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Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 8 Feb 1978

Vol. 88 No. 3

Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) Bill, 1977: Second Stage.

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

Senators, will, I am sure, be generally aware of the proposals in this Bill. Its purpose is to bring an end to the system of ground rents so far as concerns new dwellinghouses and indeed to replace the entire system of leasehold sales of such houses, with its concomitant restrictions on home ownership, by a system of sales in fee simple. A further Landlord and Tenant Bill that I will be promoting in the immediate future will contain my proposals in relation to existing residential ground rents. That Bill is now being debated in the other House: it is one of a trilogy. Meanwhile, the Bill now before this House is designed to put a stop to the further creation of such rents. That, to my mind, is the most urgent requirement.

The Bill proposes to do this by denying validity to new ground leases, that is by simply making void any attempted future ground lease of an ordinary dwellinghouse. One question that may be asked is what will be the cost of doing this? That is, will it make new houses more expensive? The answer to this is of some importance, because the increased costs that would be involved in compelling the sale of houses in fee simple rather than by way of leases was given as the main reason for not going ahead with a prohibition on the creation of ground rents when the Bill of the Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) Act, 1967 was before this House.

My predecessor of the time—Deputy Lenihan—was very keen to introduce such a prohibition, but he was reluctantly forced to the view that the extra cost made the proposal impracticable at that time. It must be remembered that around that time the purchase price of a £20 ground rent would have been at least £250 and that the same sum would then have represented the deposit on a typical Small Dwellings Act house.

However, things are very different now from what they then were. I am fully satisfied that today the grant of a fee simple instead of a lease reserving a ground rent will not have any appreciable effect on the price of new houses. The new system will certainly have no ill effect as regards the total repayments which a typical house purchaser has to meet following purchase subject to a mortgage or loan. For, even if a notional ground rent is capitalised and the freehold house price increased accordingly, the corresponding net increase in loan or mortgage outgoings will certainly not be greater than the amount of that notional ground rent.

Another question that may be asked is whether the Bill is justifiable in as much as it proposes to restrict an owner's freedom to dispose as he wishes of one particular kind of property, that is, residential building land. I do not think that this is a question that nowadays need be argued at length. The situation that this Bill proposes to change is a situation where a house purchaser, having paid a considerable sum for the site of his house—either as a component of the price of that house or as a separate transaction—is thereafter required to make further annual payments by way of ground rent. That is a system that is no longer defended by any representative section of the community.

In the past, before the enactment of the 1963 Planning Act, there may have been a case to be made for the system of selling dwellinghouses on the basis of long leases that reserved ground rents and that imposed restrictive covenants on the owner-occupiers so as to preserve the amenities of the neighbourhood. The necessity nowadays to get planning permission for new building, and for alterations of a kind that could affect the amenities, renders the leasehold system obsolete. For landlords, the only real significance nowadays of that system is its financial aspect.

This brings us to another important consideration bearing on the principle on which this Bill is based. The owner-occupier is concerned with much more than the financial aspect of the leasehold system. This system denies him full ownership of his own home. The emotional objections to the system are not nowadays likely to be underrated by anyone concerned with the matter. But the emotional aspect is not the only one. The State already recognises and actively supports the principle of owner occupation of housing and this Bill stands four square with that principle. It ensures that in future owners of dwellings will be full owners, the emphasis being on "full". Moreover this Bill opens the way towards a simpler and less expensive system of legal titles based on ownership in fee simple in place of the present jungle of leasehold titles. This should have considerable benefits as time goes on.

I turn now to deal with the actual provisions of the Bill. The essence of the Bill is the proposal in subsection (1) of section 2 that in future any attempted new ground lease of an ordinary dwelling will be void. This means that apart from renewals of existing ground leases, and apart also from the special provision in subsection (4) of section 2, both of which cases I will discuss in a moment, any such attempted lease will simply be a nullity. As far as the public sector is concerned the prohibition on the creation of future ground leases of dwellinghouses is, by section 4 of the Bill, being extended to local housing authorities. I shall return to this provision also later on.

I should like to say at this point that I have given full consideration to what might be called the "half-way" system of prohibiting ground rents. Under such a system the whole lease would not be voided but only the provision in it reserving a rent. This, of course may be superficially attractive, particularly because it would enable conveyancers to continue their old practices of giving long leases. It must be ruled out, however, because it ignores the essential popular and justified demand which this Bill is designed to meet. This demand is not simply for the redemption of the rent. It is a demand for full ownership which can only be met by way of ensuring that new houses will be sold in fee simple rather than by way of long leases.

I am fully aware that this will mean that conveyancing practices will have to change when the Bill becomes law. Many developers and their legal advisers have, I am aware, very wisely anticipated the legislation and are already selling dwellings in fee simple only. I can only commend such persons. As for others who may persist until the last moment with old practices and take the risk of giving void leases, I think it only fair to point out that the relevant proposals in this Bill have been public knowledge since the Landlord and Tenant Bill which lapsed with the dissolution of the 20th Dáil was circulated in January 1977. On top of that, the Bill contains safeguards for parties who may become the genuine victims of such practices, and I will be coming to these later on.

A related matter to which I should perhaps draw attention is that, after the Bill has become law, any attempted creation of a fee farm grant of a dwellinghouse will be void just as will any attempted ground lease in the ordinary sense of that term. This is because, in the present Landlord and Tenant Acts, the expression "lease" is defined as including a fee farm grant. Section 5 of this Bill provides that the Bill when enacted into law shall be construed as one Act with the preceding Landlord and Tenant Acts. In consequence, references in this Bill to a "lease" include where appropriate references to a fee farm grant and the proposed prohibition on creating ground leases of dwellings extends to the creation of fee farm grants.

I am aware that in recent years the ancient form of conveyancing by way of fee farm grant has become more popular. However, it is a form of title which does not give the tenant full ownership. This fee farm grant is not a fee simple, the legal estate which most closely reflects full ownership. What this Bill is all about is ensuring that houseowners will be full owners of their homes.

Renewals of existing ground leases are excluded from the prohibition under subsection (2) of section 2. The right of a ground lessee to obtain a renewed lease, known as a reversionary lease, as an alternative to acquiring the fee simple under the 1967 Ground Rents Act, is an important right in itself. The preservation of this right is a matter of some consequence and is also in keeping with the general principle enshrined in the existing ground rents legislation that while the tenant has the right to terminate his liability to pay ground rent he is not forced to do so. Even if it were decided to abolish in the future the right of an existing ground tenant to obtain a reversionary lease on the ground that the grant of a fee simple on termination of a lease is a better alternative, it would not be appropriate to do so in the context of this Bill. Such a change would be better dealt with in the context of any future changes in the law relating to renewal rights.

As the definition of "dwelling" in section 1 of the Bill makes clear, the Bill does not extend to multiple-dwelling buildings. I am aware that newly-constructed self-contained flats are nowadays quite frequently sold under arrangements that can involve payment of rent. However, transactions involving the sale and purchase of such flats are in a special category where different considerations apply and they are accordingly outside the scope of the Bill, which I am bringing in for the benefit of owner-occupiers of ordinary dwellinghouses.

Senators may find the text of the Bill somewhat difficult to follow because of the cross-reference to the provisions of the 1967 Ground Rents Act. This, I fear, was necessary because there is no legal definition of the term "ground rent". Ground rents can only be legally described as rents reserved by particular types of leases. These leases may vary quite a lot but they all record a landlord and tenant relationship in which the tenant can be seen to own the "bricks and mortar" interest, and I suggest this Bill is all about bricks and mortar. These categories of leases have been identified at different times and described in various enactments, particularly in the Landlord and Tenant Acts of 1931, 1958 and 1967. The most extensive existing description of the kinds of leases concerned is in section 3 of the 1967 Act and it is by reference to this that section 2 (1) of the Bill sets out the proposed prohibition. These are the kinds of leases the lessees under which have the right to purchase the fee simple under the 1967 Ground Rents Act.

There is one addition to this list provided for in the Bill. The Landlord and Tenant Commission furnished a report—their second report—in which they identified further classes of ground leases in addition to those covered by the Act of 1967. However, in practice only one of these further types of ground leases could give rise to the creation of a ground rent in the future. This one type of ground lease, with which section 3 deals can arise where the householder or developer is himself the owner in fee simple of the lands involved, where the house is already built or partly built at the time of purchase and where the builder or developer sells the house by way of a long lease, usually with a substantial fine and reserving a ground rent.

What the Bill proposes, therefore, is to declare void any future attempted lease of a dwellinghouse if that lease is of a kind that creates a ground rent. This, I accept, is a rather Draconian solution, and it is for that reason that I have had a very careful examination made of all its possible consequences. Subsections (3) to (7) of section 2 of the Bill, as amended in the course of its passage through Dáil Éireann, are designed either to close off possible loopholes or to deal with practical difficulties that may arise.

It will not be possible, for example, to circumvent the proposed prohibition by giving a long lease of a vacant site and building a house on the site afterwards. Quite naturally, leases of vacant land as such are not being prohibited. However, if a long lease of land is made in the future, if that land has a house built on it subsequently and if the total area of the land is such that all of the land is subsidiary and ancillary to the house, then that lease will be rendered void by section 2 (3) of the Bill. It will be clear from what I have said that the scope of this provision is restricted to house sites. In effect if a lease of a vacant site is given after the passing of the legislation and the lessee wants to put a dwelling on it afterwards, he will like any other developer have to acquire the fee simple.

