Labourers Bill, 1944—Second Stage.

Mr. Norton

I move:—

That the Bill be now read a Second Time.

The purpose of the main Act of 1936 was nominally, at all events, to make the tenants the owners of their cottages by vesting those cottages in them; but in order to indicate the extent to which the Act failed to achieve that purpose, it is only necessary to refer to the fact that, out of approximately 62,500 tenants of labourers' cottages, approximately 14½ per cent. had applied by September, 1943—the last date for which the figures are available to me—to have their cottages vested in them. An examination of such statistical information as is available, as to the sources from which the applications emanated, indicates that a large number of them came from certain counties where there were unusual circumstances. In the case of a considerable number of counties, no applications were made and in other cases the percentage was negligible.

The purpose of the present Bill is to amend five sections of the Labourers Act, 1936, so as to make the Act a more beneficial one from the point of view of the tenants and to encourage them to become the owners of their cottages, on terms which will not impose on them the heavy burden imposed by the Act of 1936. Sections 1 and 2 of this Bill relate to the title and the citation, together with the definitions. Here it is only necessary to mention that the definitions set out in Section 2 have the same meaning as in the parent Act of 1936. Section 3 is important, inasmuch as it gives a precise meaning to the rather vague expression "terminable annuity" referred to in the 1936 Act. In theory, under that Act, each local authority was free to fix the annuities at any percentage of the rent which those local authorities so decided; but in practice the schemes which the local authorities were required to submit to the Minister for sanction were sanctioned only if they provided for an annuity of 75 per cent. of the existing rent. The local authority might, therefore, have desired to make the terminable annuity 50 per cent. of the existing rent. In theory, it was possible for them to do that, but they had to submit their purchase schemes to the Minister, who would not sanction them unless they provided for an annuity of 75 per cent. of the existing rent. Section 3, therefore, proposes to fix, the annuity at not more than 50 per cent. of the present rent. That means that a local authority may secure the sanction of the Minister to fixing the annuity at less than 50 per cent., but neither the local authority nor the Minister, if this Bill is passed, can fix the annuity at more than 50 per cent. In other words, the purpose of the section is to enable tenants to purchase their existing cottages by paying 50 per cent. of the present rents as a terminable annuity over a period, which is specified in a later section, instead of being required to pay 75 per cent. of the existing rent under the parent Act of 1936. Under the Act, there was a liability on the tenants who had their cottages vested in them to keep them in repair on certain conditions and subject to certain penalties. That liability is not interfered with in any way in the present amending Bill.

Section 6 is also very important. Its purpose is to reckon the payment period for the purpose of the terminable annuities as a term of 50 years from the date on which the cottage was first erected and occupied. Therefore, if a cottage were erected 40 years, the annuity being payable over a period of 50 years, it would be payable for a further period of ten years; so that, so far as the amending Bill is concerned, the position of the tenant will be, briefly, that he will be required to pay not more than 50 per cent. of his existing rent as a terminable annuity and to pay that rent for a period of 50 years from the date upon which the cottage was erected. If the rent had already been paid for a period of 40 years, the tenant would be liable to continue the payment for a further period of ten years, when absolute ownership of the cottage would descend to him.

It is not proposed in the Bill to interfere with the payment period for post-1922 cottages, and the repayment period in that case remains the same as in the parent Act, namely, 35 years.

Section 7 of this Bill relates to the ownership of the cottages and the purposes for which they may be used. Section 17 of the Act of 1936 provided, in relation to a vesting order, that it should operate to vest the cottage to which it related in the occupier thereof, so that it may be used only (a) during his lifetime, for his own accommodation and the accommodation of his family and (b) after his death, for the purpose of the accommodation of a person who was his widow, child or other relative of the purchaser and who was resident in such cottage at such death. Section 6 of this Bill proposes to delete from paragraph (b) the words "and was resident in such cottage at such death" so as to secure that the lawful successors of an occupier-purchaser may be enabled to succeed him as a tenant, even though not actually residing in the cottage with him at the time of death. Even this amendment, if carried, gives no absolute right of succession to the relative of the deceased purchaser. The section merely removes a barrier which precluded succession in certain circumstances under the main Bill. The real purpose of the amending section is to ensure that if a man who owns a cottage dies, his son or daughter may not be debarred from entering into possession of the cottage and using it merely because he or she did not happen to reside in it at the time of the death of the owner.

Section 7 of the Bill provides that where the local authority, now the county council, desires to secure possession of the cottage by means of court proceedings, they shall give to the tenant not less than six weeks' notice of the intention to proceed against him. Under the parent Act, the local authority is entitled to proceed against the tenant on giving the tenant one week's notice where the claim for possession is grounded on the failure of the tenant to pay his annuities on the appointed gale day. In any other instance, they would be required to give six weeks' notice. The purpose of the section is to compel the local authority to conform to a uniform practice, namely, to give six weeks' notice to the tenant in all cases where the local authority desires to secure possession for any breach of agreement between the tenant and the county council.

