Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 10 Oct 1945

Vol. 98 No. 1

Public Business. - Rent Restrictions Bill, 1944—Second Stage.

Minister for Justice (Mr. Boland)

I move that the Bill be read a Second Time. A necessary preliminary to any discussion on this Bill is, I think, a brief review of the history of rent restriction. It will probably suffice to begin with the first Act passed by our own Parliament—the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Act, 1923. That Act, like the Act it replaced, the British Act of 1920, was a temporary measure with a life of only three years. It continued the application of control to pre-1919 built premises with a poor law valuation not exceeding, in Dublin, £60, and, elsewhere, £40. Houses built after the 2nd April, 1919, and flats newly constructed after that date were exempt from control. In 1926 an Act was passed which introduced a scheme for the gradual abolition of control by a reduction year by year of the poor law valuation limits and the Act contemplated the final disappearance of control in 1929. Clearly the authors of the 1926 Act were optimistic in their estimate that control could be completely dispensed with by the year 1929, and, in fact, the process of decontrol was arrested by a further Act passed in 1928 by which time the poor law valuation limits had been reduced to £30 in Dublin and £25 elsewhere. This continued to be the position until early in 1944 when the stress of emergency conditions made it necessary to consider the question of extending rent control to a wider range of premises. This was done by the Emergency Powers (No. 313) Order, 1944, under which premises with a poor law valuation not exceeding £60 in Dublin and Dun Laoghaire and £40 elsewhere were brought under control. Under an amending Order which was recently made, premises erected after or in course of erection on the 8th February, 1944, and premises reconstructed into flats since that date were exempted from the scope of the original Order. The position at present might, therefore, be said, broadly speaking, to be that rent control applies to all existing premises of a poor law valuation not exceeding £60 in Dublin and £40 elsewhere.

There is an important difference between the control under the 1923 Act and the control under the Emergency Powers Order. Under the 1923 Act rents are restricted by reference to the 1914 level of rents while under the Order the 1941 level provides the basis. It is hardly necessary to elaborate on the significance of this difference between the two controls. In any event I shall have to refer to it again later when dealing with the relevant part of the Bill.

In 1936, following the passing of resolutions on the subject by the Dáil and Seanad, a tribunal, under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Black, was appointed by my predecessor to investigate the whole question. The tribunal, after a long and painstaking examination of the problem, presented separate and conflicting reports early in 1941. It is only proper that I should acknowledge, on this the first opportunity that has presented itself in this House, the Government's appreciation of the work of the tribunal. Even though the reports reveal wide differences of view on fundamentals, the tribunal's careful and detailed examination of the existing Rent Acts and the suggestions made for their improvement have been of considerable value.

The House may feel that a word of explanation is due for the long delay in producing the present Bill. Preliminary work on the measure was started as soon as was practicable after examination of the tribunal's reports was completed. At first an amending Bill was contemplated and was actually prepared but, on further consideration, it was felt that, having regard to the already complex and unsatisfactory state of the statute law in the matter, it would be unwise to superimpose on those statutes a further Act of an amending character. Accordingly, it was decided that the old Acts should be repealed in their entirety and that the new Bill should take a comprehensive form and be in the nature of a consolidation measure embodying such amendments and such new ideas as were considered necessary or desirable. When the Government, a few months ago, came to consider the new draft of the Bill, they found themselves confronted with a situation in which the possibility of the Emergency Powers Acts coming to an end at an early date had to be envisaged. The question, accordingly, arose as to what should be done about the rent control imposed by the Emergency Powers Order. It was felt that it would be a mistake to allow slip the opportunity of dealing with the matter in the present Bill. To do so would probably mean that the Dáil would be asked in six or 12 months' time to deal with a second Rent Restrictions Bill to fill the gap created by the lapse of the Emergency Powers Order. It was, therefore, decided that, even at the cost of further delay, the Bill should be revised so as to incorporate the Emergency Powers Order. In this way the whole law relating to rent restriction would be contained in a single Act which would obviously be of considerable advantage to everybody concerned. The grafting of the Emergency Powers Order on to the Bill was a difficult and delicate operation; the result is, I think, very satisfactory. Indeed, I feel I may say, as regards the Bill as a whole, that it will be found to be, from a purely drafting point of view alone, a very considerable improvement on the existing Acts.

Deputies, no doubt, have read the explanatory memorandum which has been circulated and have, I hope, found it of some assistance in their study of the Bill's more difficult and complex provisions. The House will probably wish me to add something to what is said in the memorandum, particularly as regards some of the more important provisions of the Bill.

I have already referred to the fact that the Bill will have a life of only five years. The actual date specified in Section 1 is the 31st December, 1950. This does not necessarily mean, of course, that rent control will automatically come to an end on that date. What it does mean is that the position will be reviewed before the Act is due to expire in the light of the conditions then existing. There will probably be general agreement that the position should be reviewed in five years' time, particularly as the control which the Bill proposes embraces houses on the higher valuation levels and the question will doubtless arise whether houses of the higher valuation could or should then be released from control. I do not think that there would be much to be gained by having the position reviewed any earlier as there does not seem to be much likelihood of such a change in conditions taking place sooner than five years as would justify any substantial contraction in the scope of control. I suggest that, taking everything into consideration, five years is a reasonable and proper period of operation for the present Bill.

The two most important features of the Bill are the provisions of Chapter 1 of Part II relating to fixing of lawful rents of premises at present controlled under the 1923 Act and the special provisions of Part III for the relief of tenants of small premises. Under the 1923 Act the standard rent, which is the basis for the determination of the lawful rent, is fixed by reference to the 1914 levels of rent. Where the premises were let in 1914, evidence of the actual rent then being paid must be produced before the standard rent can be fixed. The difficulty of producing reliable evidence nowadays of rents being paid more than 30 years ago is self-evident. The matter was referred to in the Reports of the Town Tenants' Tribunal and it was recommended that the law on the point should be amended. While everybody will agree that the need for the production of evidence of 1914 rents should be dispensed with, it has not, I think, been generally appreciated that it is almost equally important that whatever scheme might be adopted should avoid as much as possible the risk of disturbing settled cases and thus causing uncertainty and opening up possibilities of litigation in cases where there was no justification or reason for such undesirable developments. That is the underlying idea of the provisions of Chapter 1 of Part II. The twin objects in view have, it is hoped, been attained by taking first all those cases in which standard rents have already been fixed by the courts and providing that the basic rent in such cases will be the standard rent (which, as it is a matter of court record, should be known or easily ascertainable) plus the statutory increase of 20 or 25 per cent. permitted under the 1923 Act. In cases in which standard rents have not already been fixed by the court, the Bill provides (Section 9) that the basic rent in such cases is to be determined by the court as the sum which the court considers to be reasonable having regard to the basic rents of comparable premises.

There will, no doubt, be many cases within the category of Section 9, cases in which the parties have been able, without having recourse to the courts, to settle the lawful rents between themselves on the basis of the known 1914 rent. Theoretically, these cases would be liable to be reopened under Section 9. In practice this is most unlikely to happen. The basic rents of the comparable premises by reference to which the rent of a house in any such case would have to be determined under Section 9 are firmly anchored to the 1914 level. It would, therefore, be a foolhardy tenant or landlord who would resort to court proceedings in order to upset a rent arrived at on the basis of the 1914 rent and agreed upon as the rent lawfully permitted under the 1923 Act.

The scheme propounded in Chapter 1 of Part II is, of course, experimental. I feel, however, that I can confidently recommend it to the House as a very definite improvement on the existing position, and we may, I think, entertain reasonable hopes that it will work out satisfactorily in practice.

As regards the provisions of Chapter 2 of Part II, these are merely a reenactment of the provisions of Emergency Powers (No. 313) Order, as amended by the recent Order, governing the fixing of lawful rents for premises to which Chapter 2 applies, these being the premises at present controlled under the Emergency Powers Order. The basis for the determination of the lawful rents in these cases is the rent passing on the 7th May, 1941, or, if the premises were not let on that date, the rent at which they were last let during the previous five years. This follows the scheme of the 1923 Act but, with 1941 rents furnishing the standard, it is free from the objections that can be urged against the continued application of the 1923 Act provisions to premises controlled under that Act.

There is one section in Chapter 2 to which I should, perhaps, specially refer, namely, Section 15. Following the making of Emergency Powers (No. 313) Order, we received numerous representations regarding cases in which the landlord demanded a substantial increase of rent to offset the increased rates which became payable by him on the expiry of the "rates remission" period. I do not think that there is any doubt that the landlord was entitled under the Order to such an increase. I am satisfied that normally it was quite right and just that the landlord should be allowed an increase in such cases, as rates are primarily a charge on the occupier. It was suggested, however, that in some cases at least, the fact that there was a remission of rates in operation was not adverted to when the rent was agreed upon in 1941 or before that date and that, even had there been no such remission, the landlord could not have obtained any bigger rent for the premises. Consequently, it was further suggested, it was unfair to the tenant that the landlord should now be allowed to increase the rent by the equivalent of the increase in the rates. The matter was carefully considered and it was decided to amend the Emergency Powers Order so as to give the tenant in any such case who felt aggrieved an opportunity of asking the court to review the rent. That amendment of the Emergency Powers Order has been embodied in Section 15 of the Bill.

The incorporation in the Bill of two different standards for the determination of the lawful rent, each applicable to distinct categories of premises, made it necessary to consider the position of premises that might, by reason of a change in the rateable valuation, slip from one category into another. For example, a house of £29 poor law valuation would be subject to control under Chapter 1 of Part II. If, on a revaluation, the poor law valuation were raised to £31, it would come within Chapter 2 control. The converse case of a reduction in the poor law valuation bringing a house from Chapter 2 control into Chapter 1 control might occur, although perhaps more rarely. The point is of importance to both landlords and tenants since, in one case, the change might mean a substantial increase of rent for the tenant and, in the other, a substantial reduction in the rent being received by the landlord. We came to the conclusion that a change in rateable valuation should not, in itself, operate to effect either an increase or reduction in the rent and we have so provided in the Bill. The relevant provisions are Section 7 (2) (b) and Section 10. The effect of these provisions might be briefly summed up as "once Chapter 1 premises, always Chapter 1 premises, and once Chapter 2 premises, always Chapter 2 premises." I think that this is the best solution. So long as premises are controlled, it would be undesirable that the basic rent should be liable to variation. Variations of the basic rent during the period of control would create uncertainty and doubt and might easily militate very adversely against genuine buyers for value of controlled premises.

I now come to what is, possibly, the most important and is, certainly, the most novel feature of the whole Bill, namely, the special provisions of Part III for the relief of tenants of small premises. I feel sure that the object aimed at in this Part of the Bill will command general support and, if differences there should be, they can only be on the question whether a better scheme and one calculated to be more likely to achieve the desired object is capable of being devised. As to the need for some such scheme as that proposed in Part III there can, I suggest, be no question.

The problem was discussed at some length in the agreed report of the Town Tenants' Tribunal. There we find it stated, as the considered and unanimous view of the tribunal, that, by reason of the usually tedious, troublesome and complex nature of Rent Act cases,

"so far as many of the poorer tenants are concerned, that is to say, those who need the Rent Acts most, this great remedial code is a dead letter".