Subsection (4) of section 2 is designed to copperfasten, as it were, the prohibition proposed in subsection (1). This provision is designed to protect house-purchasers in future who might find that, having made substantial payments to secure their new houses, they have simply been given a void lease. The proposal to give the house purchaser in such a case the right to acquire the fee simple at the expense of the purported lessor is meant to be a formidable deterrent and it serves to warn builders, developers and others concerned that after this Bill has become law they must take due care not to give void leases.

On the other hand, section 2 (5) of the Bill is designed for the protection of builders or developers who currently may find themselves saddled with leasehold land in course of residential building development. Such a builder or developer would be unable to sell his houses otherwise than in fee simple because of the prohibition in this Bill. At the same time he could find himself in the position of being unable to acquire the fee simple at any reasonable price, or indeed at any price. The Minister for Justice had consultations with prominent members of the legal profession, and this provision is the result.

Section 2 (5) proposes to give the builder the right, for a period of one year, to acquire the fee simple in the land under the 1967 Ground Rents Act. As amended in Dáil Éireann, the subsection gives this right to persons who at the time the Bill becomes law either hold the land under a lease for a term of not less than 99 years of which not less than 50 years remain unexpired, or who have an enforceable agreement for the grant of a 99-year lease or for the assignment of a 99-year lease. Planning permission for housing must have been obtained at the time the Bill becomes law. The relief is restricted to persons with building projects already in hand as evidenced by the existence of planning permission. It is also relevant, in this context, that this provision of the Bill is in no way novel. It was introduced by way of one of a number of amendments to the Bill which lapsed. These amendments were circulated last spring.

Accordingly, it can hardly be said that insufficient notice has been given to the business interests and the legal advisers involved, particularly since the provision in question was drawn up to meet their requirements. There should therefore not be any difficulty or confusion about that provision.

Section 2 (6) of the Bill is a provision of a somewhat technical nature to cater for the difficulty the Bill poses for the trustees of a charitable housing trust who, under the terms of the trust, are not empowered to sell the houses to their tenants in fee simple and who yet would be unable to sell by way of ground lease once the Bill had become law. Section 2 (6) proposes to give the trustees the necessary power to sell to their tenants in fee simple.

Subsection (7) of section 2 was inserted in the Bill in the course of its passage through Dáil Éireann. The subsection is designed to cater for the following type of situation. It could happen that a long-term lease of land is made after this Bill has become law and that a sub-lease is made of part of the land held under that lease. After the land held under the sub-lease has been developed, say by the construction thereon of industrial premises, the lessee under the original lease may construct houses on the remainder of the lands and under section 2 (1) of the Bill this could render the entire lease void. Sections 20 and 21 of the Landlord and Tenant (Reversionary Leases) Act, 1958, contain provisions to protect any sub-lessee whose lease is a building lease or a proprietary lease in a case where his lessor's lease is terminated for non-payment of rent, breach of covenant, and so forth. These provisions of the 1958 Act have the effect in such a case of making the building lessee or proprietary lessee, as the case may be, a direct lessee of the lessor who gave the terminated lease. The new provision in subsection (7) gives the same protection to an innocent sub-lessee in a case where a lease was rendered void in the circumstances that I have outlined.

Section 4 of the Bill contains the provisions to deal with the situation as it arises in the public sector. Dwellings provided by housing authorities are excluded from the provisions of the landlord and tenant code by section 3 of the 1931 Act and purchasers of such dwellings have not a statutory right to acquire the fee simple interest in their dwellings under the 1967 Act. However, under section 4 (1) of this Bill the prohibition on the creation of future ground rents will be extended to sales of local authority dwellings. This is a historic aspect of this legislation.

A new dwelling can be sold by a housing authority to a person other than the existing tenant, as, for example, to the first occupier when he takes up occupation. In this case the dwelling is sold at cost, less the equivalent of any grants payable for new private houses. As these sales are analogous to sales of private houses, it is intended that the fee simple should in future vest in the purchaser. Where a dwelling is sold to the local authority tenant, however, the sale under section 90 of the Housing Act, 1966, is heavily subsidised from public funds as compared with the financial assistance available to private householders.

It is necessary, therefore, for housing authorities to ensure that in the case of a resale of such a dwelling the vendor and his dependants are not left without adequate alternative housing accommodation and also that the intended purchaser is in need of housing. To meet this situation the Bill provides that, while the sale of such a dwelling will be in fee simple, certain special conditions will apply. These will operate for 25 years from the date of sale and will stipulate that the dwelling shall be used as the normal place of residence by the purchaser or his successor in title and that the dwelling cannot be resold without the consent of the housing authority.

I must point out that special conditions, including those I have mentioned, apply to sales of all local authority dwellings at present and extend to the full period of the lease, which is normally 99 years. Under the Bill, tenant purchasers of local authority dwellings will, in every case, acquire title to their dwellings in fee simple free of any ground rent, but subject to the two conditions specified in section 4 (2) for a period of 25 years.

Local authority tenant purchasers have never heretofore had the statutory right to enlarge their leasehold interest to a fee simple interest or to obtain a reversionary lease. However, under this Bill the benefits accruing to owner-occupiers in general will also extend to future tenant purchasers, subject to the conditions which are designed to ensure that housing accommodation provided at a heavy cost to public funds continues to be used for the purpose for which it was provided for at least a reasonable period of time.

In conclusion, I should like to say how pleased I am to bring before the Seanad a Bill that marks a fundamental step in the development of full home ownership in the State. As I have already hinted, it will bring about a most important change in conveyancing practice in as much as all new houses must in future be disposed of in fee simple rather than by way of a long lease. The general reception the Bill has got indicates widespread agreement with the principles on which it is based, and there has been a general and genuine effort from all sides to make the detailed provisions as effective as possible. This is an approach which I find very gratifying, particularly since these detailed provisions are far from simple. I know that that is how the Members of this House will approach the Bill and I look forward to a useful and constructive debate. I ask the House if possible to give me all Stages today.

I do not like to start on an abrasive note, but the answer to the Minister's request is, no. This is a Committee Stage Bill, which is essentially very technical, and quite obviously a Bill of that nature must be teased out section by section. It can only be teased out properly after hearing the full debate on the Second Stage. The Minister presumably will listen to the points made and in his reply will deal with those points. The adequacy or otherwise of his reply will then determine what approach has to be made on Committee Stage. I do not wish to appear unco-operative but I cannot agree to all stages being taken this afternoon.

There was no harm trying.

The Minister might as well know the score early. The principle in this Bill, the prevention of the creation of future ground rents, is acceptable to us on this side of the House. It is something that has been sought for a long time. It was first recommended in 1961 and various recommendations were made since, but were consistently resisted by the Fianna Fáil Party. I welcome their conversion to the acceptance of the principle that ground rents should be abolished. When that party were in Government during those years the moves to end this system were consistently opposed and the conversion even though it is late is welcome. I wonder is it because now there is an acceptance of the principle that ground rents should be abolished or is there an element of political expediency, arising from the experience of that party when in opposition, having to listen to and placate various lobbies in this area. Having regard to the earlier consistent opposition, there is some ground for believing that this Bill is the result of that sort of activity during their term of opposition.

There was no move by Fianna Fáil when in Government in the earlier days on this question of ground rents. Motions asking for legislation for the compulsory buying out of ground rents the first of them as far back as 1946, and Private Members' motions in 1960 in the other House, were rejected. The late Deputy Seán Dunne in 1961 sought and was refused leave to introduce a Bill to prevent the creation of further ground rents. In 1964, the Landlord and Tenant Commission, recommended the prevention of the creation of further ground rents. That could have been inserted in the Ground Rents Bill of 1967, but even that recommendation coming from that non-political source was rejected. I mention these points to support my case that the conversion of Fianna Fáil to acceptance of this principle has been recent and is a matter of political expediency answering the lobbies to which they were subjected when they were in opposition.

This Bill forms one part of a Bill which I had the honour of proposing to the last Dáil. That Bill had three parts. It had a part to prevent the creation of future ground rents, which we now have before us today. It had a part to make easier the purchase of existing ground rents, which the other House is debating today, and it also proposed the amendment and revision of the entire landlord and tenant code in relation to occupational tenancies. Of the three parts, the part providing for the revision, amendment and improvement of the general landlord and tenant code is by far the most important. It is literally of immense commercial and legal significance in the life of this country. As yet, there is no sign of that part of that Bill being proposed to the Oireachtas. We have these other two, unimportant, in comparison to the third portion brought forward but not the third portion which is the most important part. These two are important in themselves but are not as important as the third portion to which I have just referred. This is a serious omission on the part of the Government because the situation that will result from lack of amendment in that field will be quite chaotic. The present Bill is re-enacting in nearly similar terms the provisions of the Bill which was introduced early last year although there are a couple of differences in it. Some of these differences are committee points and we will no doubt go into them in greater detail on Committee Stage.

One point, which raises a matter of principle, is the question of extending the powers of the Bill albeit in a limited way, to local authority houses. The original Bill excluded local authority houses from any of the changes proposed for other type of dwellings. This was done in recognition of the fact that the situation of a purchaser of a local authority house is not analogous to that of a person purchasing a private dwelling. In the case of a local authority house, the site would be provided by the community and the house would have been built by the community. In the case of the private person he would have bought his own site and he would have built his own house. It is clear that there is no analogy between the two situations. Because the community was involved in providing these houses, the community should be left with control over those houses. Very often there is extreme pressure of space in urban areas, and it is important that local authority houses should be kept under the control of the housing authority, so that they be kept available as residences.