The last section is the only other one which calls for any comment. The object here is to delete the provision in the parent Act, which provides that interest charges shall be levied on all arrears of rent outstanding at the time of the purchase of the cottage. It does not seem fair that interest charges at the rate set out in the parent Act should be made an unescapable burden for a tenant who desires to purchase. It may be, according to the circumstances of the case, that some interest should be levied but the purpose of the section is to leave it optional to the local authority not to levy interest charges at the maximum rates set out in the parent Act, but to leave the matter over for discussion in the light of the circumstances obtaining in a particular county or a particular case.

That, I think, is an explanation of the various sections of this rather brief amending Bill. Its object, as I said at the outset, is to endeavour to make tenants owners of their cottages on terms which will not impose upon them an insupportable burden. We believe that the ownership of cottages by tenants not only ensures stability for our rural population, by anchoring them to the land in which they have an interest in the form of a house, but is calculated to imbue them with that spirit of independence which comes from ownership in such circumstances. Everybody realises that in the long run the home is the sheet-anchor on which economic defence in adversity rests. If you can ensure the tenants of labourers' cottages an interest in their homesteads, you root them in the land; not only do you root them in the land but you give them a source of permanence there. You give them a defence against the temporary economic blizzards which unfortunately blow across their abodes from time to time. I recommend the Bill to the House as one which is calculated to raise the standard of life of the agricultural community as represented by the tenants of labourers' cottages, as a measure which will give them an anchorage on the land and as a measure which will enable them to become owners of their cottages on terms with which it will be possible for them to comply. I think if the State can, through legislation of this character, achieve a situation in which you anchor the rural population on the land, give them stability in the form of a permanent home, and endow them with a sense of independence, then legislation of this character seems to me to redound to the country's progress.

Mr. Murphy

I second the motion, reserving my right to speak later.

An Ceann Comhairle

This is the Second Stage of a Bill and there is no need for seconding. As no other Deputy offers to intervene, Deputy Murphy might intervene now.

Mr. Murphy

I should think that no Deputy will dissent from the view that this measure, dealing as it does with the question of the housing of rural labourers, deals with one of the most worthy sections of the population. The history of the fight carried on in this country for the housing of agricultural labourers goes back many years. It goes back to the rather feeble attempts that were made in the British House of Commons many years ago to deal with this question which were followed by the more comprehensive schemes that were later introduced.

The Labourers Act of 1906 represented I think a very big step forward and since the establishment of an Irish Government various measures have been passed for the purpose of providing further means of relief in that direction for the rural population. No effort that this or any succeeding Dáil could make to establish in reasonably comfortable circumstances the rural labourers of this country could be considered too great. I speak in support of the Bill as one who has never been an enthusiast on this question of cottage purchase. I thought in the past—and I have still some reservations in regard to the matter—that this proposal to acquire ownership of cottages under a purchase scheme was of very problematical advantage but I do recognise that there has been in this country, and that there is at present, the very strong desire for ownership that has been referred to in such appropriate terms by Deputy Norton at the close of his statement.

I feel that this Bill is an attempt to make some reasonable gesture towards assisting the rural labourer to obtain ownership of his home on terms that will not impose a heavy burden upon him. The Minister must know that the Act of 1936 is a dead letter in this country, that it has never had any life or vigour since it was passed into law. It was the result of a long agitation, a genuine agitation by the rural labourers of this country for the ownership of their cottages and a not so-genuine or sincere agitation by others in support of that scheme. I should like to distinguish between the honest efforts of the labourers of the country who are seeking a purchase scheme and the much less honest advocacy of other people who were seeking something else which, it seems to me, was not calculated to win for the rural labourers the benefits that they deserved or that they indeed expected. I instance as an example of the accuracy of the statement I have made that the Act of 1936 is a dead letter in the condition of things obtaining in my own constituency of West Cork. I happened to be a member of the now non-existent board of health for that area and as a member of the county council still I keep actively in touch with what has been happening in connection with the operations of the 1936 Act. There are roughly 1,400 rural cottages in the West Cork health area and up to date roughly about 70 applications for purchase have been under consideration. That is a clear and unmistakable indication as to what the rural labourer thinks of the Act of 1936.