Few will, I think, be found to quarrel with this conclusion of the tribunal. Through poverty or ignorance of the law, or because of a reluctance or inability to initiate legal proceedings with their attendant formalities, or through a combination of all three factors, many tenants fail to secure for themselves the relief which the law provides for them. I think I may say that the conclusions of the tribunal in this regard are borne out by the experience of social workers who move among the poorer sections of the people.

The tribunal's proposal for the appointment of special officers with specified functions as a solution of the problem was very carefully examined and it was only after the fullest consideration that it was decided not to act on it. The main objection that was seen to the scheme was that the interposing of an officer with powers to conduct what would amount to a preliminary investigation of the case between the tenant and the court would only make for more protracted proceedings. This would certainly be so in the case where the landlord proved "difficult"—the very kind of case in which the tenant would be most in need of relief. It was felt that the best solution lay in securing for the tenant a cheap and informal means of access to the court and prompt adjudication upon his application for a review of his rent. Under such a scheme, it might be hoped that tenants would not be deterred by the cost and formalities that court proceedings normally involve.

The provisions of Part III of the Bill have been designed to achieve this object. All that a tenant will be required to do is to approach the district court clerk informally and furnish the necessary particulars to him. There will be no formal court proceedings and no formal proofs will be required. The justice will have the assistance of an expert valuer in arriving at his decision. When the justice fixes a provisional rent, it becomes operative immediately and the onus is thrown on the landlord of taking proceedings within one month if he wants to upset that rent.

It was felt that the scheme would fail to achieve its full purpose if it stopped short at merely enabling the tenant to have a provisional rent fixed cheaply and easily. Obviously, the landlord must have a right to appeal to the court against the provisional order, but if much of the benefit of the scheme is not to be lost to tenants, they must be put in a position to defend their case. I think that a particular merit of the scheme is that it endeavours to provide for this, in so far as it is possible and practicable to do so. Thus it is provided (sub-section (2) of Section 31) that no costs may be awarded against a tenant in any case in which the rent which the tenant had been paying is higher than the lawful rent. This means, in effect, that even though the landlord might succeed in having the provisional rent increased, he will not be entitled to any costs against the tenant so long as the rent as finally settled is anything less than the rent the tenant had been paying. Moreover, and more important still, if the landlord wants to take the case on appeal to the Circuit Court, the tenant, if he has a genuine case, need not be deterred by the prospect of being involved in heavy costs. The Bill provides that the circuit judge may certify in any such case that the tenant's costs of the appeal (including any costs that may be awarded against him) should be defrayed out of public funds. If a certificate is given, the amount of the costs must be paid out of public funds. Finally, the tenant is relieved of any liability to pay court fees in any proceedings under Part III, whether on his original application for a provisional order or on any further proceedings resulting therefrom.

The core of the problem with which Part III is intended to deal is centred mainly in Dublin and, to lesser extent, in a few of the other larger centres of population. For this reason, the scheme will apply in the first instance only to the four county boroughs (Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford) and the borough of Dun Laoghaire. Power is vested in the Minister for Justice, however, to extend the application of the scheme to any other area. Tenants of any premises of a poor law valuation not exceeding £10 will be qualified to avail themselves of the benefit of the scheme. Thus, for example, the large body of tenement dwellers in Dublin will be able to reap the advantages.

There are only a few other points that I think it necessary to refer to at this stage. The Bill brings the law as regards recoverability of excess payments of rents in 1923 Act cases into line with the position that has obtained under the Emergency Powers Order. The technical aspect of this matter has been explained at some length in paragraph 14 of the explanatory memorandum on the Bill. It may be well that I should say something about the reasons for the change. In cases coming within Section 8 of the Bill, the basic rent is the standard rent already fixed under the 1923 Act by the court, plus the permitted increase of 20 or 25 per cent. These facts are known, or at least should be known, to the landlord and, if he deliberately charges the tenant a rent in excess of the lawful rent, it is only right that the tenant should be entitled to recover the amount of any rent he may have paid in excess of the lawful rent before he became aware of the true facts as regards the basic rent. The Bill so provides, subject only to the proviso that the tenant may not recover more than six years' overpayments.

In Section 9 cases the position is somewhat different. Here the basic rent is an unknown quantity until it has actually been determined by the court. Until there is such a determination, there may be room for a legitimate difference of opinion as to the correct amount of the basic rent. It is considered that it would not be just to render the landlord liable to repay any rent to the tenant in such cases in respect of any period prior to the date on which the court determines the basic rent. The tenant has the remedy in his own hands by making early application to the court to determine the basic rent. The reasons I have given for distinguishing between Section 8 and Section 9 cases apply equally to Section 14 and Section 16 cases in Chapter 2 of Part II. There is no actual change here, however, as compared with the position under the Emergency Powers Order.

The repeal of the proviso to Section 2 (1) (b) of the 1923 Act, with retrospective effect as from the date of the passing of that Act, has been dealt with in paragraph 16 of the explanatory memorandum. It will, I am sure, be agreed that a position could not be allowed to continue under which a tenant could take advantage of what was really a technical flaw in the drafting of the 1923 Act to establish a claim against the landlord for the recovery of a large sum of money to which the tenant had no moral right whatsoever. It is preposterous, for example, that a rent, which was purely a ground rent fixed under an old and long lease, should be set up as a fair occupation rent and that a tenant should try to establish a claim to be repaid by the landlord the difference between that absurdly low rent and the rent he had actually paid. This matter was referred to in the Agreed Report of the Town Tenants' Tribunal and it was strongly recommended that the position should be remedied. The only way in which this can be effectively done is, as Section 5 (2) of the Bill proposes, by the retrospective repeal of the proviso to Section 2 (1) (b) of the 1923 Act. This repeal will not, however, operate to upset any case that might have already been finally decided by the courts on the basis of the existing law or to compel a tenant to repay to his landlord any moneys he might have already recovered from the latter by virtue of the proviso.

The omission from the Bill of any provision, on the lines of Section 5 of the 1926 Act, for the decontrol of premises over a specified rateable valuation on the landlord obtaining vacant possession represents an important change in the law and one which may excite some comment. The question was discussed at length by the chairman of the Town Tenants' Tribunal in the separate report which he furnished. He strongly criticised the provisions for decontrol on vacancies and recommended that Section 5 of the 1926 Act should be repealed, thus, as he put it, getting rid of the arbitrary notion that only a "sitting" tenant deserves relief from having to pay an exorbitant rent and that the landlord should be free to exact the best rent he can obtain from an incoming tenant. The chairman's report, moreover, pointed out that in the British Act of 1923 a somewhat similar provision for decontrol on vacancies was included but that subsequently the policy was gradually repudiated, until finally the British Rent Acts of 1938 and 1939 abolished this form of decontrol altogether. The chairman suggested that no logical mind could reconcile such a form of decontrol with any rational principles.

In marked contrast to the chairman's views, two other members of the tribunal recommended an extension of the decontrol on vacancies provision by a reduction in the valuation limits above which that provision would apply. These conflicting viewpoints on an important aspect of the law of rent restriction did not make it easy to arrive at a decision in the matter. The extension of rent control under Emergency Powers (No. 313) Order put a somewhat different complexion on the problem, however, because a premises now escapes from control under Section 5 of the 1926 Act only to be brought at once within the scope of Emergency Powers Order control. It is true, of course, that the landlord would have a more favourable basis for the assessment of the rent, but, except for this, the change would make no difference whatsoever. With the incorporation of the Emergency Powers Order in the Bill, it would have been quite illogical, I think, to re-enact the provision for decontrol on vacancies and, furthermore, to do so would have been open to the objections that I have already mentioned in another connection to permitting variations in the basic rent of premises during the period of control.

I think I have dealt now with most of the important features of the Bill. It is, as I have said, a complex and difficult measure, widespread in its application, and will require careful consideration on Committee and Report Stages.

Mr. Costello

I think every Deputy will agree with the last statement of the Minister, that this Bill is a complex measure, widespread in its effect, and one which will require very careful and detailed consideration. Before we come to the consideration of the details of the Bill, I think the House will have to concern itself not merely with the underlying principles, in so far as it can be said that any principles underlie the mass of detail in this Bill, but with the effect which the Bill will have on the social system of this country.

The Minister referred to the fact that a commission was set up a considerable number of years ago which took a very long time to consider the problem set to them. The commission was set up in December, 1935, and the report of the commission was published some years afterwards. I do not gather from the Minister's speech that any part, or any substantial part, of the Bill now introduced was framed on the report of that commission. Indeed, it would have been an extremely difficult thing for any Government Department to extract, even from the agreed report of the commission, any principles which would be regarded as so fundamental that they would be capable of general acceptance.

There was wide divergence of views among the four members of that commission. Mr. Justice Black gave a long, detailed minority report, extending, I think, to some 65 printed pages of the report. The late Mr. Herlihy had a minority report in which he analysed the principle of control of houses and the morality of legislation in reference thereto to the extent of something like 60 pages. The other two members also differed not merely from Mr. Herlihy and Mr. Justice Black, but from each other. In that state of facts this Bill is introduced and it is one which, I think, will require very careful consideration because, from this extensive report and the elaborate minority reports of the members of the commission, there is very little guidance to be obtained and the only result of a perusal of that long document is to make one's mind completely confused and confounded, not merely on what problem is to be solved but, even if there is a problem to be solved, as to what is the precise nature of that problem and how it should be dealt with.

I approach this Bill with considerable misgiving. That there exists a problem which requires to be dealt with somewhat along the lines of this Bill, is undoubted, and I do not think there will be any opposition, except on matters of detail here and there, to the measure proposed by the Minister. I was rather disappointed that the Minister confined himself merely to giving an elaborate and detailed explanation of the provisions of the Bill, and did not explain to the House the policy behind the Bill, the problem to be dealt with and, above all, what are likely to be the effects of the passing of the Bill on the housing problems which at present exist in this country.

The Minister gave a lucid explanation of the provisions of the Bill so far as such a detailed and complex Bill could be explained, but at this stage I do not propose—and I think Deputies will agree that this is not the proper place—to deal with the details of the Bill. What is causing me misgivings in connection with this Bill is the effect it will have on the problem which exists and which is becoming daily more and more acute, namely, the acute shortage of housing of all kinds which exists in the City of Dublin, the County of Dublin and doubtless elsewhere throughout the country. That that acute shortage exists in a condition which is more acute at present than ever before cannot be controverted. What I apprehend is that this Bill will only increase the problem and will not deal with it.

The Bill will doubtless bring comfort to that class of tenants, fairly numerous in number, but, however numerous, merely a limited class, who have the good fortune at present to be the tenants of premises within the scope of the Bill. They will feel that they have some security of tenure and that they cannot be put out, but even those people may yet feel the effects of this Bill in its operation on the conditions which exist at present. The matters dealt with by the Bill are approached—certainly in the explanatory memorandum and in the Minister's speech—as if there were only one particular problem to be dealt with, that is, the amount of rent to be charged for houses within the scope of the Bill, and as if this were a plan to meet that one problem and as if the solution of that problem attempted by this Bill would have effects only on the numerous people within that class, but, however numerous, a limited class. It is like throwing a pebble into a pool. Throwing a pebble into a pool forms wider and wider circles and what I am afraid of is that this Bill will cause wider and wider problems to be dealt with than even have to be dealt with at present.