There is a danger that if any measure of control passes out, even 25 years hence, there could be undesirable consequences from the point of view of housing within the community. Many local authority houses are in large compact estates and are possibly strategically placed in regard to the urban area in question. Under the planning code generally, local authorities have an obligation to provide for urban development and urban renewal as the need arises. Critical to discharging that obligation is the power to have control over the property which could be strategically placed in that area, and that property very often is local authority houses. Consequently it is important that the community, through the local authority, should retain control of that housing, so that its obligations with regard to proper planning can be fully carried out. The House can see that if that control is diminished or abandoned, there might be great difficulties in the way of carrying out schemes of urban development 30 or 40 years hence, when there will be no controls whatever on these houses. The controls proposed by this Bill last for only 25 years. For these reasons local authority houses should be excluded. The situation as regards the owners of them is not analagous to that pertaining to the private sector. What they are being given in this Bill, if it is being presented as putting them on the same footing as the private owner, is something of a confidence trick. They are not being put on that footing at all. The restriction for 25 years on sale and the necessity to get the consent of the local authority are significant and fundamental differences. It is a confidence trick to try and present the picture that local authority houses are now being brought in, and that this is an historic moment in the law of the land as the Minister has just attempted to suggest. They are being very seriously restricted. It would be more honest to exclude that type of dwelling completely, rather than to pretend that it is getting the same status as private dwellings in regard to prohibition of ground rents.

The basic thing that was needed was the ending of the ground rent. In the last 20 or 30 years the amount being charged for ground rent was a reasonably noticeable burden on a house. It was the weight of that burden that generated the initial demand for the abolition of the system. In the case of a local authority tenant the ground rent is £1 and the only covenants contained in the lease are generally covenants to insure, to keep in repair, not to use for business, not to assign without the consent of the local authority. I am sure the House will agree that none of those covenants could be described as onerous, or improper, having regard to the fact that the house was built with community money in the first instance. The ground rent, the element which gave rise to objections to the system, was only £1 per year. No one could seriously complain that that was a burden or something that could not or should not be carried. It would have been better to have maintained the exclusion of local authority housing from this legislation rather than to try to pretend to local authority tenants that they will be put on an equal footing with other purchasers, when they are not. I have indicated strong reasons why the differences in their situation should be honestly faced up to. They should be excluded from this legislation.

The thing which gave rise to the campaign to change the law was the existence of fairly substantial ground rents. The Minister said in his speech, that it was not possible to devise a legal system that could do away with the ground rent part alone, and that there were difficulties of definition, which made it impossible to tackle the problem by tackling the ground rent element only, and that as a result the methods proposed to deal with the problem is to end the entire lease which charges the ground rent. There is in this an element of throwing out the baby with the bath water. I am sure Senators will be aware that in many of these leases there are covenants which are for the benefit of the householder and for the benefit of his neighbours. Granted, they diminish his ownership in the sense that the necessity to obey these covenants put him in a different category from a person who owns a fee simple which is an absolute title. His title is not absolute in the sense that he has to obey certain covenants which are devised for his good and the good of his neighbours. It is suggested that these covenants can no longer be drafted in the future because of this legislation, that their place will be taken by the provisions of the planning code. I accepted that argument when I proposed the original Bill.

It is still a correct argument, though I admit that it could be argued that the restrictions and controls which are imported into our law by the planning code will not be as effective in maintaining uniformity in an area in maintaining proper maintenance of dwelling houses as would the system of the covenants in the leases. Because of the insuperable difficulty of dealing with the problem by attacking ground rent alone it was a question of whether to continue ground rents and ground leases for the sake of having these covenants, or to get rid of this inequitous system as was demanded. On balance the approach in the Bill is right. We have to get rid of the system and trust to the planning code to ensure that whatever uniformity, proper procedures and proper standards had been procured by the covenants, will be maintained by the planning code. This is something on which there could be debate, but I certainly thought that the measure was justified because of the offensive nature of ground rent as such, and the widespread and genuine demand for the ending of it. I would concede that if the drafting difficulty of dealing with ground rents per se could be overcome, I would prefer to see the matter attacked in that way.

There are some other differences in this Bill from the earlier Bill introduced. One notable one is the provision where land is held on lease for at least 99 years before the passing of the Act, with 50 years at least unexpired, and there is planning permission for the construction of dwellings. There is then a period of one year allowed before the body of provisions come into effect. One year is too short, and that period should be two years. There could be commercial, legal or planning obstacles, or there could be conditions attached to existing permission which could slow up the completion of the formalities within the year prescribed by the Bill. There could be commercial difficulties; there could be legal difficulties, and it is quite possible that they might not be resolved within the period of one year. If there were difficulties of nobody's creation, over which the parties concerned might not have any direct control, it would be unfair that there would be prejudice. It is not unreasonable to think that one year might not be sufficient to solve these, if there were a whole combination of them.

Will the Minister give us his views as to why he is confining the period to one year rather than two years as was originally proposed? I also ask the Minister to comment on the scope of this Bill as compared with the original Bill. The original Bill, in section 108, as far as I recall, applied to leases which would have been created under section 66 of the original Bill. My recollection is that the range of leases to be created under section 66 would be wider than that provided for in this Bill.

In the debate in the other House a number of points were raised by Deputy O'Keeffe and the Minister for Justice in dealing with them indicated that he would give them consideration between that debate and this debate and that he would announce his mind on those points in the Seanad. One or two points that the Minister made in his opening speech could by implication be dealing with the points raised on Committee Stage of the Bill. That is my interpretation; I do not know if the Minister intended to deal in that way with those specific points. Perhaps when replying to this debate the Minister will deal specifically with the points which were raised in the Dáil on Committee Stage and which the Minister promised would be dealt with in the Seanad. The Minister's attitude to those points will be of some concern to us in deciding our attitude on Committee Stage. This is a Committee point but perhaps the Minister might deal with it at this stage, so as to shorten Committee Stage. The protection given in subsection (4) of section 2, I take it, applies to a person whose lease is voided under subsection (1). Am I wrong in thinking that it does not give the same protection to a person whose lease is voided under subsection (3)? Perhaps the Minister would deal with the case where there is a lessor who makes a lease of the entire property to a lessee, the land is not built on; the lessee assigns the entire property, and his assignee does not build on it either, but assigns it to a second assignee who decides to build. What would be the position of the last assignee having regard to the provisions of subsection (4)?

I reiterate, that the principle in the Bill is acceptable to this side of the House. We consider that the most important part of the landlord and tenant code needing revision is that relating to occupational tenancies. In view of the fact that the Bill providing for this revision was drafted and had a Second Stage debate in the last Dáil I had thought that it could come forward very quickly in the life of this Oireachtas, because there is a serious demand for reform. At the moment, on the renewal of a lease the courts are constrained to grant a 21-year term, and the rent that they grant it at is the market rent as of the date of the court hearing and that rent has then to inure for the 21 years. A moment's consideration will show Senators that after ten years that rent may be grossly inadequate. The reform proposed was to change the term to 35 years and have automatic reviews of the rent every five years. That is the way it should be. The circuit courts now are finding themselves in the position of having to grant renewals of leases for 21 years at a rent which they know in a number of years may not be adequate and may not possibly reflect the market value of the property. The result is that in some cases the law is being strained and the initial rent being granted is too high for the current time but it is trying to compensate for the inevitable fall of money during the years ahead. That is just one example of the way in which the law is deficient at the moment and in which it has been deficient now for some time. The change that was proposed in the Bill which was introduced last year was recommended by the Landlord and Tenant Commission nearly a decade ago now. Other substantial changes were recommended. The need for them was present when the Commission reported and the need is still there and is even more urgent now. I appeal to the Minister to bring forward that part of that Bill at the very earliest opportunity, and to indicate to the House what his intentions are in relation to it.

Speaking as one who has been in public politics about ten or 12 years, I have always favoured any effort that might be made to bring about an end to the ground rent system. It is a bit tiresome to have to listen to the last speaker, Senator Cooney, engaging in what I can only describe as party politics, in relation to who had got there first, or to who is the best. My recollection is that Senator Cooney's party did not decide on this question until the Fianna Fáil Party in Opposition did so immediately before the last local elections in 1974. However, I am not interested in that sort of scoring. I hope we will see less of it in the Seanad. As far as I can recollect, from studying the Bill, this Bill has a number of additional powers that were not in the previous Bill. When one considers that the three political parties were in agreement on proposals to end the creation of ground rents, whatever the difficulties about ending ground rents as such, it still might have been through the Dáil and Seanad a couple of years ago. It can be described as a notable social advance. There is no question that the whole system of ground rents was and is socially undesirable, if not to some degree morally wrong. This step, as well as the Bill now in the other House, could be regarded as a step forward out of the bad old days of landlordism and rack-renting.

One should not discount totally the advantages that existed in that type of leasehold system. There was, for instance, control over bad or undesirable developments. I, as one who would have preferred to see development at that time being controlled by a public planning authority, rather than by what one would describe as the well-meaning paternalism of landlords, have to acknowledge that some of the buildings we are looking at, and some of the squares around us here, are something worth while, and that perhaps if the leaseholds had not existed and commercial interests could have exploited these areas 50 to 100 years ago, we might not have the very fine squares or even the very fine road system of old Dublin that exist. Although I am not paying tribute to the older system, it did have some advantages. It is therefore all the more important that once one is hopefully looking at a new era in which all ground renting will be ended, we as a socially-conscious community should keep in mind through our locally elected representatives, that good order and planning are all the more necessary for environmental purposes. There is no question about underlying motives behind this.