As I am on that matter, I want to mention certain developments which occurred in connection with the preparation of the schemes falling under that Act. The Minister knows that, in the course of preparation of a scheme, steps have to be taken to secure the registration of title to the plots. Faced with the legal obligation of securing title to the plots attached to labourers' cottages in West Cork, the local authority pointed out at the time that there was no demand for the purchase of labourers' cottages there and that it seemed to them that this registration of title and all the legal formalities it involved represented an expenditure of very doubtful value. But we were up against legal obligations and we had to proceed to secure registration of the title attached to the labourers' cottages in West Cork. That had a most astonishing sequel. The proceedings were conducted on behalf of the local authority by the solicitors who had acted for the county council and the health authority in the past. We now find that, although the number of applications for purchase in West Cork represented but an infinitesimal fraction of the tenants, we are faced with a bill of roughly. £12,000 arising out of the registration process, which was entirely superfluous and unnecessary in view of the absence of any demand for purchase. However, that matter is under consideration in another quarter. It would have been much cheaper to build a number of cottages and present them to labourers free of cost than to resort to the procedure laid down in the 1936 Act at the extraordinary expense I have mentioned and with very little value accruing either to the tenants or the people.

The Act of 1936 provides that, where a tenant desires to purchase, the payments should represent roughly half the rent. In many of the schemes the cottages are held at a rent of 1/- a week, plus rates. The reduction in the case of houses built under such schemes is about 4d. a week and the tenant would have to bear responsibility for repairs during the years that his annuity would be payable. That was a burden that the rural labourer could not possibly undertake, and it is one of the reasons why this Act has been a dead letter and why the scheme under it has been ignored since the legislation was passed. It is true that the Act specified that the tenant should get the cottage in a satisfactory state of repair before purchase, but to those experienced in local administration it is well known that many of the old schemes of labourers' cottages were very imperfectly carried out. There was very faulty construction and supervision was not sufficiently careful in many cases. The houses were built in an unsatisfactory manner and local authorities received a legacy which necessitated a drain on their resources in the form of maintenance and repair. It is likely that that expenditure will have to be increased in the immediate future.

In support of the claim I have made that the tenants of labourers' cottages have no interest in the 1936 Act, I have a table here showing the position in the different counties. The figures are very illuminating and constitute an irrefutable argument for further examination of this matter and for some improvement of the terms on which the cottages should be offered under any purchase scheme to the tenants. In Carlow, there were 1,400 cottages occupied on the 31/3/43 and, on 30/9/43, there were 28 vested. On the same dates, there were 1,248 occupied in Cavan and 918 vested.

Now, on the 31st March, 1943, the arrears outstanding in regard to 19,630 cottages, amounted to £53,313. In other words, about 16 per cent. of those occupied, and the payments amounted, roughly, to something like £2 14s. Od week. The cost of repairs varied in different counties. For instance, in Kerry, it amounted to £10,080, in Waterford to £4,035, in Clare to £3,305, and so on for the different counties. Now, this question of repairs is inseparable from the whole question, and it would seem to me that if the provisions of this Bill are to be given effect to, from the point of view of conferring benefits on the tenants, an opportunity will have to be given to them of getting a substantial reduction in their existing rents, and they should also have the opportunity of purchasing on terms which will differentiate to a considerable extent between the cottages built for a very long time and those that have been erected under more recent schemes. That, of course, is a very important consideration. I feel that the whole question is one that we shall have to go into, unless we are content to let the situation remain in its present unsatisfactory condition. I feel that the Government will have to do something to deal with this whole matter in a comprehensive way, and that Deputies should be given an opportunity to discuss some of these proposals in such a way as will enable them to make up. their minds on a question of this kind.

Undoubtedly, any purchase scheme would suit a tenant of a labourer's cottage here, in some circumstances. It would suit a tenant who was holding a small shop or who was an artisan carrying on in his own workshop. Such a purchase scheme would suit a purchaser living, let us say, in the suburbs of the City of Cork, rather than labourers in the typically rural areas from which the bulk of the purchasers come. But this is not designed to deal with people in a position of that kind. By reason of their more fortunate circumstances they are not typical of the average cottage tenant that one finds in the rural areas.

The fact is that, if the 1936 Act had been generally availed of by the labourers of the country, you certainly would have within ten or 15 years a new and big problem again to house the labourers of the country because they could not possibly undertake to keep their cottages in a reasonably good state of repair, and at the same time pay the annuity which the Act provided of three-quarters of their existing rent. I know that of my own knowledge. The Minister and his advisers in the Department have had an opportunity of reviewing the operations of this measure. I think they will find that the results are utterly disappointing so far as any considerable progress in the purchase of cottages would indicate. This Bill proposes to revise two or three of the main sections of the 1936 Act in accordance with the needs of rural labourers. The measure is one that ought to be entertained by the House and one that ought to commend itself to anybody who desires to face the facts of the situation, and seriously thinks that the labourers of the country should be encouraged to purchase their cottages in order, as Deputy Norton said, that they may become more firmly rooted in the land and owners of what either themselves or those who went before them fought for.