Everybody knows it is utterly impossible to get a house for rent in the City of Dublin at present. It is an absolute impossibility to get any house at any price to rent in the City of Dublin. That is a fact which cannot be controverted, and it applies not merely to the working classes, as they are called, but to every class in the community. It is not a question of being charged exorbitant rents; it is a question of not being able to get any accommodation at any rent, except in reference to one particular branch of the problem, that is, flats, about which I shall have some words to say in a moment. It is impossible to get any house in the city, or, I think, in the county—certainly in the Greater Dublin area—to rent, no matter what price one is prepared to pay for it.

The second very serious fact is that the price of houses as they are being sold at present is beyond all reason. There is a plethora of houses for sale, but the price not merely being charged but being given for them is beyond all reason and beyond the pocket of the ordinary person, no matter what his position in life unless he happens to be one of the new rich, the new aristocracy of wealth, who have made so much money that they do not know what to do with it and who are able to give prices beyond the dreams of avarice to the owner of a house who can give them vacant possession.

We all know that houses are going at £6,000 and £8,500 and even up to £10,000 and £12,000. Houses which before the war would have sold for £750 are going for £2,500, and houses the market value of which before the war would have been £1,000 are going for £4,000 and £5,000. There are plenty of houses for sale, but the prices being asked and given for them put it beyond the reach of the ordinary citizen to buy such houses, so that the position now is that not merely is there the problem which has to be dealt with of the rent to be charged to a tenant, but the problem that you cannot get a house for rent or sale if you are an ordinary person, living on a salary or on your own earnings as a working man or a professional man, or one of the ordinary humbler class of businessmen, unless you are one of those who have made heaps of money during the emergency.

That is the problem which has to be dealt with, and why I have such misgivings about the Bill is that I think it will exacerbate that problem, because this Bill will bring within its scope a class of houses which was only brought into it in the last few years due to the emergency and by emergency Order— houses between £60 and £30 valuation. They are being brought into this Bill, so that the vast majority of houses required for the ordinary people, from the working-class person up to the ordinary middle-class person with a salary, or the professional man, are all within the scope of the Bill. They are all put outside the possibility of a person who is not at present in the occupation of a house ever getting a house to rent and he is faced with the situation that unless he has some capital he will have to borrow money from the bank.

Look at what the position in that respect is. The ordinary man with a salary, or a professional man earning his living in the precarious way in which most professional men have to earn their living, wants a house. He may have some capital, but he will not have enough to meet the appalling prices being charged and obtained for houses at present. One will go to the Munster and Leinster Bank and secure an overdraft, or the promise of an overdraft, on the security of the house if he buys it. Another will go to the Bank of Ireland and will say: "I want to buy a house in such and such a road. I have only £500. Will you advance me money on the security of the house?" And the manager says "Yes". Bidder A goes in with a promise of a Munster and Leinster overdraft; bidder C goes in with the promise of an overdraft from the Bank of Ireland; and bidder D goes in with the promise of an overdraft from the Ulster Bank. They are all bidding against each other and putting up the price of the house.

What happens? An overdraft is created in the bank. They have put themselves in debt and have not created any asset of any use to the country, but have hung around themselves a load which they probably will never be able to clear off. There can be no doubt that the control of the selling price of houses is a very difficult problem, and one which I do not advocate, for the moment at all events, without very careful consideration. There is a report by the Morris Commission in England on that matter. The question whether the sale price of houses will be controlled was adumbrated in that report, and it is being considered at the moment by the Labour Government in England.

There are appalling difficulties connected with it, and that great hardship can be occasioned to the owners of house property is undoubted. That is the corollary to this Bill, and this Bill, I think, is going to make the problem more acute without that corollary being brought into practical operation. Bringing that system of the control of the sale of houses into operation is a very difficult business, and one which at present should not be advocated, and certainly not embarked on without the fullest consideration. Nevertheless, without that corollary being put into practical effect, this Bill is going to cause hardship and increase the housing problem, because it deals only with one aspect of that problem. What builder is going to take upon himself the task —with the difficulty at the present time of getting building materials, and with the price of building materials, even if they can be procured—of building a house under a £30, £40, £50 or £60 valuation, the type of house which the ordinary person wants? What private investor is going to risk his capital in that for the small return that will be given to him under this Bill if he lets that house?

Mr. Boland

The Deputy should read the Bill. Houses of £30 valuation are not controlled.

Mr. Costello

I am fully alive to the fact that they are uncontrolled. What I say is that private investors are not going to build them for letting. They are going to build them for sale. As I say, with this Bill increasing the net of control, no builder is going to build houses for letting with the scarcity of materials there is and their price. He will not do that, even with the possibility of an increased rent, because he will feel that once he increases the rent this Bill will be widened in its scope.

This Bill deals with houses erected after the 8th February, 1944. Even with that, a man will remember this, that the 1923 Act excluded houses that were built after a certain date in 1919 from the operation of rent control. What security or guarantee will a man have if he builds a house of £61 valuation in existing circumstances, with the scarcity and high cost of building materials, that in a very short time this Bill will not be extended into another alleged temporary Bill? It has been done before, and it is being done in this Bill. I can see no incentive whatever for any private investor, notwithstanding the fact that the Bill purports to exclude him from the operation of this Bill, to embark, in existing circumstances, on the provision of houses either above or below the valuation mentioned in this Bill.

I do not know whether the Minister's advisers have adverted to the fact that from 1919 onwards houses built from that time were exempt from rent control. You had there a measure of encouragement for the private investor, the public utility society or other building company. There was encouragement given to relieve the acute shortage in houses that existed in the country. This Parliament, in the last 15 or 20 years, passed other measures to encourage private builders to provide for the needs of the ordinary people. There was remission of rates for new houses, and there were supplementary grants for certain classes of houses. Above all, there was the knowledge that new houses of that kind would not be subject to rent restriction or rent control but could go on the market. That worked well until quite recently. Encouragement of that sort was given to builders. They were given decontrol, the remission of rates, housing grants and, one may say, that in every possible way the Legislature encouraged the building of houses. Now they are all being brought within the scope of this Bill. In that situation, is any builder going to risk his capital in the building of houses? The man with capital will say to himself that if he does build houses he has no guarantee that they will be outside the provisions of this Bill. He will say that in a year or two the valuation of £60, which is the upper limit in the Bill at the present time, may be increased. He will say that he has no guarantee that it will not be increased since this Bill provides for an increase from £30 to £60.

The whole policy in regard to the control of rents is reversed in this Bill. In the 1926 Act the principle of gradual decontrol was laid down. That was optimistic, but at least a number of houses were decontrolled and encouragement was given to private investors and public utility societies to build houses at a fair price. Houses were built on that basis, with the result that there was no great shortage of houses for the ordinary middle-class person. That went on very well until the new rich were able to come along and pay fabulous prices for the vacant possession of any sort of house. The result of this Bill will be that there will be no houses to let, and builders, in so far as they build at all, will build for sale. In that way you will have the vicious situation which I have already shortly outlined. There will be no houses for anybody if this Bill is not carefully watched in its scope. I was disappointed that the Minister did not consider that aspect of the case. Has his Department given thoughtful consideration to the effects of this Bill which is so very widespread in its scope?

Let me now come to the question of flats. Houses which are bona fide converted into separate self-contained flats after the 8th February, 1944, are excluded from the scope of this Bill. They were excluded from the previous Bills, but they are brought in here. What is going to be the effect of that? Is there anything more ludicrous than what passes in this city as self-contained flats? I have some experience of that, not merely in my capacity as an advocate in court but in my personal capacity. You have houses which had a pre-war valuation of £800 or £900 now coming within the description of separate and self-contained flats. We know the type they are. A few partitions are put up, a gas stove is put in on a corridor, or on a landing, and that is described as a separate self-contained flat. Any price can be charged for it. We have, of course, in the city what would come under the description of separate self-contained flats. They have a hall-door and other conveniences and they are completely cut away from the other flats. There would be a case for leaving them out. But we all know what is happening— that private houses are being converted into these so-called flats which are really nothing more than glorified tenements, and that the most ridiculous rents are being charged for them.

Let us see what is going to happen to some houses that will come within the scope of this Bill. In the ordinary course of events a house will become vacant. The present occupier is secure under the Bill, but his or her circumstances may change. For economic, financial or family reasons houses of this class may become vacant; but not one of them coming within the scope of this Bill will ever be let again. They will be converted into these so-called flats and appalling rents will be charged. They will be nothing more than tenements. The position will be that once a house becomes vacant it will be sold and there will be no question of letting. It will be sold at a price beyond the capacity of the ordinary person to acquire it, or it will be converted into so-called, self-contained flats. I make that assertion with some knowledge of the conditions that prevail in this city at the present time.

The Minister said this was a temporary Bill for five years. I appreciate the delicate irony expressed in the memorandum that has been circulated with reference to the temporary character of this Bill. The explanatory memorandum says: "The Bill is expressed to be temporary." Deputies will appreciate the delicate irony of that expression. We all know how temporary the 1914 Act was. It is still here, not merely emerging in its original pristine form, but having spread out its scope and effect in a way never contemplated. This Bill is not going to be in fact a temporary Bill, even though it is expressed to be temporary. The policy behind the 1926 Act was decontrol of premises, gradual decontrol in order to encourage private enterprise in the provision of houses for the people. The policy behind this Bill is control, and the effect of it will be, in my opinion at all events—I hope I am wrong—that there will be no houses provided and that there will be a more acute shortage of houses than exists at the present moment.

I have, as everybody must have, sympathy with the idea that exorbitant rents should not be charged. When I am submitting to the Minister the considerations that I have brought before him, I hope he will not take it that I am doing it merely in a carping spirit or in a spirit of mere passing criticism. I am doing it in all sincerity, pointing out to him the problems that will arise as a result of this Bill. I am not without sympathy, as I have already said, for the tenants who have to be ejected from their houses, but either something must be done by private investors to provide houses for our citizens or the State must accept housing as a social service for all classes of the community. That is the road that we are going along. The local authorities, with State grants, and State aided, provide, and are doing their best to provide, houses for the working classes. They are far behind the needs of that particular class of the community at the present time, not through any fault of theirs. The needs of that class, at all events, are in course of being provided for and there is at least some hope that at some stage local authorities, with the help of the public taxpayers' money, will provide a sufficiency of houses for the working classes. Who is to provide houses for the people who do not come within that class? Private investors will not do it and cannot do it with this Bill before them. Are we travelling along the road, therefore, where there must be a call upon the overburdened taxpayer to provide houses for professional men, for civil servants and for other people? That is a problem that must be faced.

I say, as I said at the outset, that however prejudiced we all are against the imposition of excessive rents, we cannot approach this Bill merely as being a solution for a particular problem of that kind. This Bill is going to have a wider effect and a Bill which has for its principle the principle of control will create a problem for this Government or for some future Government in reference to housing which might be uncontrollable and insoluble. We have, in my submission to this House, to watch carefully the effects of this Bill.