An individual should have the right not only to the ownership of his or her home but the right to be able to dispose of it freely without any restrictions. The very fact that you did have in the old law the right conferred on a landlord to take over a house because the ground rent was not being paid is something which I am sure would be objected to strenuously by all of us even though the courts in all probability would not have upheld that right. Nevertheless, it is a good thing to see that the way is becoming clear towards complete freehold ownership of homes and the ground under the homes. One can point to some advantages on the equity side and possibly earlier advantages in the same way in regard to the use of property as a security, not so much for the creation of money as for the creation or the development of enterprise. In that sense the situation that we are coming into now may put individuals in a better position to engage in enterprise themselves. In the old days when you had a house on which there was a pretty substantial ground rent and you went to the bank with it you were less likely to get the form of security that you wanted than if the houses was entirely your own to dispose of as you wished. I expect that under the old system ground rents in bulk became probably a significant element in the creation of security. One might almost describe it as the creation of money in a sense. That was one of the things that was socially undesirable about it, but it may have had its values in that sense also.

I am not competent to deal with all the technical areas that the Minister has dealt with but I certainly welcome this Bill. I welcome the other Bill that is going through the House. I would have to point out of course, because of the amount of misunderstanding and misrepresentation that there has been over this issue generally, a Chathaoirleach, that the problem has not been a lack of desire to end the obnoxious ground rent: the problem has been how to end it in a way that was not going to cost the taxpayer very many millions of pounds. Under our present system of law the Government in office have not the power simply to draw a pencil through the legal right of people to property. That is why it was quite wrong to suggest that we, at the last election, promised to abolish ground rents. We did undertake—and I was a member of the committee which sat and discussed this question—to introduce a means that would help to bring about an end to ground rents.

We will have that perhaps next week.

It is coming and it is no harm that it should be coming but——

I am afraid it will be political also.

The Senator is not among those of whom I am speaking now so his interruption is not going to help in any way. The fact of the matter is that ground rents have to be removed by some means or other and the public authority or the Government is not in a position to do so of its own free will without costing the taxpayer very many millions of pounds. However, that is not an issue that I should be dealing with here at the present time.

I would like again to welcome this Bill. It is a social step forward and I would look forward to other steps coming from the other House into this House along the same lines.

The Labour Members of the Seanad are prepared to welcome any measure which is directed towards the removal or preventing of ground rents, and therefore we welcome this Bill because it will prevent the creation of new ground rents on private dwellings. However, I think that it is necessary, despite Senator Brugha's sensitivity in the matter, to refer to the introductory speech of the Minister which must inevitably spark off a certain bitterness or resentment. That speech was lacking in a degree of honesty which the Seanad should come to expect. It did not refer to the fact that in January, 1977, a Bill was introduced which would have accomplished the purpose of this Bill, and which would also have accomplished the much broader purpose of the reform of the landlord and tenant code. I really do think that it is—to say the least of it—strange that the Minister should appear to take such satisfaction at introducing a Bill in the Seanad that he claims marks such a "fundamental" step. Why have we waited over a year unnecessarily for this measure to be received by Members of this House and received without any dissent on the principle of it?

As the first Labour Party Member to speak, I, too, wish to refer to the historical situation and to record what Senator Cooney has already referred to, the fact that a Bill was introduced by Deputy Seán Dunne of the Labour Party over 17 years ago, in 1961, which would have gone further than the Bill which we are considering here today and further than the Bill which the Minister is at present, I understand, putting through the other House. This was the Ground Rents (Prohibition and Extinction) Bill 1961. It was introduced by Deputy Seán Dunne in November, 1961, and is referred to in the Conroy Commission on Ground Rents which reported in 1964. At page 17 of that report the provisions of the Bill are summarised as follows:

In November, 1961, Deputy Dunne moved for leave to introduce a Bill dealing with ground rents. The Bill provided that:

(1) After the date of the passing of the Bill it would be illegal to create a new ground rent;

(2) After the passing of the Bill a tenant would have the right to purchase a ground rent from his ground landlord at a sum not greater than 15 times the normal ground rent which the tenant was liable to pay;

(3) Any amount paid by the tenant as ground rent prior to the passing of the Bill should be taken into account in the purchase price of the ground rent.

As Senator Cooney said, that Bill was refused a First Stage. In other words leave to introduce it was refused. It was never even allowed to be printed and discussed, and at that time in 1961 Fianna Fáil were in power and could have allowed the Bill into the Dáil even for the purposes of discussion of the principles or they could have put it forward themselves at that time. This must be put on record when the Minister purports to come into this House in a way that suggests that somehow this was a novel and fundamental idea that Fianna Fáil had suddenly thought of, rather than the reality that Fianna Fáil has delayed by over a year the debate in this House on precisely the same point and principle which was contained in sertion 108 of the Bill tabled by Senator Cooney when Minister for Justice under the Coalition Government.

I would agree with the Senators who have spoken in opposing on principle the system of holding land on the basis of ground rents. For historical reasons this is an alien system which we inherited, and which runs counter to our very strong cultural identity with land and desire that the ownership of land should be in the actual householder, the person living in the house, and that the person is not merely the owner of the bricks and mortar with somebody else owning the ground itself. It is undesirable from that historical perspective and it is socially undesirable because it provides a system of unearned income in perpetuum for the landlord and his successors and heirs. One other undesirable aspect of it was that in very many cases the payments are made to non-citizens, to absentee landlords or to non-residents—perhaps payments have to be made to Irish companies somewhere else in the country—but in any case the system is one where the person, instead of having the full ownership of the land, has to go on paying this ground rent.

I take Senator Brugha's point that at a certain stage, in the last century and at the turn of the century, there were some positive functions of a landlord under the system and there could be good estate management implied in it, but I think that those considerations no longer weigh at all. To begin with, most of the functions that would have been functions of the landlord in good estate management are now functions of the local authority, and, secondly, we have had too much experience in recent building of estates, since the war, of cases where the landlord has not fulfilled even the most basic covenants and where spaces which should have been developed as propor play areas or park areas are left neglected. Cases which green spaces in the building estates were left as eyesores, left in a very bad state and have actually been a source of contention because they are not the responsibility of the local authority, they are the responsibility of the landlord and the landlord has not been prepared to fulfil the basic functions of estate management.

I believe that one of the worst evils of the ground rents system has been the abuse of the system where the tenant has sought to apply for permission to carry out structural alterations. If there is to be a change of user, for example, which requires structural alterations then there have been cases where the landlord has refused permission unless a fine or special penalty is first paid. This is a very undesirable further imposition on the householder in the particular circumstances, and it is the type of abuse which can arise when we have a system of land holding of this sort.

I believe that we should look carefully at the possibility of any adverse effect of this measure by rendering void any attempt to create future ground rents might have by way of increase in the cost of housing. I would be inclined to agree with the Minister's argument here, that the manner of purchase of a house is usually by way of mortgage or loan, and what in reality affects the house purchaser is not the initial sum but rather the total of the repayments over a substantial period, and that on that basis it might be possible to argue that in fact the prohibition on the creation of future ground rents will not have any significant effect on house prices. But I would maintain that it should have no effect at all, and that great care should be taken to ensure that there is no adverse effect on house prices. I believe there are broader issues underlying this. Very often one of them is that the price of the site has a lot to do with what the ultimate price of the house will be; and I would like to ask the Minister present here today or preferably the Minister for Justice if he is able to reply to this debate to indicate whether it is proposed to have control of the price of sites and whether the speculative profits that are made in this area are a matter which the Government intends to try to control, because otherwise it will be very difficult to prevent the escalation of house prices apart from local authority houses.

I would also like to ask the Minister in his reply to indicate whether he intends to introduce control of rents on the purchase of flats in multiple dwelling buildings? These were excluded from the Bill which was introduced in January last, and they were excluded from this measure, but I would like to know whether the Minister has in mind a measure to control the fact that a person purchasing a flat, which is as much that person's home as a house on its own is a home for other people, has to pay a rent and the payment of the rent is, I think, very analogous to the payment of a ground rent in relation to individual private dwellings. Although I can see reasons why because of the complexity of the situation it might have to be tackled separately I think it is an issue which should be tackled without delay.

I join with Senator Cooney in asking when the whole reform of the landlord and tenant code and the other provisions which were in the Bill introduced in January last here will be reintroduced into the Dáil and Seanad? I ask this in particular because I think that landlord and tenant law has become far too complex and far too difficult for the consumer, for the ordinary citizen, to understand. If a citizen wants to understand it that citizen must go and avail of the advice of a solicitor. This is particularly inequitable in a situation where we do not have a comprehensive system of civil legal aid and advice because it is only those who can afford to seek the advice of a solicitor in relation to their rights—in relation to what steps they can take—who are in fact protected by the law.

I would like to emphasise this dimension, that in this area of landlord and tenant there are very serious problems affecting people who do not have private means, who do not have money to seek the professional advice of a solicitor and pay for that advice. When the Pringle Report on civil legal aid is published—and one understands that that is imminent—I think it is very important that discussion on civil legal aid does not narrowly focus on areas of family law. This area of landlord and tenant, of people's property rights, is just as important for those in need of legal advice, who need help with the very complexity and technicality of pyramids of interests and of the type of language used in relation to landlord and tenant law—the whole code. These people need advice in this area at least to the same extent as they also need advice in the area of family law.

I believe that it is extremely important that the attitude is not taken that somehow family law will be selected as a pilot scheme or isolated in some limited way as being an area where the Government will be prepared to introduce some limited scheme of civil legal aid. I believe that the principle is one based on justice, on equality before the law, on the fundamental principle of access to advice, access to our courts for a remedy in a situation, and that it cannot be confined artificially to areas of family law, not even on the basis of the greater need in the area of family law. There is just as much need in particular cases for untangling the legal complexity affecting a person's home, affecting a person's right to live somewhere, affecting a person's right to provide the family with a roof over their heads, in a particular place.

