I move the Second Reading of this Bill. The number of Civic Guard stations established to date, as I explained on the First Reading of this Bill, is something slightly over 400, and the total establishment provides for 807 stations within the area of the jurisdiction of the Free State, as compared with 1214 similar R.I.C. establishments. The necessity for this Bill arises largely from the fact that over 75 per cent. of the old barracks were burned or otherwise destroyed and have not as yet been repaired. The old R.I.C. barracks were of two kinds, those owned and maintained by the Government and those rented from private landlords. The matter of restoring the destroyed Government barracks is in hands, but owing to the extent of the destruction and the large cost of restoration, progress is of necessity slow. It has been only with great difficulty that Civic Guard stations have been established in such important towns as Mallow, Carrick-on-Suir and Claremorris, and the demand from all quarters of the country to have the Civic Guards sent, and sent immediately, is very great and very insistent. If there be a principle underlying this Bill, it might be said to be this, that in certain circumstances where the public need is great the strict and legal right of the individual must be waived. Some time since, we were considering the Rent Restrictions Bill, in which we recognised that principle that in a social emergency, in the face of a great house shortage we had to restrict the play of economic forces and limit the rents which, normally, landlords would be entitled to charge, namely, the rents created by the play of demand and supply forces. In the case of this Bill, we are asked to say that, with reasonable provision for adjusting rent, the State shall be allowed to take over houses, in view of the public need for the establishment of the Civic Guard throughout the country, and shall have compulsory powers in the matter. That principle is recognised and its application is always a matter of degree. It is recognised that the State shall, in certain circumstances, have power to acquire land on which to construct a railway, for instance, and we ask now, in view of the great need to have, in the shortest space of time, a full police force established through the country, that we shall have power in regard to houses. I am under the feeling that possibly in advocating this Bill I am forcing an open door. Deputies are probably well aware of the feelings of their constituents in this matter. They are probably well aware that every area where a Civic Guard station is not established is clamouring for its establishment, and I think that they will be inclined to agree that, in face of the great urgent public need of this kind, it is not an undue hardship to ask the individual to forego his full claim and to have his house or premises taken over at a reasonable rent by the State. The first Section of the Bill gives to the Commissioners of Public Works power to examine and acquire premises. The second Section provides for the serving of notice on people whose premises it is proposed to acquire. The third Section of the Bill defines the machinery by which the rent to be paid for the premises will be arranged.
"All premises acquired by the Commissioners under this Act shall be acquired for such term of years and at such rent as may be agreed between the Commissioners and the occupier, immediate landlord, or owner (as the case may require), and in default of such agreement shall be taken by the Commissioners on a yearly tenancy, terminable at the end of any year of the tenancy by either party on giving three months' previous notice in writing, and subject to yearly rent to be fixed by the Commissioners."
Then there is an appeal from the decision of the Commissioners in Section 5:—
"Any person aggrieved by a decision of the Commissioners under this Act fixing the amount of any rent or compensation or the terms of any tenancy, may appeal from such decision to one of the panel of referees appointed under Sections 33 and 34 of the Finance (1909-10) Act, 1910, and those sections shall apply to every such appeal as fully as if the word `Commissioners' wherever it occurs in those sections had the same meaning as it has in this Act."
I feel that it is probably unnecessary to add more. Deputies will realise that, with an election falling due inside a couple of months and in face of the whole internal condition of the country, this matter of getting out the new police force is one of urgency and that the rather drastic powers asked for in the Bill are not asked for without very real grounds and very real necessity, based on the public necessity.