I am sure every Deputy is torn between the natural sympathy he has for the tenant in occupation, whatever his valuation may be, and the public good. I am not satisfied that the extension in this Bill from £30 to £60 is, in the end, the wisest course to adopt. I voice my fears—I hope the Minister will be able to calm them—that, looking at it from the general public point of view, while it may bring comfort, assistance and security to the present occupiers of those houses, it will create an insoluble housing problem for the country.

I have dealt with the question of flats. I would respectfully suggest to the Minister that if he brings in flats that were previously exempt from the operation of rent control, he certainly ought to bring in all flats whether built from 1919 onwards or since the 8th February, 1944, because that problem of the provision of flats is going to create another tenement problem in the city, affecting a different class of people.

I would respectfully suggest to the Minister that he ought to consider the difficulties to which I have adverted. I am not pressing him to say here and now that flats that have been erected since the 8th February, 1944, should be included, but I think there is a case to be made for it. At least, there is a problem to be considered and I want to know what his solution is for it. The Minister has stated that this is a very well-drafted Bill. With that I entirely concur. Both from the point of view of an ordinary person and of a lawyer, looking down through it, one sees a number of phrases, such as "critical days,""appointed days,""1923 control" and "1926 control" and all sorts of shorthand descriptions, but it is extremely well drafted and it also has the one great merit of being a codifying statute. But I should like him to ask the expert draftsmen who were responsible for the drafting of this Bill if they cannot find some definition of a flat other than the one in the Bill at the moment, and which will prevent the sort of things—the "big flats"—which are in my opinion nothing more than tenement rooms strung together with the nexus, if I may put it that way, of a gas stove on the landing.

The Minister has referred to the novel position in the statute enabling the district justice to fix a provisional rent. Again, with any scheme designed to give a quick and cheap remedy to a poor tenant who is being threatened with an increase of rent by his landlord all Deputies will not merely have sympathy but will give their support. I suggest that the consideration of this part of the Bill would possibly be more appropriately dealt with on the Committee Stage. It is significant that in this respect also, although the commission, apparently, were all agreed on a particular scheme to deal with poor tenants, their scheme was not accepted. I do not know where the scheme in this Bill came from. The Minister would not accept the recommendation of these gentlemen who were on the commission. I do not know by what authority or from whose brain the present scheme emerged. But I do venture to suggest that, as at present drafted and unless it is in some way cut down, the scheme will give far more worry and far more trouble to the poor tenants than the existing procedure. I think it could possibly be simplified.

I do not see the necessity for the provisional order at all. Why not have an ordinary summons such as exists in ordinary civil cases in the District Court which can be issued at the application of the tenant by the District Court clerk, asking the District Court to fix the amount? I cannot see any difficulty in that. But why should you have queuing up to the District Court clerk's office—because that is what will happen? You will have another queue. You have bus queues, train queues and mail boat queues and now you are to have a queue of tenement dwellers waiting outside the District Court clerk's office to ask him to fix the provisional order. They will have to come down from Winetavern Street to the Bridewell and they will have to stand in a queue while the unfortunate District Court clerk takes down the particulars of about four cases during his eight-hour day or whatever it is, because that is all he can reasonably do.

The district justice, if the provisional order is not to be a complete and absolute farce, is supposed to bring some intelligence to bear on some facts. These facts will have to be given to his clerk by the person who comes into him. You will not hurry a civil servant, even a District Court clerk. He will sit down pushing his pen and he will say to the person: "You live in a two-pair back at 10 Winetavern Street? When did you go in there? What is the basic rent?"

All these things have to go down, because the district justice has, in accordance with the provisions of the scheme as it stands, to make inquiries or to get some inquiries made. He may inquire from his clerk or from anybody. If a district justice is to do his job in a reasonable way which may be of assistance to the Circuit Court, he will have to do some work before he makes up the provisional order. As I say, you will have a queue outside the District Court clerk's office. You are going to have more district justices. That may be very good for the legal profession, but it is not very good for the taxpayer. I do not see how, in existing circumstances, the present number of district justices can carry the weight of this additional burden on them in the City of Dublin and elsewhere. They cannot overtake the amount of work that exists in the City of Dublin at present. But here they have to do this. They have to assimilate whatever knowledge is acquired by the District Court clerk from the person who is waiting for hours in the queue. They have then to make inquiries of some kind. As the Bill stands, they are bound to make inquiries. Then it comes before them in a judicial capacity.

What is at the back of that scheme? Having done all this queuing, having waited outside the Bridewell for hours, or for days, perhaps, when all the particulars have been prepared, the unfortunate district justice may take months to make up his provisional order, and then the landlord inevitably appeals, because the district justice, if I may use a vulgarism, can only make a stab at it; he can only take a chance as to what the rent may be, having possibly ascertained all the details necessary to fix the basic rent. In 99 per cent. of the cases there will be an appeal and the work will have to be done all over again. Why not cut out all the nonsense of provisional orders? I see no point in cutting out those notices which used to be served under the Increase of Rent Acts in which you had to set out your standard rent, the permitted increase, etc. They were not so very difficult as the four gentlemen on the commission talked about. Any solicitor's clerk would fill up one of these things in ten minutes. But, if you cut them out and have an ordinary summons to fix the rent, say, of a two-pair back in 10 Winetavern Street, is there any difficulty in that? It would come before the district justice, with an appeal to the Circuit Court just as there is at present, with the other provisions in the Bill, and without this nonsensical procedure of the provisional order.

That is one aspect of the case which I suggest to the Minister for consideration. I would agree with any scheme that would help these poor tenants. I do not know where this particular provision came from. I do not think it will protect—certainly the procedure by provisional order will not—a poor tenant from the sort of exploitation which was the subject of some criminal prosecutions recently in the courts and from enterprising gentlemen who form themselves into a tenants' association and take the tenants' rent from them, or take more than the landlord would get for rent, under the guise of helping the tenants to get their rent decreased. I do not think it will do that. I think it will cause them more trouble than they have at present. I will say that there were very few poor tenants who thought they had a grievance in reference to the amount of rent they had to pay who, because of their poverty, were unable to go into court. The St. Vincent de Paul Society has a secretariat, and the members of the society going around the tenement rooms are astute to watch out for these cases. It was very easy. All they had to do was to ask a solicitor or a barrister who was a member to take one of these cases in the Circuit Court for one of these tenants and it was done for nothing.

Mr. Dillon

Did the Deputy say that the tenants in tenement rooms had no difficulty in getting a fair rent fixed?

Mr. Costello

Members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society were astute enough to watch for these cases. If they had any difficulty they went to the secretariat of the society or to the Barristers' Conference or the Solicitors' Conference and, whether a solicitor or a barrister was a member of the society or not, he, in fact, gave his services gratuitously to these tenants. Some of these tenants may have had difficulty about it; some of them were "salted", but there were not many of them. I have a fair knowledge of the people in the City of Dublin living in tenement rooms—it is not an extensive knowledge, but some knowledge—and they know their rights fairly well and if they do not know them, the members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society tell them very quickly. That is, perhaps, beside the point.

Let us assume that there are the difficulty and the problem there, a question which we have to solve, one which will, I think, be better dealt with in detail on the Committee Stage of the Bill. It is: "Is the solution set out in this Bill the best solution?" Certainly, so far as the provisional order is concerned, I think it is the sheerest waste of time. It will cost the taxpayer a lot of money, and there will be additional staffs in the District Court, and, inevitably, additional district justices. Under the Bill, there will be expert valuers paid by the State, which will mean increased taxation. The poor people who are getting the benefits of this Bill are going to pay for their own legal aid under it, in their tea, sugar, and necessities of life. All this business of expert valuers was not necessary under the existing procedure, but the country is going to provide expert valuers now to fix the 5/- rent of a tenement room, at the taxpayers' expense. In very few cases were valuers brought before the judge under existing procedure, but State valuers are being brought in now to fix the rents to be paid by the poor people. I cannot see sense or reason in that. Inevitably there will be a further increase in public expenditure, with further taxation, at a time when people are overburdened by taxation.

I hope the remarks I have made— which are made, although the Minister might not think it, in a helpful spirit —will be accepted by him as helpful. I have put the criticisms I have made here of this Bill before the Minister, with a view to seeing that it is appreciated that there are problems in existence which cannot be ignored, that this Bill and the Minister's speech ignore those problems, and the effect which the Bill will have on those problems. I hope that the remarks I have made will be of some assistance to him, but whether they are or whether they are not, there are problems connected with housing of an acute and urgent character which require to be solved at the present moment. The public will want to know what the Government are going to do about it; if the Government are going to do anything; and if they are not going to do anything to ameliorate the problem, at least they ought not make it worse. I am afraid the effect of this Bill will be to make the problem more acute.

Mr. Norton

The character of this Bill is such as to make it unnecessary to make a lengthy speech on the Second Stage, since in the main whatever defects the Bill has can be remedied on the Committee Stage. Therefore, I propose to make only a few general comments. I must say that, if I did not know and deeply appreciate Deputy Costello's well-developed sense of justice and his sympathy for every just cause, I would have been startled by some of the statements which he made in connection with this matter. I have no doubt in the world that Deputy Costello knows the entire legal proceedings in connection with court cases surrounding rent charges and surrounding the sale of houses. While he told us of all the difficulties which are likely to emerge when you attempt to control rents, he did not tell us what the remedy was. If there is any deduction to be made from his speech, I am afraid I am not alone in thinking that Deputy Costello's view could be summed up largely by saying: "Leave the thing as it is."

Mr. Costello

I do not think so. The Deputy is misinterpreting me.

Mr. Norton

The Deputy may take it from me that I did not intend to misinterpret him.

Mr. Costello

I can appreciate that, but that is not the point. I want to make the Minister understand the problem, to know that there are difficulties and to say what his remedy is. It does not lie with me—at present, at all events—to say what the remedy is.

Mr. Norton

I think it is set out in the Bill that its purpose quite clearly is to protect tenants from the unscrupulous type of landlord who has not been slow to exploit the needs of tenants in search of accommodation. If there is a tussle between the rights of landlords on the one hand and the rights of tenants on the other hand, I think most sensible people realise that, whereas we have often heard of tenants who were exploited, very few Deputies in this House or persons outside it ever came across a landlord who was exploited. Landlords, in respect of tenement houses in particular, have shown an utter disregard for the most elementary rights of the unfortunate people whom they warehouse in those abodes of theirs called houses. They never housed the tenants, but merely warehoused them. The unfortunate tenants, compelled to live in that type of accommodation in order to be under the lowest possible rent, were exploited in the most unscrupulous way by landlords with no sense of shame or morality.

Anyone who knows the tenement problem in this city and in other cities throughout the country will have no hesitation whatever in saying that it is well past the time that the rapacious landlord was brought to book and that steps were taken to stop his soulless exploitation of the unfortunate tenants who were compelled to pay a weekly or monthly tribute to him.