This measure is in itself one which the Labour Party welcomes. It is one small step along the way for which Sean Dunne lit the light in 1961, and we would also be prepared to welcome the other measure which is going through the Dáil as a second step, but I urge the need for a much more radical and comprehensive approach to reform in the area of landlord and tenant law.

I had hoped when I decided to speak on this Bill that one could say that it was very largely an agreed Bill, and I would hope that to a very great extent the principles underlying it are indeed principles on which we could agree on all sides of this House. The Bill itself may be a very complicated one but there are fundamental and basic principles involved. I would regard this Bill as a necessary step towards the clarification of the whole question of land ownership and the elimination of landlordism as a factor in regard to private dwelling houses, people's homes. It is necessary that as a first step, we abolish or prevent the possibility of further ground rents being set up. It is a necessary initial measure in what is going to be a difficult and complicated subject. It will not be easy to fully abolish ground rents—there are aspects of the Constitution and many other factors involved—but it is the direction in which we should move because we are dealing with one of the absolute fundamentals as regards a person's private life and one's wealth and ownership in general. It was freely recognised until the industrial revolution that land was the basis of wealth. In actual fact today the value and importance of land are even greater than they were then, except that perhaps the importance has tilted towards the ownership of land in cities and urban areas generally rather than in the rural connotation which previously existed. To a large extent land is still the basis of wealth.

As regards this and many countries landlordism has been very much the curse. A large part of our history has been the gradual unravelling of landlordism, but we have thought about it almost entirely in the context of farm land, of people owning their own land, their farms. Perhaps today the emphasis should be on the ownership of people's homes. No person truly owns his home if he does not own the land on which it is built. That person is still effectively a tenant, owning just the bricks and mortar. I would hope that just as landlordism in rural areas has been at long last abolished so, in due course, landlordism in our cities, suburban areas and towns will also be abolished and people will really own their own homes.

Irish land law, as I understand it with only a layman's knowledge—no doubt I will be quickly corrected if I am in error—has four main bases, first, English statute law, secondly, English common law; thirdly, Irish statute law and fourthly, Irish common law. English common law— and again I am open to correction on this matter—is really grounded on the feudal system. This system, however, bears a very different meaning here to that pertaining in England. The feudal system was basically a relationship between landlord and tenant which was intended to be and, perhaps, in historical times very often was a beneficial relationship. The feudal relationship here in so far as it existed at all was entirely one of benefit to the landlord and to the negation of any benefit to the tenant from whom the land had often been confiscated in the first place. Nonetheless, it still forms, to some extent, a basis of our Irish land law.

The second basis of Irish land law is English statute law, including laws passed at Westminster and relating to Britain and Ireland and those relating solely to Ireland. A third basis is Irish statute law. Irish statute law relates not only to the laws we are passing today and those laws which are passed in Northern Ireland but to all those laws I understand passed between 1310 and 1800 by the old Irish Parliament.

Then there is the Irish common law with its various principles and so on introduced by judges and conveyances and relating primarily to Irish conditions and the Irish situation.

If we review these four bases of law, whatever about the fourth one, Irish common law, the other three— the English feudal system, the statutes passed at Westminster and the statutes passed by the Irish Parliament between 1300 and 1800—almost all these laws were inimical to the interests of the vast majority of people living here. I say this advisedly because in many ways—no doubt distinguished legal Senators will quickly correct me if I am wrong—I understand that one of the features of the law of landlord and tenant is that throughout the ages it has almost invariably been made by the landlord rather than by the tenant. So, we not only suffer from this general principle of landlord and tenant law but we also suffer from the fact that three out of the four basic elements of our law are all elements loaded against the Irish people as a whole.

Historically, the English related this to the countryside through farmers owning their own land. Of course, it applies equally well to the city dweller today, and it is an anomalous and ridiculous system that people should still be obliged to pay ground rent to landlords on the basis of confiscations made throughout the centuries. It is high time we finished it but it may be very difficult technically to do this.

One of the aspects of this Bill which I think one must welcome very wholeheartedly is the support it gives to the principle of home ownership. This is an excellent feature. The Minister is to be congratulated on bringing it in.

As the Minister has pointed out, one of the few possible bases for maintaining the position with regard to ground rents could be related to the maintenance of amenities and so on. Until recently it used to be argued that with a leasehold relationship the state of buildings, what was done with them as regards amenities and so on could be, to some extent, controlled. This is a very dubious and patronising attitude and certainly with present day planning laws it is completely outmoded and there is no longer any possible justification that I can see in it.

There is one aspect of which we must take a great deal of cognisance because it affects everybody, and that is the absolute certainty of legal title and the expense relating to that. Buying one's house is probably the major purchase any one person or one family make in their lifetime. This Bill is a good step in ensuring that a person will have full legal title to his home and that he will really own his home and the land on which it is built. The law is so complicated in relation to home-ownership and housing generally that I hope the Minister will bear in mind the considerable expense which people feel naturally obliged to enter into when buying a house. It is already the greatest expenditure of money that most people are involved in, and it is very sad that on top of that they should have to safeguard their investment by paying very high expenses in order to ensure that they have a clear legal title to their premises. I hope that this is something we can look at in the general context of the abolition of ground rents and of house ownership. It will be much appreciated.

I am very glad also that any attempts to circumvent the abolition of ground rents have been carefully examined and I hope effectively prevented. It is most important that no loopholes be left through which speculators and others could evade the purposes of this Act. The situation with regard to builders who bona fide have purchased land over which difficulties might arise as regards giving houses in fee simple were their position not covered, has been, I am glad to see looked after, as has also the position of any innocent sub-lessees.

Another fundamental principle and an excellent innovation—on which I hope most Members of this House, perhaps not all, would agree—is that it should now become possible for people in local authority housing to buy their own houses, not only the bricks and mortar, but the house as a home which they would truly own under the safeguards which the Minister has mentioned. This is a fundamental change which will have beneficial effects for generations to come.

This is a necessary, beneficial, and civilised Bill and I welcome it.

Listening to the kind of genteel exchange of artillery from both sides of the House earlier brought my attention to the realistic facts behind this Bill and what has made it possible. With the sense of grievance from the Opposition that they had not brought in the Bill in their time and the justifiable complacency and satisfaction from the Government for having brought it in—and they have to get credit for that—it struck me that in fact the hero of this little drama is not Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or Labour, but inflation. Consider the figures, beginning with what obtained in 1967 when Deputy Lenihan, then Minister for Justice, thought of bringing in this measure and when £250 would buy out a £20 ground rent, and then look at what would now be the case. At that time £250 would buy out a £20 ground rent for all time, and it is searingly evident that it was not opportune to bring this in in 1967 and it is opportune to bring it in now. Even though ground rents have been a burning question down through the years, they are less a burning question in genuine financial terms now than before. At this moment we know there are a lot of ground landlords not even bothering to hunt up the £6 or £12 or £20 annual rent that is due to them. In many cases that I meet in the course of my day inflation has so eaten into the value of ground rent that it is no longer, in terms of finance, a terribly important issue.

This is a meritorious Bill and I welcome it as much as anybody else welcomes it. Its merits have to do with two things: firstly, what the Minister himself stressed, that is the emotional force of the Bill. A man or woman likes to own his or her house outright, not just the bricks and the mortar but what is under foot as well. The satisfaction of owning something in toto is profound satisfaction to both the peasant and the bourgeois mind, and largely our mentality is dominated by these two states of consciousness. There may be the odd aristocratic spirit among us, and that of course does not rule out the desire for property or ownership either. In a country largely composed of small property owners it is very, very satisfactory for someone eventually to buy his ground rent even for what is now a rather derisory sum and say: “I own the whole thing.” The emotional appeal of the Bill is admirable. There is a lovely sense of reassurance about the phrase “total ownership”. The Government are to be justly congratulated on having introduced it. It is a matter of only six or nine months between the two contending parties, but the present Government have almost brought off this part of it. There is a trilogy of Bills involved, as the Minister has said, so we look forward to the other consignments in this general package.

The second satisfaction I get from the Bill and the second palpable, clear advantage of the Bill is the neatness of it. It is legally a neat Bill. A good deal of what Senator Robinson referred to as "that pyramid of interests accumulating on the lawyer's desk" has been abolished at a stroke so that Seán Citizen knows that when he is buying something he can buy it outright. That incredible jungle of circumstance, of searches and documents of all kinds that the most simple of people have to go through when they want to purchase a house, at least has been reduced to this extent.

It is just another Act to read.

Just another Act to read? I do not quite get the full force of the Senator's interjection. In any case it seems to me rather neater. There are a lot of lawyers on this side of the House, of course, and there is the sense of treading on sacred if not indeed dangerous ground when one begins to hold forth on this subject at all. The ordinary man not thus equipped can at least understand that he can own something absolutely. That is an absolute value and advantage in the Bill.

The way the Bill has come about makes one contemplate a little wryly the whole democratic process. At this moment for most people in terms of money the difference between, say, paying £20ad infinitum yearly and paying £200 now is hardly worth talking about. For instance, inflation has literally halved the value of ground rents in five years. What will it have done in another five years? You can imagine a lovely vista where you can see your £20 disappearing over the horizon, becoming worth £15 then £10 and so on, and in 20 years' time it will be a speck in the distance which you can contemplate with a certain satisfaction. If you compensate yourself by buying the holding out now, you get the emotional satisfaction of saying: “It is not hanging around me any more.” You miss the drama of the diminishing £20 note as it goes down through the years. You cannot win on every side. That is why history has caught up with this measure. It was not opportune to adopt it previously. No Government seemed anxious to take it on, no matter what is said on both sides of the House, until now when it has become comparatively painless. That is not to take from the genuine satisfaction which the Government should feel in regard to this Bill.