Dr. O'Higgins

There should not be any more difficulty with regard to title in the case of labourers' cottages than, say, in regard to any small holding in the country. After all, the land on which a cottage was built was sold to a public Department operating under Government authority. There should not be the same difficulty there as there would be, say, in regard to the transfer or sale of a small holding where the transfer might have taken place on the death-bed word of a dying man without as much as a scrap of paper recording the transfer. At any rate, we have this position, that the vesting of cottages has been held up for a considerable number of years, due to the difficulty of proving title. We now have this Bill before us. It, at least, is evidence that there is dissatisfaction with the 1936 Act. Some of the ablest and most experienced Deputies that we have in the House on matters of this kind have consistently held that any form of purchase by the bulk of labourers of their cottages is bad business, due to the fact that the cost of maintenance and repairs is so high when compared to cottage rents. We had that Act which gave them at least the opportunity to purchase. I will not know until the Minister has spoken what the general response to that piece of legislation was. Speaking for the part of the country that I am most closely in touch with, the response was not very enthusiastic. This Bill proposes to amend that Act and to improve it in certain respects from the cottiers' point of view. I regard the proposals in it as being entirely reasonable. I think they are modest proposals. I do not know what the Minister's view of the Bill is, but to say the least of it it is anything but revolutionary. If we argue this on the basis as to whether a very large percentage of the tenants are going to avail of the opportunities presented to them to purchase, I think one can say that the difference between this Bill and the 1936 Act is not going to be very great. I use that as an argument to show that, in my opinion, this Bill is an excessively reasonable Bill, that the demands contained in it are not very great. With regard to the section of the Bill providing that the relative must be resident at the time of death, I do not think that was fair and just. I do not think it was very well considered. A tenant may die and his son may be living-in as a groom in a neighbouring place. It is rather harsh to say that if he had been living with the father at the time of death he could succeed in title but, because his occupation carried with it residence, he is debarred. I think the suggestion made here is a reasonable one in that respect. When we are talking in terms of pennies and living in an atmosphere of spending millions, I do not think it is worth anybody's while losing his wool about the difference between 8d. and 6d. a week on a tenant or the difference between a rent reduced by 25 per cent. and a rent reduced by 50 per cent., considering that the period of the annuity still remains a matter to be settled. I do not think that, seriously speaking, it is a time for arguing about that.

In the course of his statement Deputy Norton suggested that in the case of the very old cottages the annuity should terminate at the end of 50 years. That would be a perfectly sound contention and one that would not be disputed by many people if it were a case of the same family being resident in the cottage during that period or the greater part of that period, but what occurred to my mind is the situation where such a cottage was given to somebody, say, last week, that person might become the owner within ten years, if, say, 40 years had expired.

Mr. Norton

That was the same in the main Act.

Dr. O'Higgins

Even where there was a new tenancy created?

Mr. Norton

Yes.

Dr. O'Higgins

Then I think there is a certain amount of loading of the dice in favour of those who have got tenancies of old cottages quite recently. I think some of the terms that we are arguing about here might be equated by a flattering over so as to benefit the people who have come into new cottages rather than new tenants of old cottages. On the whole, I do not think there is anything unreasonable in the amendments before us. Undoubtedly there must be some fault in the parent Act, seeing that there was such a demand for it, and that no matter what figures may be produced with regard to applicants, the response was in no way in keeping with the demand. On present information, I certainly would be definitely of opinion that if we can do anything to improve the parent Act, such as adopting the proposals we have before us, those proposals should be regarded as reasonable and modest and in the best interest of a great number of tenants. After all, that is a consideration that should weight heavily on one side of the scales as against so many pennies a week on the other side of the scales.

As I have said, I had the figures prepared, but I did not expect that this Bill would come up to-day. I, as a member of a public body, must recognise the fact that, if this Bill is passed, it is the ratepayers of the country who are going to put up the money; it is not coming out of the national Exchequer, and, from that point of view, we have got to be very careful as well as reasonable. Deputy Norton has stated, in introducing the Bill, that it is because of the terms of the last Bill that so few people are purchasing the cottages. I do not agree with that in toto for this reason: A fair percentage of the tenants of these cottages, who, after all, are as wise and as astute as other sections of the people, have compared their present position as tenants of the cottages with what their position would be as owners of the cottages. If they were owners of the cottages they would have to incur the cost of repairs, as Deputy Norton has pointed out. I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned until Tuesday next, 3rd October.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Friday, 29 Sep 1944

Labourers Bill, 1944—Second Stage.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Friday, 29 Sep 1944