Deputy Costello told us that houses for sale were fetching fabulous prices. Why? Everybody knows they have been fetching fabulous prices for the same reason as certain types of landlord have got fabulous rents. High prices were brought about by a scarcity of houses, number one, and by an inflationary process, number two. In the same way, landlords, confident that there was an insufficiency of houses, with the decontrolled provisions of the previous Rent Restrictions Act, were able—again because of the shortage of houses—to demand any kind of ransom in the form of rent which they could compel tenants to pay as the price of procuring accommodation. If we want to permit the rent scandal to reach the dimensions of the house for sale scandal, the best thing to do in the matter is not to pass this Bill. I think the house for sale scandal is bad enough, without permitting it to have a twin brother in the rent scandal, which threatens, in view of the present housing difficulties, to reach even greater proportions than the house for sale scandal.

Therefore, I want to say openly and frankly that I welcome this Bill, as designed to ensure some protection for tenants who are to-day in many instances the playthings of landlords. I welcome it with special enthusiasm because of the protection which it gives to those unfortunate tenants who are compelled to live sometimes in rat-infested tenements in this city and pay fancy rents to unscrupulous landlords who think so much of their own health that they would not go into those rat-infested tenements to collect the rents. If we have a problem of shortage of houses to-day which results in persons securing very high prices for houses which they sell, and if we have a problem of providing houses so as to make available accommodation for all our people, I do not think we will solve that problem by allowing the problem of extortionate rents to pass unsolved. The Minister has acted wisely in introducing a Bill at this time, especially when certain tendencies indicate that there may be more money available, in some respects, for house purchase in the immediate future and more money available, at least for a short time, for the purpose of paying the fancy rents demanded by landlords.

There is one feature in this Bill which I welcome particularly, that is, the decision of the Minister to bring back under control those houses which were previously allowed out of control once the house became vacant. I think no greater subterfuge existed in the previous Act than that which provided that the unscrupulous landlord could exploit the letting value of the house once, by one means or another, he managed to obtain possession from the previous tenant. It is a creditable feature of the Bill that that type of house will again be brought under control and the landlord compelled to recognise by law what he will not recognise outside the law, and that there will be a remedy in a case where he exploits people who are the tenants of such houses.

The most commendable part of this Bill is Part III which, in the circumstances, makes a genuine effort to deal with the position of the poorer classes of tenants. It provides a method by which they can approach the District Court clerk and can have their case submitted to the district justice, who has power to make a provisional order. If the landlord disputes the equity of the order, he has the remedy of going to the courts. However, if he takes the case to the higher court, he is not permitted to use his greater financial strength against the tenant to such an extent as to prevent the tenant appearing on equal terms with him there.

One of the weaknesses of the Bill as it is drawn is that it provides for the application of the procedure to Dublin, Limerick, Cork, Waterford and Dun Laoghaire, but there is no provision for its extension elsewhere. I hope the Minister will not delay long in extending the provisions of the Bill in that respect to other areas. I have cases in my constituency where houses, having been condemned by the local authority —condemned in a manner that did not make their condemnation quite legal and compulsory—were re-let at even higher rents than the previous tenants were paying, and the tenant had no remedy in a case of that kind.

That type of exploitation is common, I think, in many other places in the country. It is particularly common in many towns in my constituency, where the big military establishments draw large numbers of persons to reside in the vicinity. Housing accommodation is at a premium, and landlords in many of those towns know much more about the art of exploitation of tenants than do the landlords in some of the larger urban areas and cities in the country. Like Deputy Costello, however, I feel that there is a real danger that in giving a tenant the right to go to a District Court clerk and having the District Court clerk going to the district justice, we may create a bottle-neck and, while you may provide a remedy for the tenant in law, you do not provide any expeditious remedy in fact.

If a District Court clerk is to have lined up, day after day and week after week, large numbers of aggrieved tenants, seeking to give him information which, in turn, he will transmit to a district justice who, in turn, will cogitate on the information received and then deliver a judgment and have an order issued, I am afraid that type of machinery will be found to be such that it will not provide the tenant with a speedy remedy. It may be that another remedy cannot easily be suggested at the moment, but I believe it would be a great tragedy if this Bill, which I think in the main is a good Bill, should be rendered ineffective, because you tell the tenant to get a remedy at a certain place where, because of the queue system, because of the tax on the tenants' patience, because of the constant disappointment in not being able to see the District Court clerk, the tenant may be inclined to go back and say: "Look here, it would be much better to pay the landlord a higher rent rather than waste time looking for the District Court clerk—losing the time that would inevitably be spent looking for the District Court clerk." In the main, the District Court clerk will be seen during office hours. Who is going to see him? Obviously the breadwinner of the house cannot stay at home in order to see the District Court clerk. Who else will see him? The wife cannot go to see him because she has her husband coming home looking for something to eat and the children coming and going to school. She will not have much time to spend looking for the District Court clerk.

Mr. Dillon

Can she not send him a postcard?

Mr. Norton

I do not think any purpose would be served by sending him a postcard, even a picture postcard.

Mr. Dillon

Must there be personal attendance?

Mr. Boland

All these matters can more easily be dealt with on the Committee Stage. At the moment I am open to receive suggestions.

Mr. Norton

I think the Bill will be bogged if it depends for its effective administration on that bottle-neck, which I think is too dangerous. This Bill deals with rent restriction. Unfortunately, it does not deal with what is much worse—the type of exploitation known as ground rent exploitation. I think the Minister might very well, when he is dealing with the exploitation of tenants in the paying of weekly rents, have also provided some protection for those tenants who are compelled to pay ransom in the form of ground rents. I know it is not an easy problem to deal with, but it is a problem that will not be solved by postponement.

I do not want, although I would be entitled to do so, to develop the ground rent problem to any extent when dealing with a Bill of this character, clearly aiming at house rents. The Minister must know that while the exploitation of tenants by landlords is very bad, there is no greater exploiter in the world than the ground landlord in this country; there is certainly none that I know of. Cases have been brought in abundance to my notice where, when a lease falls in, unfortunate tenants are compelled to pay four and five times the previous ground rent; not only that, but they are compelled to expend a substantial sum on the improvement of their dwellings, dwellings which others and not the ground landlord erected. Anybody with any experience of ground rents, especially around this city, knows the way tenants have been exploited by ground landlords.

I think the Minister, on another occasion, expressed the hope that he would be able to do something about the exploitation of tenants by ground landlords. I hope, before we finish this Second Reading, that he will tell us he is just as resolved to-day to deal with these rapacious gentlemen, the ground landlords, as he is to deal with the house landlords, and that before long we will have an opportunity of curbing the activities of these gentlemen in the same way as I hope this measure will substantially curb the capacity of the house landlords to exploit their tenants, particularly those who, up to the present, have been unable to meet the landlords in a place where they can get an effective remedy at a price within their capacity to pay.

Mr. Dillon

It is said of the late Earl Lloyd George that when he was discussing political tactics with his chief advisers they warned him that a particular gentleman with whom he was going to engage in a quarrel was a very big fellow and that he would want to be careful. Lloyd George replied: "Never be afraid to fight the big fellows; it is the little fellows you should be afraid of—there are too many of them." We all know there are more tenants than landlords in this country. Therefore anyone who poses as a champion of the tenants has a very much better chance of reaping a rich harvest than the poor fool who says a good word for the landlord. And, of course, if you start a discussion on the Rent Restrictions Bill and call the people who are collecting rents "landlords," every Deputy bristles, because the very mention of the word "landlord" makes us look around to see where is the landlord, so that we may proceed to tear him to pieces. But if, instead of describing property owners as landlords, you call them home builders, then all our hearts would swell with solicitude for these public benefactors who are building homes for the Irish people.

Of course, the truth is that there are bad landlords and there are bad tenants. All landlords in this country are not stout gentlemen with red faces and gold watch-chains spread across their immense bosoms. Some of them are quite the reverse. I know a widowed woman who set her house to one of these depressed tenants, about whom people are so ready to get lachrymose, and I know that that depressed tenant left her to pay the rates and taxes; he never paid a week's rent to her at all. So there are two sides to this question.

I think the Minister, in introducing Part III of this Bill, has done a good thing and a brave thing, something which many another Minister would have baulked at undertaking. I differ from Deputy Costello in that respect. In differing from him, there is no implied criticism of Deputy Costello, because most of us here know that Deputy Costello is one of those amongst us who has probably done, gratuitously, more for individual tenement dwellers in getting them their legal rights than any other Deputy. It astonished me to find one of his vast experience both amongst the poor and in the courts taking the view that he very much doubted the value of Part III.

I should have thought that in so far as it was possible to resolve an extremely difficult problem Part III of the Bill, subject to certain amendments in detail of the kind mentioned by Deputy Norton, is as good an effort as could be made to make it certain that tenement dwellers will get their rights under the law; but when we come to face that problem, the House should bear this in mind that the whole problem of tenement rents is extremely complex. Personally, I should hate to be a tenement landlord. I should hate to be making my living out of collecting rents from the dirty rat-holes and cellars in which many of the poor of Dublin are living at present; but there is this grim fact to be faced, that, if people are poor enough, you are sometimes confronted with the problem of how you are to put a roof over their heads at all.

The old poor law system was to herd them all in the workhouse like that up in the South Dublin Union, or the North Dublin Union, when it was in it. The North Dublin Union has been closed down but the South Dublin Union is still there. But when you come to consider whether any person other than the State or the municipality can house the very poor except in these wretched tenements which are not maintained at all and which are not fit for human habitation, Deputies will discover that the rents which these people can afford to pay will not permit of any person, other than the State or the municipality which subsidises the housing, providing them with any accommodation at all.

I am trying to put the unpopular side of the case for the House to consider calmly. It is perfectly true that when one of us goes into a back drawingroom, or a two-pair back in Dublin and the woman there tells us that she is being asked to pay 4/- a week rent for it, the rent seems perfectly fantastic, but when you take the wide group of such cases and find that the history of that two-pair back over the last ten years is that every tenant who has been in it has remained in it for a period of perhaps 40 weeks and left it, in every case being evicted for nonpayment of rent, leaving ten weeks' rent due, you discover that, although the nominal rent is 4/-, in fact what the fellow has been getting for it is something in the neighbourhood of 2/3.

I do not want to represent myself here as the champion of slum landlords. I think slum landlordism is a horrible avocation for anyone to have to follow or earn a living by, but the remedy, and the only remedy for it, is for the municipality or the State to build houses, because no private individual can provide housing for the very poor in this city at a rent they can afford to pay if the housing is to be of a kind that any human creature should be asked to live in. There is only one satisfactory remedy for the terrible problem in this country, and that is to pull them all down, to purchase the land upon which they stand and for the Dublin Corporation, with such assistance as it may require, to build proper houses for these people to live in, in the certain knowledge that the taxpayer or the ratepayer must contribute substantially to the weekly rent payable for that accommodation because the people who will live in it are not able to pay an economic rent.

Therefore, as an interim proposal for rent control of tenement rooms, I think the Minister's proposal is good. I think it is right and courageous to embark on it now, but let the House remember that, though I pass all these encomiums upon him, I do not want any Deputy to imagine that it is a permanent solution of the problem outlined by Deputy Norton. There is no solution of that problem except the erection of houses by the municipality or the State, and the sooner we get on with that job the better. There will be no fair rent for the very poor living in this city unless there is accommodation for them all in subsidised houses.