One aspect of the Bill is a bit of a thorn beneath the rose. There is a sting in the tail no matter what one does. Senator Robinson asked if there was any way of preventing developers from building this loss into their prices. Have the Government control of the price of development land for housing now? Will it increase now that the developers cannot look forward to their annual accumulation of small sums from each householder on an estate? I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong in this matter, but Senator Conroy's facts seemed to be sufficiently well researched to be impregnable to the very formidable attack building up on this side of the House, and he seemed certain, as I am, that there is no way in which you can stop a man putting up the price of his land and waiting for the market to come along and bid for it. He will sell at what he can. One of the disadvantages of this Bill will be an initial disadvantage of the price of houses going up.

Inevitably the developers will build that loss of ground rent into their initial cost, and that is going to be a disadvantage, particularly for people who are now at their wits' end trying to get a deposit. One of the biggest human problems that exist for people buying houses at the moment is the accumulation of a sufficient deposit to enable them to start borrowing. The rate of borrowing is large enough and the price of houses is high enough, but people are going to need a larger deposit. As I said before, you cannot win. The Government have had to balance one thing against the other and I think they made the right decision, but it is wrong to ignore the fact that one of the side issues of this Bill, apart from its inevitable spin-off, will be the fact that the prices of houses will go up a little if not a lot.

An aspect of the Bill which is worth considering is the whole question of flat dwelling. Senator Robinson has asked for some means by which ground rent or its equivalent could be ex-pugned from that. I cannot see how that can be done, but people living in and renting flats should be considered by the Government, who are looking in a fairly panoramic way at dealing with the question of house ownership and house purchase and all the related difficulties. Society as it stands puts a great premium on owning one's own house. One of the most poignant situations if one comes up against it is that of young couples who are living in flats and who are trying to get together a deposit for their house. They are paying rent and that rent is disappearing down the drain. If they are paying out for five years it becomes an almost intolerable futility and a frustration for them. They are trying to accumulate the means of buying a house on one hand and on the other they are paying out money which could very well go towards that end.

I am putting as a solid suggestion to the Minister that people who are living in rented accommodation and paying out large money monthly or weekly for their rent could be allowed that amount somehow or other free from income tax. The Government would either keep that tax remission or maybe invest it in a building society in the meantime, and when the couple come to buy a house the tax remission on what they have paid in rent could be available to them as a means of getting together a deposit on a new house. If even a moderate gesture in that direction could be made there would be great spiritual gain for people in this position.

I presume the philosophy behind this Bill is to make as many of our people as possible absolute owners of property and housing; to give them a larger stake in the country. What I suggest would give a provisional stake in the country to people who are paying rent, in terms of frustration, futility and almost despair at the moment. It would give them the hope that that rent would at some time accrue to them in a deposit. Let the Government not give it back to them until there is absolute proof that the house is bought. If that suggestion does not fall on fertile ground now I guarantee to put it forward again and again in the coming weeks, because the legislation coming up gives admirable, absolutely welcome, scope and hospitality to this kind of suggestion.

Consequently I look forward to what the Minister referred to as a trilogy of Bills. One of them is already available to us. It is passing through the Dáil at the moment. It is a trickier Bill than this one because it involves the buying out of existing rents and it is attended by a great number of problems. The third Bill we have not had hard news about. Perhaps in the formation of that Bill I would urge on the Minister that he would bear in mind some of the points that I have made. I compliment the Minister for having brought in the Bill, which it would be very hard to fault ultimately as humane, progressive legislation.

Senator Martin seems to have two misconceptions and I would like to clear them at the start if I can. One is that this Bill grants people absolute ownership of their houses. It does no such thing. Secondly, he suggests that legally this is a neat Bill. Nothing could be further from the truth, and if this Bill passes in its present condition it will prove to be a source of considerable income to solicitors and barristers.

I agree wholeheartedly with the overall purpose of the Bill. Enough has been said about that already and I do not propose to beat it any further, but it is a very difficult area, and when the Government, the Opposition and everybody decided that ground rents were an evil thing and must be abolished the parliamentary draftsmen were faced with the difficulty of how we are going to achieve this.

A ground rent is claimed in a lease, and a lease is something that is fundamental to conveyancing in this country. Leases have uses far beyond the making of money by landlords. Some of the proposals of this Bill could have consequences which are unforeseen at the moment. The Bill can be primarily dealt with satisfactorily only at Committee Stage and I would urge the Minister not to press for that Stage to be taken today. I am speaking now mainly as a solicitor and I can see problems that will inevitably present themselves if the Bill is passed in its present form.

For the benefit of the Senators who are not lawyers and who do not understand conveyancing it is worth while spelling out the method the draftsmen use to bring about the prohibition of future ground rents. Basically the Bill says that if a lease contains a provision claiming ground rent the lease is void —not that provision claiming ground rent but the entire lease is void. That gives a situation in which a purchaser of a house who had taken a lease ends up in effect with nothing. There is no ground rent, but there is no legal estate whatever vested in the person who is in effect the person whom this Act purports to protect. The person is given the right to acquire the fee simple. In other words he gets a lease which has provision for a payment of a ground rent in it. This Act makes that lease void at that stage and if the tenant takes no step to put the situation right he has no legal title whatever. That is a very important point because you are dealing here with houses about 80 per cent of which are secured by mortgages and building societies are going to cause difficulties in respect of this provision. You must consider as well the position of a person who is not familiar with the law and with the provisions of this new Act and who does nothing. That person in effect will go on and on having no legal estate for his own house.

It is very difficult to conceive of a way in which one could define a ground rent and move from there and provide that no ground rent shall ever be permitted or that the creation of further ground rents would be prohibited. There was a proposal in the Dáil by Deputy O'Keeffe which provided that the provision claiming a ground rent would be rendered void. The objection of the Minister for Justice to that was that he wanted to ensure that not only would a tenant not have to pay rent but that a tenant would have absolute ownership of his house, and the Minister made it clear that this Bill would in effect bring that about. The Bill would not do that, because the definition of a lease under this Bill refers back to the 1967 Act and the 1967 Act in effect gave people the right to buy out the fee simple of their house, in other words to stop paying a ground rent. On my reading of this Bill I think it is still possible to have a lease as such. It would be an unusual lease that would not claim a ground rent, but it would be possible to transfer a property subject to covenants, and the Minister's hope that this Bill prohibits future transfers like that does not make sense. Furthermore it will be possible to make transfers in the future that, although not providing for a payment of a ground rent as such, could provide for recurrent monetary payments. This could be by way of initial fine broken up into instalments and spread over a period, but I am convinced that rent charges or other some quite unusual legal animals will present themselves on lawyers' desks in the future and ways and means of getting round this piece of legislation.

I am fully in agreement with the stated purpose of the Bill, but I do not believe it can achieve that. Some points that arise in the few sections in the Bill concern me. I would like to mention them and perhaps the Minister could indicate whether anything can be done about them. Senator Cooney made a very important point. Section 2 (3) provides that where a lease is made after this Act and at some stage subsequent to the granting of the lease a dwellinghouse is built on the land the lease becomes void. That is a good thing if we are talking simply and purely about a building site designed for a dwellinghouse but I wonder about this. For example a person leases a field to a company who propose to build a factory on the site and who propose not to erect dwelling houses on it at all. After that lease is made the people who are the lessees under the lease may erect a dwellinghouse on the land, for a foreman or perhaps for the devious means of forcing their getting their right to the fee simple. That could happen under subsection (3). There should be some saver for the exclusion of leases of land that are not intended to be used for the purpose of the erection of dwelling-houses.

Section 2 (4) provides that a person who has purchased a lease that is void under subsection (1) has the right to acquire the fee simple, but subsection (3) also provides that leases shall be void in certain circumstances but does not grant any right to the person caught under that subsection to acquire a fee simple. There seems to be a lacuna there somewhere which needs correction.

I agree with Senator Cooney's point about the one-year limitation that relates to developers who have planning permission at this stage having the right to acquire the fee simple. The period of one year in which they have the right to exercise that right is not sufficient. I can see problems arising. Sometimes it takes quite some time to get planning permission. They may not have planning permission now and it may take them six or eight months before they get it. I would urge the Minister to reconsider that matter and even go further than the two years suggested by Senator Cooney and perhaps make it three years. I do not think it is going to create any problems if there is a longer period given.

If the Senator will put down an amendment to that I will be delighted to deal with it on Committee Stage. I do not say that I will concede it.

Difficulty is inevitably presented by legislation such as this while you are bringing about such a big change in our law. There is a system which is widespread in Dublin where a developer who is building an estate himself and who owns the land or who has an arrangement with the person who owns the land does two things with a proposed house purchaser. The first is he enters into a building contract with a person which relates purely to the building of the house. The second is he enters into an agreement with that person to give him a lease of the land when the house is actually built; so there are two contracts involved. One is the contract to build the house and the other is the contract to grant a lease when the house is built. I can see a little problem arising. If for example I entered into that type of arrangement with a builder a month ago and this Bill becomes law at some stage in the near future but before the house is built, one of my two contracts will be completed at that stage, namely the erection of the house, and I will have paid my money, but the other contract is a contract to grant a lease that is now void under this Act and therefore that contract would in itself be void. I have no protection under this Bill; there is nothing that says to me that if I hold such a contract at the moment I will have the right not only to my lease but to the fee simple. There is no saver in this at all for existing contracts, and I could be left in a situation where I could have paid for a house and never have the right to get even a lease of the ground, never mind the fee simple. I think that requires to be looked at.

