I have not by the Minister, but I have been accused of raising this matter as a vote-catching question. Well, I think, with respect, that the boot is upon the other foot. I introduced the original Bill within the first seven months I was in this Dáil, and I did it on my own responsibility in redemption of a pledge I gave to the people who elected me to the Dáil. But the Government did not even set up a Commission until within seven months of the coming general election. I, therefore, submit that instead of my being accused of introducing this subject for electioneering purposes that it is all the other way about. The setting up of this Commission is, to my mind, nothing but pure political playacting on the eve of the election— playacting with a serious subject that should have demanded, and whose spokesmen did demand, immediate attention when the Government took office.
In view of the President's reply to me yesterday, which I must confess even I was rather surprised at, I feel bound to ask the House to proceed with the Second Reading of this Bill to-day. This Bill proposes to do something—I do not say that it proposes to do everything—to meet, and to a certain extent ameliorate, the hardships, anomalies and grievances that exist in regard to the law relating to the tenants in the towns and villages of this country. I do not seek to force the details of this Bill down either the throats of the Dáil or the country. I take the same attitude I did in regard to my previous Bill. What I am anxious about is that the principles embodied in the Bill should be recognised by this House just as they have been recognised with regard to agricultural tenants. I am not going to weary the House by again going into the details as to the history of the Land Acts, or the Town Tenants Act, because they must be familiar to Deputies, but I would impress upon them the fact that the Land Act of 1870, which at that time was a measure of considerable revolution in land legislation, provided for compensation and for disturbance for agricultural tenants, and that the principles of that Act were actually applied to the towns by the Town Tenants Act of 1906. To say that because certain principles are applicable to land therefore they are inapplicable to other species of property is untenable. These principles are well known: fixity of tenure, fair rent and a right to sale.
These principles have been embodied in this Bill to deal with the existing conditions, and I want to impress that especially upon the House and the town dwellers in the Saorstát, because I surmise it will be argued here, as it was previously, that this measure is going to stop all house building in the Saorstát.
I want at the outset, before I explain or enter into any details, to emphasise the fact that this measure proposes only to deal with existing conditions, and it goes so far as to propose that no house built in 1919 or subsequently shall come under the purview of its provisions. The general application of this Act is very simple. It applies to all holdings whether dwelling houses, business premises, or those used partly for dwelling houses and partly for business purposes, but there are certain exclusions, and they can be readily divided into what I term general exclusions and particular exclusions. By general exclusions I mean exclusions from the whole Act. They number six. In the first place the Act does not apply to furnished dwelling houses at all. I will, perhaps, deal later with what I mean by furnished dwelling houses. The other exclusions are ones that are made in the previous Bill, such as holdings let for temporary convenience, premises let to caretakers upon an agreement, holdings let to persons in the employment of the landlord, if the landlord requires the holdings for a future employee, houses erected under the Labourers Acts or the Housing of the Working Classes Acts, and houses erected after or in course of erection on the 2nd of April, 1919. These are the general exclusions. The particular exclusions relate to the question of sale and the question of fair rent.
On the question of sale it is proposed in this Bill that all dwelling houses be excluded so far as the tenants' right to sale goes, which means that the tenant shall have a right to sell if the premises he occupies are business premises, or partly business and partly dwelling ones, but in no other case, and also where the landlord desires to sell his interest, whether he be an immediate landlord or a ground or superior landlord, that in those cases the tenants shall be excluded. In regard to the fair rent principles I have, as I did previously, excluded existing lease-holders—leaseholds for life or for a period of years until the expiry of that period. Therefore, the Bill applies generally to all holdings with the exceptions I have mentioned. Perhaps the House will bear with me while I very briefly go through the main heads of the measure.
Section 1 deals with fixity of tenure, and is identical with the clause in my original Bill. I may say that the same applies to Section 2, with the exception that in Section 2 it is proposed in subsection 7 that during the currency of the statutory term which is proposed to be ten years the tenant may, if new or altered circumstances arise, apply to the Court for leave to have a fair rent fixed. As to the liability of the landlord for repairs, that also remains the same. Now I come to the question of sales. This was really the pivot of the whole discussion on the last occasion. In many essential respects this Bill differs from the last one on the question of sale. Here, as I have said, no tenant shall have the right to sell his interest unless he occupies business or partly business premises. I would like especially to draw the attention of certain Deputies to this restriction. I was particularly impressed on the last occasion by Deputy Johnson's argument, that if there was a right for every tenant to sell his interest in, say, his dwelling-house that there would possibly be created what is called a competition or a demand for key money. That, by this proposal, is entirely eliminated. In regard to a tenant's right to purchase, first of all, let me say, and it is well that Deputies should realise this, that the tenant will have no right whatever to purchase unless the landlord desires to sell. If the landlord desires to sell, then what is proposed in this Bill is that the tenant should have the first option: that he should have the first right to purchase. That is the whole proposal contained in Sections 5 and 6. That shall not apply to tenements.