Now let me turn to Parts I and II, and it is here that the obiter dictum of Lloyd George particularly applies and it is here that I think Deputy Costello has given the House extremely good advice. I would ask Deputies to pause for a moment and to ask themselves what is the most effective system of rent control you can have. Surely the answer to that question must be a surplus of houses. If you have too many houses, if you have landlords going out begging for tenants, then you will have the most effective rent control the mind of man can envisage. Every other expedient you can devise to control rents will be subject to the greatest possible objections, and bear in mind that most of them, and particularly those incorporated in this Bill, will initiate a vicious circle by controlling rents which are excessive, reducing the number of houses available thereby and tending to increase the scarcity of houses to let, thus making the necessity for rent control more urgent, until ultimately you may very well get a condition in which nobody will engage in the letting of houses at all and will leave the provision of accommodation for rent altogether to the municipality or the State, on the assumption that they will subsidise all such accommodation and in which, in fact, those living in rented premises in this country will ultimately come to live largely on their neighbours.

I remember Deputy Dockrell saying something in this House ten or 15 years ago when we were discussing the Housing Act. He commented on the fact that while abundant facilities were being given to those who were going to build a certain small type of house, no adequate provision was being made for the building of a somewhat larger type of house. He pointed out—and it has always stuck in my mind—that if you provide a sufficiency of houses for the people in the £500 to £700 a year class, as they move out of the smaller houses, others move into them and the process initiated at the top of the housing system percolates all the way down, until ultimately the effect of moving the man in the £700 class is to evacuate a cellar in Lower Gloucester Street, out of which the tenant was in a position to move into a better room because the man in the better room had been enabled to get into the cottage vacated by a man who moved into a modest house, out of which the tenant had moved when a new house became available.

If this House is going to lay down the principle that the man who builds a house to rent is a public enemy, then sooner or later nobody in this country is going to build houses to rent. If you are not going to have houses to rent, then you are going to have the type of person described by Deputy Costello, the person in the dilemma of plunging himself into debt, a position in which he should not be put, in order to try to buy a house, or else he will have to try to find some kind of a flat, or do without a house altogether. I believe that, once we have perceived the fundamental fact that the best system of rent control that we can evolve is to have too many houses, the prime concern of this House should be, from the long-term point of view, to encourage everybody we can to take their money out of Imperial Tobaccos, Imperial Chemicals and Government stocks, and every other form of a permanent investment, and put it into houses for renting. In that way every dozen houses so built are going to make our housing problems, which are vast ones, less acute and are going to make the necessity for legislation of this kind less stringent. If, however, we are going to fix everybody, who is inclined to build houses with a view to renting them and in that way derive income from them rather than from the investment of their money in ordinary stocks and shares, with notice that all such persons are regarded by Oireachtas Éireann as public enemies who are to be watched and controlled, then nobody will build houses.

I put this to Deputies. Supposing you had £1,000 to invest to-morrow and that you could get 3½ per cent. on your money by putting it into Imperial Tobaccos or Imperial Chemicals, or 3 per cent. in Government stocks, would you go out and buy houses in Terenure, Rathmines or Drumcondra with a view to setting them to tenants, knowing that if you had a good tenant who was prepared to pay you a good rent, you will be hauled before the courts and held up to public odium as a rack-renting landlord, and in all probability get a fellow quartered on you for the rest of your life who would have to pay you a rent which would not yield you 2 per cent. on the money you had invested in your house, at the same time leaving yourself open to be regarded by every respectable citizen of the State as a public enemy; whereas if you took your £1,000 down to Anglesea Street and told your broker to buy you shares in a good, reliable company, you could draw your £35 a year for the rest of your life on it, and stand the chance of getting a few bonuses if the concern in which your money was invested made increased profits.

Is that a desirable situation to set up in the country? I do not think it is. Deputy Norton has welcomed the provision in the Bill which says that if you have a house, the valuation of which is low enough to bring it within the provisions of this Bill, and if the valuation rises above the maximum valuation described in this Bill, it is still to remain within the control of the Bill. I do not think that is a good provision at all. Deputy Norton also welcomed the provision which abolishes the proviso that where heretofore if you had a house that was controlled, and that if the tenant evacuated the house it ceased to be controlled, you could get what rent you liked.

Has the Deputy considered what that is going to mean? We have a certain limited number of houses, all too few of which are available for renting. Suppose one of them is evacuated to-morrow by the existing tenant, and that the landlord has felt for some considerable time that, on the capital he invested when he bought the house, the rent he is at present receiving is inadequate, he now discovers that under the existing legislation he will be restricted to that rent. This additional fact impinges on his mind that the house on which he invested £1,200, and on which he thinks the present rent is a very meagre return, is going to be left under the present rent unless he sells it. If he sells it to somebody who wants to reside in it himself, he can get £2,500 for it, and can then go down to Anglesea Street and invest his money in some good conservative industrial equities. In that way he will be able to get, without any of the troubles associated with rent collecting, repairs, taxes or rates, from 50 to 60 per cent. more than if he set that house to a tenant in dire need. Do Deputies think that, if these contentions are true, we are serving the best interests of tenants in this country who find themselves in the difficulty that they cannot find accommodation at a reasonable price, and in many cases cannot find accommodation at all? My great apprehension is that we are going to stop all building in this country except municipal building and State schemes. Surely these things can best be determined amongst ourselves by each individual Deputy asking himself what would his reaction be in the light of this legislation were he asked to invest the savings of a lifetime in house property or in industrial shares.

Deputy Norton said that, after listening to Deputy Costello, he was inclined to comment by saying that Deputy Costello was pointing out all the objections to the Bill, but had not made any proposal himself. I think that the housing problem and the rent problem at present are problems of immense complexity. They are made complex primarily by the scarcity of building materials. Should we undertake a permanent code of legislation for the control of rents in a period when the whole problem is warped and distorted by the acute stringency of building supplies?

The Minister will say: "Has the Deputy not noticed that this Bill is designed to come to an end in 1950?" All the Rent Restrictions Acts passed since this State was founded were declared to be terminable at the end of a certain period, but all have been renewed, and the tendency has been steadily to extend their scope and effectiveness. The trouble is that any intending house builders are not going to look at the statute law as it happens to be on any particular date. They are going to look at the statute law over a period, and then ask themselves the question: What is the trend of the law in regard to rents and housing in this country? Will any Deputy deny that up to now the trend has been to treat the landlord as a public enemy, and to treat the tenant as an oppressed person standing in need of as much protection as he can get? Might I suggest to the House that a very much better approach to this whole problem would be to say: We are all agreed on one fundamental, and that is that the ultimate desideratum of the whole House is to induce home builders in this country to build so many homes that there will be more homes than there are tenants to fill them, because we know that if we can ever reach that point the Legislature can step aside and let the whole question of rent control take care of itself? We foresee that between to-day's date and the realisation of that ideal there is an interregnum for which we must make the best provision we can. I suggest that the best we can do is to concentrate on those areas where living accommodation is scarcest and rents consequently highest, and build for all we are worth those municipal schemes and State schemes with which we already have authority to proceed. If we cannot actually start the structures, let us appropriate the land, clear it, lay it out, and publicise intensively the kind of accommodation that is going to be provided, in order to forewarn landlords that, if they want to be too tough at the present time, a situation may quickly develop where they will not be able to get any rent for their houses, so extensive will the building be in the particular areas where those houses are situated.

At the same time, for want of a better method, I would be inclined to agree to codification of the law on the lines of the old law, but I think probably excluding the new types of houses brought in under the Emergency Powers Act, because, unless there is some clear indication from the Oireachtas that we want to get out altogether of the rent control position into the new position where the abundance of houses over and above the demand will itself automatically control the rents, we are going to create in this country a chronic shortage of houses, and that is the very worst thing we could possibly do.

There is one other matter of detail, and in so far as Deputy Costello has dealt with that aspect of this whole problem I find myself in entire agreement with him. I think he has taken the long and constructive view in giving that warning to the Minister, and I think the Minister would be very well advised to think well of that whole problem. If he is not in a position to make some drastic change in the Bill as it at present stands, he should, in his concluding speech, make it perfectly clear that far from desiring to proceed further in the matter of rent restriction, the aim of this House is to get out of rent restriction altogether, but that we cannot do it—much as we would desire to do it—unless and until we are satisfied that there are more houses than tenants. Then we will be very quick to let that whole matter look after itself.

There are two minor points which I will mention to the Minister so that he can look into them between now and the Committee Stage. There is the question of fixing "lawful rents". I think that is the new term. Would the Minister not think it desirable to establish a register in which lawful rents would be automatically recorded by the court? For instance, suppose a resident in 24 Fontenoy Street comes to me as a solicitor and asks me to get the rent of his house fixed. I could either go into court, quite blind as to any other proceedings which may have taken place about identical houses in Fontenoy Street, or I could go to the register, look up Fontenoy Street, and I may find that a lawful rent has been fixed for No. 23, in which event it is highly likely that a great deal of inquiry and investigation could be avoided, and that the landlord in Fontenoy Street would probably accept and the tenants consent to the fixed rent in respect of the one particular house which had already had a lawful rent fixed for it. If there were a register established, and if the rents were automatically recorded by the district justice or the court which finally determined them, I do not think there would be any serious administrative problem in maintaining the register and making it available for perusal at some appropriate centre by people interested in proceedings of that kind.

The last point I want to make is this: I know how difficult it is to get away from existing legislation if you are proceeding to codify the law, but I do suggest to the Minister that one of the greatest advantages of codification is lost if the codifying statute continually refers to creatures or things created by the old Acts the place of which the new statute is designed to take. If you talk of a pre-1923 house, you may find that interminable litigation will develop to determine whether, if the Act of 1923 had not been repealed by the Act of 1944, such-and-such a house would have come within the terms of the 1923 Act, and the very simplification which you hoped to achieve by codifying the law in one comprehensive measure is completely lost in the endless argument as to whether the house now under consideration was one which came within the 1923 Act, the 1926 Act, the 1928 Act, the 1929 Act, or the 1930 Act. How much better would it be if we could simply have in our Schedule the same Schedule that appears in this Bill repealing altogether those five Acts, and then, where it became necessary to describe a premises such as we have described in Section 7 as "controlled 1923 Act premises", that we should have a definition similar to that which appears in Section 3, sub-section (2)? Are there no statutory words which can be found to define the premises instead of referring to them as "controlled 1923 Act premises"? Could we not describe them in terms which could be argued in court on the face of this Bill, with no reference of any kind to the repealed statutes? I suggest to the Minister that if he could that he would not only substantially simplify this measure but also set a very valuable precedent to the draftsman, giving him an example of how a codifying Act should be drawn so as to relegate to oblivion for ever all the statutes, the place of which it was designed to take.

Again, without arguing the merits, I direct the Minister's attention to the terms of Section 29, sub-section (1) (b) (ii), which says: "for the purpose of fixing the provisional rent, the tenant shall be deemed to be responsible for the rates and for all repairs". If the Minister will then look at Section 32, sub-section (1) (b), he will see that:—

"...the landlord and the tenant shall be deemed to have entered into an agreement on the gale day next following the making of the provisional order whereby the rent to be paid, as on and from that day, by the tenant under this Act in respect of the premises was determined to be an amount equal to the provisional rent."

