Vol. 61 No. 15
I move:—
Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £2,298 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1937, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an tSaor-Chíosa.
That a sum not exceeding £2,298 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1937, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Quit Rent Office.
This is a most fascinating Department, and one upon which I would like to hear a few words from the Parliamentary Secretary. It is a long time since I was told, at a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee, that the Quit Rent Office was a disappearing service, and would very soon disappear altogether. I was interested at that time to have elucidated for me what the Quit Rent Office did. The Accounting Officer on that occasion spoke at some length, but at the conclusion of his observations, I confess I was not much wiser. I since perused what he said, and I still found some difficulty in understanding it. I feel that Deputy Frazer Browne and Deputy Mat. O'Reilly, whom I see on the Government Benches opposite, would be very glad to know what the Quit Rent Office does, what service it renders, and why they are asked to vote £47 more this year for the maintenance of that institution than was voted last year. We would be all wiser if we had an explanation from the Parliamentary Secretary.
I think it would be an appropriate revenge on the Deputy if I were really to attempt to explain what this office does. I am myself very much in the same position. The Quit Rent Office deals generally with the management of all forms of Crown property, including quit rents, which was transferred to Saorstát Eireann by virtue of Article II of the Constitution. Nearly the whole of the former Crown revenues in the Saorstát were derived from ancient quit rents and other unimprovable rents of a similar character, charged upon properties which did not belong to the Crown. Their number was very great and the amount of each was correspondingly small. When the question of the transfer of the administration of quit rents, collectable in the area of the Saorstát, to the Free State Government was being discussed, it was proposed by the British that a capital sum should be paid to them for the purchase of the net rental but, eventually, the Law Officers of the Crown advised that the claim of the Saorstát Ministers that the land revenues of the Crown in the Irish Free State belonged to the Irish Free State was well founded in law——
Good!
And these revenues were, accordingly, surrendered to the Saorstát in perpetuity.
Hear, hear! Was this by any chance a secret agreement?
It will be registered, duplicated, improved and published at the earliest possible date if it turns out to be so. All the moneys received after the 1st April, 1933, have been retained by the Saorstát.
How much did you get?
It is because we are getting less and less and it is costing more and more that we are coming nearer and nearer to the time when it will be non est. The catafalque in which it is to be interred is called the Board of Works. A claim for the recovery of these moneys with accrued interest as well as for the capital sum secured by the British Government from the redemption of quit rents prior to the 1st April, 1922, which was reinvested in property outside the area of the Saorstát, was included amongst the claims made in connection with the negotiations with the British Government in 1932. I do not know if the Deputy has now obtained all the information he requires.
It would be a pity to stop.
The Parliamentary Secretary is doing no more than his duty.
Before we meet to celebrate the demise of this office, it may be well that there should be a record of what its functions are. I have no doubt that it has a very romantic history. The main current function of the Quit Rent Office is concerned with these quit rents—not merely with their collection which in itself is now a relatively small service but with the work necessary for the redemption of the existing rents in land purchase proceedings. From the latest figures available, the rental charge for 1934-35 was £4,500 for quit rents and £1,373 for other rents and revenues from former Crown properties. These figures are, however, inclusive of rents charged on lands subsequently vested in the Land Commission and in respect of which collection has ceased but the rents are still charged on the rental pending final redemption.
About £5,300 is the amount of the annual rental?
No. For quit rents, the rental charge is £4,500, and for other rents and revenue from former Crown properties, £1,375.
Does that represent the total revenue from quit rents?
Apparently it does.
We do not gain much on the transaction.
That is the type of bargain that was made.
The rental was considerable at one time but these rents are gradually disappearing.
Are they preserved as a link with the Crown?
I do not think that we are entitled to discuss that but we may be able to drag it in later. The land revenues of the Crown in Ireland were under the management of the Commissioners of Excise in Ireland up to 1827, when they became vested in the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. The rents continued to be collected by the collectors of Customs and Excise, who are paid 2 per cent. on the sums collected, plus bonus at the prevailing rates. The annual expenditure involved has been about £100 in recent years. It is proposed to have the work of collection centred in the Quit Rent Office and this has already been done in the case of the Cork and Waterford areas as from the 1st January, 1935. The work of collection respecting Limerick, Galway and Dublin areas will be transferred as opportunity arises. Since the transfer of the former Crown lands and revenue to the Saorstát, the quit and other rents have been paid into an account known as the Woods and Forests Fund Account at the Bank of Ireland, and Land Bonds transferred on the redemption of quit rents have been credited to the same account.
Under the Crown Land Acts, the net income arising from the Crown lands, when collected by the Commissioners for Woods and Forests, was paid into the Exchequer for the relief of taxation. while the proceeds of sale of real property were reinvested in similar property or in redemption of charges on land, or, pending such reinvestment, were invested in trustee securities. The Department of Finance is advised that the effect of Article 11 of the Constitution is to repeal the provisions of the Crown Lands Acts so far the the Saorstát is concerned, and, as a consequence, the Saorstát has no legal authority for the utilisation of the accrued income of the Woods and Forests Fund Account. Pending the introduction of legislation, the drafting of which is at present under consideration, to enable the income arising in this way to be disposed of for the benefit of the Exchequer, there is no alternative to continuing to pay the income into this fund, which must, in the meantime, be maintained intact at the Bank of Ireland. The fund is not altogether without benefit to the State at present inasmuch as the moneys are invested mainly in Saorstát Government securities. I understand that the collection used to be somewhere about £50,000, but it is now what I may describe as a gradually diminishing asset.