In regard to all the sections dealing with sale and with the prices to be fixed by the Court, I draw particular attention to this clause which I have inserted in all these sections. It reads as follows: "The Court, in fixing the price, shall have regard to the state of the premises, the interest of the landlord and tenant respectively therein, and all the circumstances of the case." That applies to the occasion when the tenant desires to sell his interest and to the occasion when he desires to purchase, the landlord having intimated his intention to sell. That being so, I think that the landlord is amply safeguarded, because, as is proposed in this Bill, these questions of price shall be fixed by the Circuit Court judge, and this clause shall govern and guide him in the fixing of these prices. There is no suggestion here, as there was in a previous Bill, of any fixed price, such as ten to fifteen years' purchase. It shall be entirely at the discretion of the Circuit Court judge, having regard to the nature of the holding, the interests of both parties, and all the circumstances of the case. For instance, if a tenant was only a short time in a business premises and he desired to sell it, no Circuit Court judge in his commonsense or discretion would give him the same price as if he had been there for a long term of years, and had built up a most successful business. Now, so much in regard to the main principles of the Bill proposed now and the principles similar to the ones which the previous Bill embodied, but there are two entirely new proposals contained in Section 8 and 9. In Section 8 it is proposed that the landlord should be liable for rates where the valuation does not exceed £5. I do not think that is a very excessive demand.
In regard to Section 9, I admit that this is an entirely new proposal, but I have put it in. I throw it out for the serious consideration of the House. Up to this no ground landlord has been liable for rates. The intermediate landlord has been to a certain extent sometimes, but not always, but the tenant always has been. I think that it is only fair and equitable that a man who derives rent from ground upon which houses have been built and other people occupy and have to pay a heavy burden of rates on, that that person should contribute something to the rates, because this property certainly has not been deteriorating by its occupation. In very many cases indeed it has been increasing in value. In many cases, too, the ground landlord is an absentee. We know cases—I could mention them if I so desired—not very far from Dublin where there are ground landlords who scarcely ever put a foot upon the ground from which they draw their rents and who contribute nothing to the rates of the district. Take, for instance, the large estates in the suburbs of Dublin. Take the case of Dun Laoghaire, where there are ground rents payable and where there is no contribution made to the rates by the ground landlord. I put forward this suggestion in this Bill as part of a measure to ameliorate and improve the lot of existing tenants in the towns in these districts. Now I have suggested that the Circuit Court should be the proper court to decide the matters contained in this Bill, such as fixing rents and prices for the purposes of sale. It may be said that the Circuit Courts are already overburdened with work. With that statement I am in entire agreement.
That, after all, is purely a question of machinery, and, being a private member, I thought it better on this occasion to take advantage of the existing courts than to suggest the expenditure of more money upon the creation of new ones. However, if it is so desired, it could be done, and that, of course, is not a vital matter to the principles contained in the Bill. There will, of course, be objections to the Bill. There would be objections to any Town Tenants Bill introduced here, and, possibly, from the same quarters, but there are a few outstanding features in the Bill of which we must not lose sight. There is nothing in the nature of compulsory purchase in the first instance. There is no State purchase. There is no question of the compounding of arrears. There is no interference with existing leaseholders and no interference with proposed or existing housing schemes, and there is nothing whatever in the Bill to thwart, hinder, prevent, or frighten anyone in this country from putting his money into house property in the future.
The basic principles that I will endeavour to go upon are really ones of mere justice to the dwellers in the towns. We have had Acts passed innumerable dealing with the unfortunate conditions of farmers in the past, with the conditions of agricultural labourers, and even with the conditions of certain classes of artisans, but nothing has been done for a class of people who have been clamouring to have their grievances remedied, certainly for the last twenty-five or thirty years. Something must be done for them, and in the proposal that I make I submit that by helping them I am injuring nobody, that the landlord gets fair treatment, that the tenant's position is improved, that no harm is done to the prospective building of houses, that there will be no such competition as was mentioned on the last occasion for key money, and neither will there be what has been suggested, the creation of dual ownership. The only instance where there is to be anything in the nature of dual ownership, which should exist I submit, is that, as provided for in Section 4, where a man is in occupation of a business premises and built up a successful business, he should have the right to sell the goodwill of that business. That is the only instance where anything in the nature of dual ownership is recognised. All other cases really seek to abolish dual ownership, because they give the right to the tenant to purchase and to the landlord to sell. I do not intend to detain the House by going into further details, but I would ask members, especially those who voted on the last occasion, to vote in favour of this measure upon this occasion also. If anything, this Bill errs on the side of moderation. It does not set out to do everything that has been demanded by the town tenants in the Saorstát, but it seeks to mete out justice all round, and any member who votes for the Second Reading will be showing that he is serious in his endeavour to do something for this class of people in the country and that he is not satisfied to leave their case to a vague, nebulous, camouflaged Commission, the report of which we do not know will ever be published or ever acted upon.