That suggests to me that if the resident of a tenement room gets a rent fixed, the rent will be fixed on the assumption that the tenant was responsible for the rates and all repairs. Surely, that must mean that in every such proceeding there will be an appeal by the landlord to the Circuit Court to get that obvious error rectified, because the tenant of no tenement room is deemed to be responsible for rates or repairs, and if the district justice apportions the rates and repairs to one room and deducts the rent payable by the dweller, the Circuit Court will inevitably change it on grounds of equity, and thus unnecessary litigation will be engendered. The Minister will have time to look into that particular matter, and I should like him to do so, because to me it seems calculated to give rise to a great deal of unnecessary litigation.

I view Parts I and II of this Bill with considerable trepidation. Taking the long-term view, I believe that Parts I and II of this Bill are going the wrong way about the solution of the problem which gives rise to excessive rents. With regard to Part III of the Bill, I welcome it as an ad interim remedy for a social evil that can never be effectively dealt with unless and until sufficient accommodation is built for the tenement dwellers of this city by the municipality or the State. I congratulate the Minister on Part III of the Bill, but I warn him of the dangers of Parts I and II, and trust that in his concluding observations he will be able to outline for the House his views on this general problem of rentable houses and their scarcity, and that he will express his agreement with those who have spoken from these benches on the great danger of creating a vicious circle which will ultimately mean that no houses will be built by means of private enterprise and that the problem of the provision of those houses will be relegated to the Government of the day for its solution.

Mr. O'Connor

This Bill, so far as Parts I and II are concerned, is merely by way of re-enactment of the codification of existing Acts, as done in the 1923 Act and the Emergency Powers Order. At one time I thought it would be best if all rents were fixed at whatever they had been fixed at in 1941, but I did not think it would be possible to have the two methods of control going on at the same time. The Minister, however, has succeeded, in Parts I and II of the Bill, in doing just that. He has preserved the rights of all persons whose premises were rented in 1914, and he has preserved the rights of all persons whose premises were outside the 1923 Act but inside the 1941 Act. So that there cannot be any question of fixing rents by way of cubic capacity and so on, and in that way a good deal of hardship has been avoided, and I think that so far as Parts I and II of the Bill are concerned, the Bill will be welcomed by everybody.

My friend, Deputy Costello, suggested that these provisions might act as a deterrent in the case of people building houses for the purpose of renting, and I am afraid there may be something in that, but it cannot be helped. This is an emergency measure and there is an urgent necessity that landlords should be prevented from increasing rents under circumstances where they can get a largely increased price for a house if they can get possession, and there is no alternative for the tenant. In such circumstances, it is necessary that the law should prevent the landlord from taking an exorbitant rent from the tenant on threat of eviction. That is what this Bill is doing, and it is bringing the law up to date. There is also the fact that under this Bill it is not now necessary to go back to the 1914 rent. In many cases it was found impossible to find out what the rent was in 1914. Very often, in the case of a man who was thinking of buying a house with a view to renting it, it was found impossible to find out what the 1914 rent was, because he had no means of finding that out unless he could find out who was living in the house in 1914. That difficulty has been avoided.

The other difficulty that has been cleared up is in connection with the extraordinary position that existed under the 1923 Act, in the matter of getting a tenant to declare that the rent which was paid in 1914 was the standard rent. I myself had experience where a house was rented at a rather substantial rent, and the Circuit Court decided that the standard rent was £3 10s. a year. That was followed by a tremendous claim by the tenant for overpaid rent but, fortunately, the case was disposed of without having to go through all the courts. Now, that kind of thing will not arise again if this Bill is passed.

I think that the Minister should not be too much flattered by some of the references that were made by Deputies in connection with this Bill. Everybody congratulated him, and one Deputy said that it was a magnificent piece of draftsmanship, but I am afraid there are difficulties in it, and I think that a considerable time—at least a month —between now and the Committee Stage should be allowed so as to give Deputies an opportunity of putting their heads together and considering in what way this Bill can be made most effective. I am perfectly satisfied that Deputies from all sides of this House, and particularly the lawyers, will put their heads together with a view to making this Bill satisfactory so as to avoid some of the difficulties that arose in earlier Acts.

Now, with regard to Part III of the Bill, it is mentioned in the explanatory memorandum that it is designed for the poorer classes of tenants. Deputies seem to think that it is designed for tenement dwellers, but there is nothing in the Bill to show that that is so. The Bill applies to any premises of a certain valuation. Apart from that, I think that this Bill will not have the effect the Minister desires. What the Minister is aiming at is the slum dwellers—the dwellers in what Deputy Norton referred to as rat-infested tenements.

Everybody will welcome the proposals of the Minister to provide a speedy method of having the rents fixed in such cases, and fixed at a reasonable rate, but I am afraid the method adopted in this Part of the Bill will not succeed and that the slum dwellers will not get any benefit from it. There are several reasons for that. The first is, that there must be a certain rateable valuation so that a slum dweller who wished to get the benefit of this Bill would have to have his premises separately valued. I think that would keep him out of it completely. If he went to a district justice or the District Court clerk, he would be asked, what is the valuation of the premises? If the applicant said he did not know he would be told to go and find out. Then if he told the District Court clerk that the whole house was valued at a certain figure and that he occupied only a certain part of it he would be told he must have a separate valuation fixed by the Commissioner of Valuation before the court would have jurisdiction. Even if the District Court clerk did not say that, even if he wanted to deal with the case, any original order made by a justice in a case where there was not a separate valuation would be likely to be upset on appeal to the Circuit Court.

The second objection I have to it is that I do not think the district justices will have the time to deal with it. I do not know whether the Minister, before introducing this Part of the Bill, consulted the senior district justice of Dublin about it or not. If he did not, I think he should be consulted before the Committee Stage.

There is another point which I think will also prove a difficulty and that is that the tenant has to go to court. I agree that he has to go to the District Court clerk but I do not think the difference between the District Court clerk and the district justice will mean very much to the tenants of these premises. There has been and always will be amongst decent people of this city a very deep-rooted objection to going to court for any reason whatever and I am afraid, if the Bill is passed in its present form, that objection will remain and that a great proportion of the people whom it is designed to benefit will not benefit. I consider that the Minister would be justified in appointing official surveyors to go around visiting these dwellings.

I think that was the scheme suggested by the tribunal. The Minister told us he was not in favour of it but I suggest that it might be again considered. If this Part of the Bill is to be effective, it will be necessary that men with authority should go into the homes of these people and find out all the details in regard to their tenancies, tell the tenants what can be done for them, to get their signatures straightway to whatever documents or forms require their signature, and then let the case go before the court.

Deputy Costello said that he saw no necessity whatever for a provisional order. With that I agree. He suggested it would be equally effective to have a summons issued before the district justice to determine what the rent should be. I cannot see what is to be gained by a provisional order. The case will come before the justice. We may take it as fairly definite that in any case where a substantial reduction in rent is made the landlord will appeal to the district justice within the month. The district justice will already have heard the case without the attendance of the landlord and it is rather unlikely that he will alter his decision but he may have to alter it in the light of the additional facts which the landlord can give. For instance, the landlord will be able to say whether the premises come within Section 9 or Section 14. In that case the district justice will be compelled to go back to those sections and fix the rent accordingly. If this happens, the only benefit the tenant will get from this provision is a reduction in his rent during the period between the making of the provisional order and the final hearing by the district justice. I think it would be undesirable that the rent should be reduced and then brought back to the original figure. It would be far better to have a proper investigation by the district justice in the first place. If the Minister were to adopt the suggestion to appoint official surveyors—I think he would find amongst existing higher officials of the Civil Service many volunteers to undertake the job of going around the tenement districts, getting particulars, and then going to the district justice to initiate proceedings on behalf of the tenant—it would be much more effective. Otherwise, no matter how good the intention may be, I am afraid Part III will not succeed and, if relief is to be given to the slum dwellers, that the Minister will be back within a few months looking for an amending Bill.

I again suggest to the Minister that he should allow a considerable time to elapse before taking the Committee Stage so that all these provisions may be examined, particularly Part III of the Bill.

Mr. M. O'Sullivan

The Minister when introducing his Bill expressed the hope that Deputies had read the explanatory memorandum and had found it helpful. Personally, I read it and I found it helpful although I think the memorandum should have been rather more informative and less technical. It may be all right for Deputy McGilligan, Deputy Costello and Deputy O'Connor, who have legal minds, to interpret certain phrases in the memorandum, but it is not quite so clear to the ordinary Deputy. I join with Deputy Dillon in saying that advantage might have been taken of this Bill for a greater codification of the law so far as rent restrictions are concerned. In that respect may I point to one illustration? There are terms running through this Bill—"lawful", "basic" and "reserved" in so far as rents are concerned. How could the average layman possibly understand his position in regard to the rent he should pay for a particular room or house in relation to these particular terms?

I listened very attentively to what Deputy Costello had to say and I must confess that I was a little surprised that the burden of his speech seemed to be one aspect of the housing position, namely, the question of houses to rent which, he apprehended, might be affected by the passing of this Bill. I venture to say I know something about the housing problem of this city. I want to disabuse Deputy Costello's mind straightway of the fear that the passing of this Bill would impinge upon the building industry of this city in so far as houses to let are concerned. I can disabuse his mind immediately of that idea. Any Deputy who knows anything about the housing problem in Dublin knows that for years past, even during the years of the emergency, private builders engaged in building houses for sale almost exclusively. I know of only one exception. One public company in the city has initiated and is continuing the policy of building houses to let. When Deputy Costello says there is a social background to this question, I agree with him. There is a social background that can be divided into two categories—one in so far as it relates to the black spot that it is attempted to deal with in this Bill and the other in so far as it relates to the need that exists for houses for various classes of the community in this city at the present time.

It is not my duty to defend the Minister in this respect but, in my opinion, on this occasion he has taken the right step, as Minister for Justice, to ensure that justice will be done to that section of the community who come within what I term the black spot. It would be the duty of another Minister, presumably the Minister for Local Government, to ensure that even apart from this Bill there should be a sufficiency of houses in this city and throughout the country, at rents which all sections of the community can afford to pay.

Deputy Dillon said that there were bad landlords and also bad tenants. No doubt he is quite correct in that statement. But lest his statement— and I am quite sure he would like to have qualified it—might have conveyed the idea that, for instance, in the City of Dublin the tenant he referred to who was paying 4/- a week only for a period of 40 weeks might be taken as typical of the tenants in this city, may I give him this illustration? Under the municipality here we have a tenantry of over 22,000 with an annual rental of over £500,000. Despite the hardships of the last six years, the collection from that tenantry and out of that rental has been as high as 98 per cent., notwithstanding the fact that between 10 and 15 per cent. of the tenants have been in receipt of unemployment assistance. I give you that illustration as an indication of the desire and the willingness of tenants in what might be described as the working classes in the city to pay their way. I would not like the House to feel that we had a type of tenants in the city who are merely going into rooms and chasing out of them again and depriving the landlords of what might be described as their lawful rent.