The administration of the rental, as already mentioned, is not confined to collection. Every case of a sale of land through the Land Commission has to be referred to the Quit Rent Office, and involves the complete investigation of title to ascertain the position as to quit rent and reversions. This duty is laborious and has to be performed with the greatest care, because quit rents, as well as other charges on lands, have to be extinguished in the process of purchase through the Land Commission, and, unless the quit rent is traced and redeemed at its proper value before the sale is completed, the value of the quit rent would be lost to the State. It is on this work, and not merely the collection of the rents, that the staff as a whole is engaged. It is detailed and tedious work.
Is not the sale completed before they are redeemed?
In the process of sale of lands, quit rents are gradually being redeemed, and the land revenue collectable by the Quit Rent Office is, therefore, gradually falling and will continue to fall. It was at one time over £50,000 a year, and is now about £6,000, portion of which is at present in process of redemption. Every day it grows beautifully less. The office, in its capacity in regard to quit rents, is, therefore, a dying service, and the revenue during the process of expiry could not, consequently, be taken as a measure of the work of the office. In fact, the staff is at present employed in extinguishing itself. The more work that is done in the office on the land purchase references, the smaller the revenue from rental collection will be. The staff of the grades shown in the Estimate is at present more than fully employed on the establishment of title, more especially since the automatic vesting of tenanted land under the Land Act of 1931. The time must soon come when rent collection will have practically ceased, and the staff will be employed mainly on completing the work of investigation necessary for the final redemption of the land revenues.
Apart from the collection and administration of the rental itself, the office is charged with safeguarding the interest of the State in all former Crown property transferred to the Saorstát by virtue of Article 11 of the Constitution. These properties include the Curragh of Kildare, the Long-meadows and Inchicore North Estate——which latter was purchased with a view to preserving the amenities of the Phoenix Park—and foreshores in front of property belonging to the State or to Government departments. The office manages the Kinsale property, i.e., part of the Fort of Kinsale formerly belonging to the British War Department. There are two forts at the mouth of Kinsale Harbour, and one would be included in that. I think the other is private property. The office has the duty of asserting State rights to the beds and shores of inland loughs —a service of increasing importance— and general State interests in regard to rights to all property. Its importance as an office of record is growing, and on this side references to it arising out of legal and other proceedings tend to increase. Deputies will agree that a very comprehensive statement has been given, as far as we are concerned, in connection with quit rents.
What are quit rents?
If you do not pay the rents you quit.
Quit rents deal with former Crown property, including quit rents transferred to the Saorstát by virtue of Article 11 of the Constitution. If the Deputy wants a legal definition I can have it prepared for him in my office and sent him by post.
Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us what are quit rents.
There are such things. What their legal definition is I do not pretend to know. I will be most happy to get the Deputy a legal definition.
That is not what he wants. He wants a definition that the ordinary man wants. The Parliamentary Secretary may not understand that.
Will the Parliamentary Secretary say what lands are subject to quit rents? I am afraid the brief he read from was not compiled with complete knowledge of the extinguishing of quit rents. It does not need complete sales by the Land Commission to abolish quit rents. Sales are completed before the purchase money is distributed. We were told several times that all the land has been purchased by the Land Commission. Why do quit rents still remain if all the land is purchased? They never complete a sale without dealing with the quit rent. What function does the Quit Rent Office now perform in this State? The Parliamentary Secretary mentioned the Curragh of Kildare, some place in Inchicore and the approaches to Kinsale Harbour. If these places are in possession of the Government, why is it maintaining an office into which to pay rents to itself? As I said in the course of an interjection, with Fianna Fáil in office, is this the link with the Crown and the British? Even Deputy Tom Kelly has taken the shilling and still shouts for the Crown with the same gusto as he formerly shouted it down.
We will get to the economic war yet.
No. The Minister will get the economic war as well as the Poulaphouca scheme later.
Did I understand the Parliamentary Secretary to say that the money the Land Commission paid for the extinction of quit rents goes into a Government account and lies there until legislation is introduced to enable the Government to draw it into the Exchequer?
That is so.
That would be a substantial sum. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would let us have a note of the amount?
Will the Parliamentary Secretary see that a statement is made about the interesting historical documents in his office?
I am rather interested in this question, because three or four people have made representations to me about land that has been purchased, that was originally held under fee farm grants, on which the quit rents still remain. In the course of an examination I had to make some inquiries as to what quit rents really were and how regulated. I discovered that they went very far back, as far as Charles II, when owners of lands trying to get exemption from service in case of war guaranteed to pay a sum of money. That seems to have been the origin of these rents. I would be very glad to see the end of these quit rents, as some of my constituents are greatly annoyed with demands that they get from time to time for payment of this money.
