can do. I must disregard it." A number of these clubs are extremely agitated about the matter.
Does another week matter? I should like to clarify a few points.
I think I could say that 59 Members of the Seanad agree with the Bill.
Perhaps I had better rise here in case the Minister thinks that 59 Members of the Seanad think that this should be taken immediately. I think it only reasonable to defer to Senator McDonald in this. The Minister may well gallop off tonight with the Bill and find, due to the pressure of Dáil business, it could not be taken next week in the Dáil anyway.
If the Senator insists I cannot do anything about it one way or the other. However, I sincerely hope that no club is ejected from their premises in the next week and I will graciously defer to the Irish Landowners' Convention.
Report Stage next Wednesday?
One of the problems is that there certainly will not be business from the Dáil for next week.
We can always take a motion.
Yes, there is quite a supply of motions on the Order Paper.
We have not had a motion for quite a while. I think there will be no scarcity of business as there are motions down since last April.
It is a matter for the House to decide.
I think we should take the next Stage of the Bill now because there is an element of urgency about it.
We have agreed to order it for next Wednesday. Can we not take some other business in the meantime?
I am perfectly happy if we adjourn until next week. It would be a very useful opportunity, if the House is sitting next week to take this business, to take some motions that have been on the Order Paper for over a year. The report of the Commission on the Status of Women has been tabled and this could also be usefully debated. It is of great importance.
Has the Leader of the House any views on this matter?
We have already decided it.
The Chair is endeavouring to find out the wishes of the House. It is a matter for the House, and the Chair is anxious to ensure that the House is doing what it wants to do. Is it agreed that we take it next Wednesday?
I thought it was agreed.
Report Stage ordered for Wednesday, 10th November, 1971.