There is a whole pile of landlord and tenant legislation on our books at the moment. There is more of it coming and, as the Minister quite rightly said, this is a very difficult Bill to read because of its references to Acts one way or the other. I ask the Minister to convey to the Minister for Justice that some codification be done in relation to all our landlord and tenant legislation. It would be very well worth while. I know this codification of laws frequently causes difficulties, but in an area as complex and difficult as this it is an exercise well worth while.

I must welcome the Bill. Landlords have been taking money for years that they were not entitled to, because when the person purchased the house the landlord got his money back out of it and therefore they have been getting more than their fair share. Any measure that would do something about rectifying a situation like that to some degree must be welcomed.

The land on which a house is built is a consumer product. The goods that are within the house are consumer products, and in my view the purchaser of the house is entitled to the ownership of the ground on which the house stands and which surrounds it.

We welcome this Bill in the Labour Party because we believe that the private ownership of land has led to serious inequalities. There is no real desire and never has been on any Government's part, whether the Government we were in or otherwise, to follow the philosophy that the land that makes up this island is the most basic asset we possess.

As I have said, the description "consumer goods" arises, and it should never be left open to speculation by individuals and institutions. We consider this morally wrong. On some occasions we have individuals buying land as a hedge against inflation, as a means of avoiding tax. It is not just individuals: we have also had institutions doing it, and this is why we believe that any type of legislation that heads in a direction whereby consumer goods which the private person owns are protected is to be welcomed

The community must have more control over the development and the distribution of this basic asset. Our lack of control in the past over the ownership of agricultural land, for example, in the hands of the wrong people, has meant inequalities and lack of productivity in the industry of agriculture. If rural land is held by people who will not primarily invest in agricultural production, then there is an inequality and it affects the productivity levels of agriculture as a whole.

I say quite bluntly that we in the Labour Party appreciate and welcome any step that tends towards correcting any imbalances in society. We see an imbalance in the field affected by the Bill, and we believe that though the Bill may have its weaknesses and the solicitors may be able to argue and tear it to pieces and put forward proposals and so on, we still see it as a step in the direction of adjusting an. imbalance in society. Things like this will always be well received by us because we believe in a system that says that every citizen has a right to own any consumer goods as distinct from a citizen who favours a few controlling them. I look forward to Bill No. 2 as a further development in the erosion of the inequalities. I will not go so far as to say that I hope Bill No. 3 will produce a comprehensive community land Act—I think that would be a little too much to expect. I am not saying that in a sarcastic way: I am saying it because I believe that some day we will have to get around to that if we want to do something about controlling this very basic asset. We look forward to any Bill that heads in the direction of putting the controls of our land in the hands of the community. I am not saying this Bill does it. No. 2 Bill may not do it, but possibly inevitable developments will lead to a very comprehensive land Act.

I will not detain the Seanad. As everyone has said, we welcome the general idea behind this in so far as it is meeting a need which is being expressed for what is in it, and essentially any point that I would want to make on it would be made an Committee Stage—a point which has been made by other people. I thought it would be right, though, to draw attention now to a matter that I think the Minister's mind must be redirected to. That is the question of the effect of the planning code as being a totally satisfactory substitute for the covenants which existed in leases. At this point I do not want to get involved in regard to the enforcement of positive covenants where these, are conveyances of freeholds as distinct from the incidental creation of leaseholds. However, at this stage I would simply advise the Minister to reexamine and satisfy himself entirely that the provisions for the enforcement of a proper scheme for development in the planning code will be a full substitute for what at present arises under covenants in leases. I know the Minister's mind is made up on the abolition of leases—there is no point in wasting time on that; it is the principle of the Bill and I will not argue whether it is right or wrong—it is not at this point my concern—but if we are to stop the creation of leases, and I accept one cannot make progress unless one does, we may have to consider some statutory provision to deal with the maintenance of covenants, particularly positive covenants in freehold property.

We may have a situation otherwise where the development of the land will simply be sterilised. Let us take a man living in a house in which he is reasonably comfortable. He can control the area around him. He may consider development if he could be assured that any development of the land he is prepared to release can be controlled by him, that it will not be a question of the planning authority controlling it: in other words, he must be assured that the amenities will be preserved in the way that he wants. There is only one way in which he can do that, by a covenant enforceable not merely against the people with whom he will make the contract but against their successors in time, indefinitely. As a totally unintended effect of this Bill we may have some land capable of development, providing dwellinghouses for the people, not developed because of the inadequacy in our law with regard to this question of covenant.

As I said, I will not go into detail on the thing, but to summarise it very simply, a negative covenant to prevent somebody doing something would seem to be enforceable on the old Leicester Square case of 1848, but the positive covenant which will involve the expenditure of money by the keeping of something in repair, for example, is only enforceable if it is incidental to a lease. There has been a development in British law with regard to this which is not at all certain to be followed, and when we are abolishing leases we ought to put in some statutory provision to make quite sure that these positive covenants can be enforced as well as negative covenants.

That is the main point I wanted to direct the Minister's mind to at this stage. When we get to Committee Stage he may have thought further about it. During the debate we have talked about the advantages of home ownership, pride and satisfaction about owning what you have. That is all connected to the fact that you look after your own better than you look after the bench in the park. You do not own that. You look after the chair in your own kitchen better than you would look after the bench in a park. Likewise, the man who is developing property which is near his property is much more likely to look after the enforcement of the amenity provision than a town planning authority whose officers may live five to ten miles from the place. That is of considerable importance.

The second point is one of principle arising out of something the Minister said. We ought not to be saying that a Bill like this was introduced in January 1977 and that wise people ought to have arrangements and have known that provisions against the creation of leaseholds would become law. There were lots of things proposed in January 1977 that have not become law and that will never become law, and if people are to be burdened with the commercial responsibility of following every proposal of every political party in or out of Government and to be caught if they do not make the right decision about them, I think that is wrong. The principle ought to be that when the law is changed it is at that point only that the people have got to look at the law. The proposals in this Bill might never become law. Before the Bill has been signed by the President, Leinster House may be hit by a bomb. These are still only proposals. While they remain proposals, the law that allows the creation of leaseholds remains until the day the President signs this Bill if it is passed by this House.

Contracts with regard to leaseholds ought to be saved from the provisions of this Bill in the meantime. Otherwise it will have consequences that nobody can work out. There is nobody in a position in this House to say that there are no contracts for the sale of properties by way of lease in existence at this moment which will not be at existence at the time this Bill is enacted. If there are such contracts, and leases cannot be made pursuant to such contracts because such leases will be rendered void, there must be a saving of the situation of people who have shifted their whole position. The real sufferer in this situation may not be the builder, who may have got part of his money already through temporary finance provided by the banks. The real person who may suffer in this may be the buyer of the house who may be held up without an estate to offer to a building society to secure a mortgage. He may be held up for a very long time if the position of the builder is that he cannot grant the fee simple. This right may take the purchaser a long time to assume: there may be grandchildren living in Australia on whom notice must be served. Meanwhile he has laid out his money on the acquisition of a house without any title to it, burdened with the heavier interest charges of temporary finance piling up all the time without any repayment schedule.

There ought to be a saver for that situation. It is likely that the number of situations like that will be small but it does not matter if there is only one or two or ten, I know positively that there are many more than a few —there must be people who still do not know very much about this. You would be astonished how little our proceedings are followed by people who are busy in their own businesses, and we ought to take every step to save the delays for people who have purchased their first house so that they are not held up by our failing to provide for that situation.

There are other points which can be dealt with on Committee.

I am grateful for the various comments made by the Senators during the course of what we can describe as a very constructive appraisal of the merits of the Bill. The Bill deals with part of the law relating to ground rents. I would like to say that the suggestion by Senator Robinson that in some way I was engaging in a form of triumphalism by coming in here and beating the drums in a less than humble fashion in the introduction of this Bill could not be further from the truth. I was very honest in my opening statement. I did not think it was necessary to tell the Seanad that certain other individuals had shown an interest in this matter over the years, and I certainly would not concede that any one individual can take credit for it.

It was a Government, not an individual.

The Senator mentioned an individual.

Seventeen years ago.

It may have been 17 years ago. I would not even think that 17 years ago the seeds of this legislation were sown and I would not concede that that individual can take credit for what we have now before us. This type of thinking has been going on over the years. It is just a matter of political will to bring it to where it is at the moment.

Political conversion.

We will deal with that point too when I come to it, but on the question of political will the Senator mentioned that this matter has been lying on the stocks for a year since January 1977. The reality there, as she well knows, is that Fianna Fáil were not in power for six of those 12 months. Consequently the Senator's then association with Fine Gael obviously did not bear fruit in the six months that she could be vicariously responsible for them. I know the association between Fine Gael and Labour has now more or less broken up and they do not want to think about the past—they want to go on in their separate ways. That is a matter for the Senator, but if she talks about honesty in the presentation of my statement she might also be honest with herself and the House in her remarks.

Senator Cooney mentioned the conversion of Fianna Fáil. There was no suggestion of a sudden shaft of light in relation to this legislation. Fianna Fáil always have been a socially conscious party. We do not have to have the present day sophisticates who presumably suddenly have become aware of their responsibilities in relation to the community coming to tell us what our responsibilities are. This is a form of gradualism: we are now reaching the point where we feel it is proper to introduce this type of legislation and there is no question of a conversion to the legislation or of political expediency, which was suggested by Senator Cooney. I fail to see the point of that unusually unintelligent reference to political expediency. I would have given the Senator more credit than to have made it.

I am sorry.

I have no objection to the Senator making it but I would have given him more credit. Silence probably would have been better than making a reference like that. However, I am not going to lecture him.

Does the Minister remember his humility role——

I am working very hard on humility.

——his philanthropic role? We can have our moments of fun too.

I know the Senators present themselves as a very civilised and unusual race of politicians, and may be they find that a TD coming down from the other House is a crude intrusion on their normally civilised way of dealing with legislation. In my own way I must answer these charges and if I do it in a less than urbane fashion by the standards required in the Seanad, please forgive me, but answer the charges I intend to do.

Senator Cooney, in the more constructive part of his speech, spoke on the question of extending the Bill to local authority houses. It does not surprise me that he does not agree the Bill should be extended to local authority houses. I would have thought that it is probably part of his political upbringing and philosophy that the less well-off sections of the community should be kept less well off and in all the circumstances I can understand his feeling in relation to that section.

Mention was made of the Bill at present in the course of passage in the other House and of a third Bill. They have been described by me as a trilogy. The third in this pyramid of Bills will deal with consolidation and further amendments of the Landlord and Tenant Acts. I understand the Minister for Justice has promised that when this Bill and the Bill going through the other House have passed all stages he will come to grips with the more comprehensive consolidating legislation, and we hope that the third part of this legislation will see the light of day some time before the summer recess. They are the Minister's present plans in relation to the passage of this package of legislation.

Senator Cooney argued that local authority tenants should not be included. I understand from my officials that this conflicts with a statement made in the Dáil earlier today on the No. 2 Bill, that had the 1977 Bill not lapsed it would have been amended by the former Minister for Local Government to include local authority tenants. I would remind Senator Cooney that Deputy Fergus O'Brien in the Dáil this morning took a completely different line on the Bill; he expressed agreement that the Bill should cover local authority tenants. Maybe Fine Gael could get their policy straight as to whose attitude should prevail. I might add that Dublin City Council requested the former Minister for Local Government to abolish all ground rents, including local authority rents. The fears expressed by Senator Cooney about possible planning difficulties arising from the abolition of ground rents or local authority houses seem in all the circumstances of that request from the Dublin City Council, probably the largest single local authority in the country, to be groundless. In that respect, and I suggest the request by the Dublin City Council to his former colleague, Deputy Tully, supports the legislation now before the House and the idea that local authority tenants should be included in the terms of the Bill.

Apart from what Dublin City Council or others think, it appears to me to be absolutely socially very desirable that the law should not be selective, that it should apply right across the board. If the law applies to people living in private housing estates, then I do not see why the same entitlement should not be provided for those living in local authority houses. That seems to me to be a matter of equity and social justice. That is why we have brought in this Bill, without any apology whatever. We do not have to be supported by Dublin City Council, though that is persuade and helpful, and we are grateful for Dublin City Council's views on the matter. It is the basic philosophy of Fianna Fáil that we should have social justice applied right across the board. That is the principle of this legislation dealing with ground rents.

On section 2 (3) Senator Cooney raised the position of an assignee of a lease of land made after the Bill has become law. The subsection refers to anybody who builds on land for a consideration. Senator Molony has promised to introduce an amendment to subsection (5), and if Senator Cooney does the same in relation to the earlier subsection, we can consider such proposals on Committee Stage.

Senator Cooney referred to the comparative urgency to abolish ground rents now and some years ago—that some years ago ground rent abolition could have affected house prices materially. There was a suggestion that builders might add the money they lose through this Bill into the purchase price of the house. It would be a matter for the purchaser's legal adviser to ensure that the house has been reasonably valued, that the ground rent element has not been built in in a hidden manner.

Senator Cooney asked when the third and last of these Bills will be introduced. I stated that that would happen before the summer recess. I understand that the Minister for Justice, Deputy Collins, considers that this Bill should be introduced as a matter of urgency in the light of the Supreme Court decision which re-stated the procedure to be adopted in fixing renewed occupational rent on a 21-year lease. The Bill will be brought forward as soon as possible.

Senator Brugha made an excellent contribution, and correctly pointed out that the abolition of ground rents on dwelling houses has two aspects, one preventing the creation of future ground rents and the second dealing with the problem of existing ground rents, which is a separate question, being tackled in a separate Bill before the Dáil at the moment under the title of the Landlord and Tenant (Ground Rents) (No. 2) Bill, 1977.

To return to Senator Robinson's contribution, I may state that the Ground Rents Commission was appointed in December 1961 to report substantially on the matters in Deputy Dunne's Bill. The commission reported in 1964 and the first Ground Rents Act of 1967 followed. As to the second point made by the Senator, this Bill accepts as policy that landlords control of amenities and so on should be replaced by control under planning legislation. Senator Alexis FitzGerald also expressed concern on this matter and has given me notice of his intention to raise the matter on Committee Stage. I would appreciate his views. I very much appreciate the manner in which he put his point of view, and I appreciate his giving me notice of his intention thereby enabling us to deal in greater depth with his concern on the Committee Stage. Senator Robinson raised the question of the control of the price of sites, and such control is not envisaged in the context of landlord and tenant legislation. As I pointed out in my speech, the proposals in this Bill cannot adversely affect the house purchaser. In relation to legal aid for the house purchaser, we look forward to the publication of the Pringle Committee Report on civil legal aid. Senator Robinson seems to think that this publication is imminent and seems to have a knowledge of the matter. I cannot help her on that.

The Minister's colleague, Deputy Colley, said in the House last week that it was with the printers.

I was out of the country, so I missed any such statement, but we look forward to the publication of that report.

Senator Robinson inquired about the question of the control of house prices arising from the prohibition of the creation of future ground rents. The Government introduced the scheme of £1,000 new house grants last July and consequently by definition the form of house price control which then applied to State-assisted houses and schemes of four or more houses was extended to all houses and flats for which the grant is now sought. In that way one can see that the control of house prices will be under review at all times. Senator Conroy's very well-researched speech indicated knowledge of the law in an academic fashion but nevertheless interestingly traced the history of the land and land agitation from the beginning of time up to the present. Senator Conroy remarked on the manner in which urban land has increased in value relative to non-urban land, and pointed to the importance of this legislation which will enable house purchasers to acquire complete ownership of their sites. The Senator's point about the legal costs of purchasing a house is strictly outside the scope of this Bill. However, the No. 2 Bill contains proposals that Senator Conroy may find interesting in that respect.

Senator Martin in his deep philosophical discourse on the whole question of land, a person's right to ownership, a person's personal involvement, full ownership of one's home and so on, expressed the need for some form of tax concession in relation to rented private accommodation. The £1,000 grant to first-time owner occupiers of houses is, it can be argued, designed to assist persons in the category the Senator mentions. However, I thoroughly agree with Senator Martin's point of view on this. I have been in politics for some years now, and one of the greatest hardships affecting young people wanting to buy their own homes for the first time is that they have to go into rented accommodation. They have to save hard and the money going for rented accommodation is literally going down the drain. Senator Martin's proposal should be seriously examined by any concerned Government. It is my intention to bring his point of view to the attention of the Minister for Finance. It is a very fine point that crystalises speeches we have been making over the years on that subject. It is a very worth-while suggestion which I assure him will be examined in some depth. I cannot say whether, at the end of the day, the suggestion will be taken up. Matters of tax changes relating to the structural changes of the tax laws take a considerable amount of time.

Nobody can refute what was said by Senator Molony, who, I understand is a solicitor in his own right. The Senator set out very clearly his views on the Bill, and obviously he has a very clear background knowledge of land law generally. I would assure him that if he puts down an amendment to section 2, subsection (5) of the Bill, we will seriously consider the proposal to extend the one year to two years. This point was also made by Senator Cooney. If they put down an amendment in their joint names I shall be glad to deal with it on Committee Stage.

In relation to Senator Alexis FitzGerald's question about notice of the possible production of the Bill, I accept his point that only when something becomes law should it be examined in relation to a person's problem and that we cannot deal with our day-to-day problems in anticipation of a proposal that may never see the light of day.

Senator Harte seems to have a very basic, doctrinaire socialistic approach to the question of land. I do not want to appear to be patronising or anything like that. It would be an impertinence on my part even to attempt to do so. It is a rigid point of view which I could not altogether agree with. There would probably be constitutional difficulties in relation to his general proposals. The Senator mentioned the possibility of introducing a comprehensive community land law legislation. Senator Harte will find that much of what he desires in relation to landlord and tenant law will come with the consolidating Bill proposed by the Minister for Justice, which we hope will have its first reading or Second Stage in the Dáil before the summer recess.

There is much more that I could add to the various points made. I have no doubt that I have missed replying to a number of them. There are three of four general areas of concern expressed by the Fine Gael and Labour Deputies. We have a fair assessment of the worth of the Bill. I have no doubt that minor matters will be raised on the Committee Stage. But when Opposition Deputies can only pick three or four major matters which would concern them in relation to the legislative purity of the Bill the Bill is a good one. Nobody has disagreed with the principle of the Bill, to abolish the creation of future ground rents on dwellinghouses. Once the spirit and the intention of the Bill is acceptable to the Seanad in a general way, we can be happy that it is a good Bill. It will be received very well by those people to whom it is directed.

Question put and agreed to.
Committee Stage ordered for 1st March, 1978.
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