Referring again to the social question, it is true that there is a problem to be solved here, and that is the provision of a sufficiency of houses to ensure that all sections of the community will be adequately housed. No matter what Deputies may say, the inevitable trend in connection with building at present and for a number of years past has been to fall back on the municipality on the one hand, public utility societies on the other hand and, finally, on private builders to meet our social requirements.

Therefore, no matter what we may say, or what existed in the past, for the future the public will have to fall back on these three agencies to meet their requirements. That being so, the question as to how far the municipality is meeting its obligations can be debated upon another occasion, as also the question of whether we are ensuring that the utility societies and private builders are carrying out their operations as we would like, and whether the financial arrangements are of such a character as to give us the houses which are required.

Meanwhile, this House is discussing a Bill dealing very largely with the circumscribed problem to which I have referred which exists in this city, and to a lesser degree in the other boroughs, and perhaps in the larger towns as well. I am glad that the Minister has taken precautions to ensure that, should the occasion arise, the provisions of this Bill will be extended to areas outside those scheduled.

I was glad to hear Deputy O'Connor refer to one matter of detail which I had made a note of. I was rather interested, on reading the Bill, to find that the method of procedure is that the applicant will go to the District Court clerk, that the district justice will endeavour to deal with the matter out of court, and that the premises so to be dealt with shall not exceed a valuation of £10. Deputy O'Connor touched on one aspect of that. Presumably he had in mind tenement houses like those in Dominick Street, Gardiner Street and other such areas in the city where the gross valuation may run to £40 or £50, or perhaps £70 or £80. His apprehension is that the residents of these tenements are excluded from the benefits of the Bill. I suggest that they are not. I presume that the Minister will make such arrangements with the Valuation Office, through the District Court valuers, as to ensure that there will be a segregation of the valuation in such cases, so that the occupant of a two-pair back or a two-pair front, as the case may be, shall in all cases come within the terms of the Bill.

Mr. McGilligan

That is not in the Bill.

Mr. M. O'Sullivan

It is not, but I hope that that position will be made clear. There is one flaw, so far as I can see as an ordinary individual reading this Bill, which will create disappointment so far as the class of persons affected are concerned and that is in relation to Section 3, which deals with the question of furnished apartments. My reading of Section 3 is that furnished apartments, except in certain very peculiar circumstances, will be excluded from the beneficial terms of the Bill. If there is one individual more than another who should understand what furnished apartments mean to a big section of our community in this city, it is the Minister. There is a type of letting under the attractive designation of furnished apartments—these lettings are very numerous—the furnishing not infrequently consisting of a bedstead, a table, a chair and a strip of linoleum, so as to ensure to the landlord of the premises, first of all an inflated rent and, secondly, that there will be an easy means of recovering possession in certain circumstances, if the landlord so desires. Now, the section says that these particular tenants to whom I refer will be excluded from the terms of the Bill unless the dwelling, as distinct from the furniture, is reckoned by somebody equal to or greater than 75 per cent. of what is known as the reserved rent. I should like the Minister, if not on this stage, certainly, in Committee, to explain to us precisely what is involved in that particular section. Are we to have inflated valuations so far as furniture is concerned so as to exclude tenants of that kind from coming within the ambit of the Bill?

Mr. McGilligan

That is taken from the old legislation.

Mr. M. O'Sullivan

If that is so, I would earnestly appeal to the Minister, if my misgivings are well-founded in this respect, for the sake of the people concerned—and I am sure the hardships which they endure could very well be placed on a par with those of the other sections of the community which are so explicitly and clearly dealt with so far as the tenements are concerned—to remedy that flaw in the Bill. I notice also that the Minister proposes to take power to set up what he describes as District Court valuers.

Possibly we will have an opportunity later for an elaboration of that particular term. I do not know whether he has in mind the utilisation of certain firms, say, in this city or elsewhere, who may be described as valuers, and who may be brought into work of this kind. If that be so, may I express the hope that work of this kind will not be a special preserve of any set of individuals trading under that provision and that he would consider the advisability of instituting a rota? If that be his intention, so far as the District Court valuers are concerned, he should ensure fair play to the trade around as a whole. If, on the other hand, his intention is that the District Court valuers would be individuals—which would, in my mind, be preferable—then I hope he will indicate what qualifications this particular type of person should have. On the whole, in view of previous statements in connection with this Bill, I would like to say that the Minister has approached this question, particularly in relation to Part III, with courage and with an obvious desire to remedy a situation which called aloud for redress in regard to a large section of the community in this city over a very long number of years.

Mr. Coogan

Most of what I have to say on this Bill is a matter which would properly belong to the Committee Stage. Like many other Deputies who have spoken, I was surprised to hear some of the fears expressed as to the effect of this Bill. On that particular aspect of the debate, I cannot see that those fears are at all well grounded. In the first place, premises erected on or after the 8th February, 1944, are specifically excluded from the provisions of the Bill. Whilst undoubtedly there is an acute housing shortage at the moment, and an appreciation in the value of certain classes of houses, I doubt if the situation described by Deputy Costello exists at all. His argument was based on the assumption that it was possible for the average citizen to go to a bank and obtain a percentage of the price of the house he intended to buy. We all know that the average house-hunter is not in a position to pay down £500 or £1,000 for a £3,000 or £4,000 house. We all know also that no bank to-day will advance more than about two thirds of the value of the house.

If there is anything in this ramp of the sale of houses difficulty, I would seriously suggest to the Minister that the matter calls for serious investigation, and that some form of control should be introduced; and that, as has been done in England, the price of houses be controlled. There is no reason why the price of houses should not be controlled in the same way as the price of commodities is controlled. I would go further, and would suggest that no purchaser of a house which is occupied by a tenant can get possession of the house, after a specified date.

This matter was considered by a very representative committee in England quite recently, when this very problem was discussed in all its aspects. There are two solutions—price control over the sale of houses and restriction on possession to purchasers who come in after a specified date. That that is going to have a detrimental effect on future building in this country I do not believe at all. No Rent Restrictions Bill to date, to my knowledge, has interfered with the building business, either here or in Great Britain. Houses have been built despite the Rent Restrictions Acts. If there is any result to follow from the condition of things described by Deputy Costello, it is more likely to be that this particular class of house, when the owner finds the rent is controlled, will be converted into what are described as self-contained flats. In order to get his money, he will do this, particularly if the price of houses is controlled.

We all know that, in the City of Dublin at present, the description "self-contained flat" is a misnomer. It very often consists of a room or two, with the use of a common kitchen, common sanitary arrangements and common water supply. I would seriously suggest to the Minister that, when he comes to deal with this on the Committee Stage, he give serious consideration to the definition of a "separate dwelling." It should be defined as something containing separate accommodation for sleeping and living, with separate sanitary accommodation, separate cooking facilities, and a separate water supply. Quite recently, this matter came up in England before the High Court of Appeal, which decided, on a particular case brought before it, that where tenants shared a kitchen and common sanitary arrangements, they were not living in separate dwellings at all. The court left aside the question as to what they would decide if it were a mere question of using common sanitary facilities, apart from a common kitchen, but it seemed to me that they would be inclined to hold in such a case that these were not separate dwellings either.

On the Committee Stage of this Bill, serious thought will have to be given to this point, to ensure that what is described as a separate dwelling for a family will be a separate dwelling in every sense of the term. Coupled with that point, I suggest that it would be necessary here to define "improvements" and "structural alterations", so as to make it impossible for these people to pawn off as self-contained flats the shanties we have heard described here to-day.

As to the position of the statutory tenant under this Bill, I would like to say a few words now, and will have more to say on the Committee Stage. I am not at all sure that the position of a statutory tenant has been clarified, at least to the degree I would like to see it clarified. We are told that a "statutory tenancy" means "the interest of a statutory tenant in the premises in relation to which the expression is used". That does not get us very much further on the road. The tendency of all decisions, both in this country and in Great Britain, has been to regard a statutory tenant as having a mere personal right to freedom from disturbance, the right to remain in possession of his holding so long as he complies with certain conditions laid down in the Act. That is all a statutory tenant is, and great difficulty was caused up to now by reason of the fact that the statutory tenant in certain cases died intestate. I am glad to see that these words, which caused such difficulty, have been removed. However, what the "interest" is may need to be defined also.

Further down, there is the definition of a "tenant", which includes a statutory tenant, and

"...the widow of a statutory tenant who was residing with him at the time of his death, or where a statutory tenant leaves no widow or is a woman, such member of the family of the statutory tenant so residing as may be decided by the court in default of agreement".

You may get this position—that a woman may have been the statutory tenant and the husband may, in the event of her death, find himself in the position that he may be treated on equal terms with his children and have no greater right to succession than the individual members of his family. I think that a widower ought to be provided for, in addition to a widow. Something should be put into that section to say that, notwithstanding any testamentary disposition of his interest in the premises, the tenancy will pass on.

There is another difficulty which has cropped up here in our courts and also in Great Britain, as to whether the right of the statutory tenant is exhausted by one succession or whether a succession may move on indefinitely to tenant after tenant who happens to come into possession. These are matters we should face up to now, in view of the great difficulty experienced in the interpretation of these rights by our courts.

As to the drafting of the Bill, Deputy Dillon mentioned some difficulty he had in following the definitions of "controlled (1923 Act) premises" and "controlled (non-1923 Act) premises". I am inclined to sympathise with him, as I myself, on reading the Bill first, found difficulty in following it. It would be better to put in something like "old controlled premises" for the pre-1923 and 1923 premises and "newly controlled" for the post-1923 cases, and to define them in the definitions section of the Bill.

There has been a great deal of apprehension expressed here at the limits in this Bill being so high. The limits in London are £100, in Scotland £90, and in the rest of Great Britain, £75. I cannot follow the reasoning whereby we stop at all at a particular maximum. I cannot see why we should discriminate between a £60, a £65 and a £70 house. If you are going to control, you might as well control the whole lot. I would venture to suggest that more than 90 per cent. of all houses will be covered by the present limit of £60. We have no figures or statistics, no survey having been made by the Department of Justice, from which we could draw any conclusions. However, the committee which went into this matter in England definitely stated that the limits I have suggested represent the vast majority of the houses in Britain. If that is so, then the limits here represent the vast majority of the houses in Ireland, and, for the sake of the few above the limit, my first reaction would be to let them all in.

This question of control has been perturbing some Deputies. So long as there is a shortage of houses you must have control of some kind. The reason we have control is because the State takes the view that a shortage of houses, on the one side, and an excessive demand for houses, on the other side, lead to the position that the landlord and tenant are not contracting on equal terms. The State steps in then to adjust the position as between the landlord and the tenant. Why that should not apply all round in times of acute shortage of houses, I find it hard to follow. If the principle is right at all that the State should interfere, then it should interfere in other cases where the landlord and tenant are not contracting on equal terms. I may be told I am interfering with the free market of houses. Here we are interfering with every class of house up to £60 valuation and I cannot see that we are likely to prevent the building trade from embarking on further schemes by reason of that fact.

We have had evidence from a former Lord Mayor of Dublin that the vast majority of houses have been built by the corporation, by utility societies and artisans' dwelling companies, and all these houses are built for letting; only a small percentage of the better class houses are built for sale. I should like to know what remedy there is if you do not control houses. What chance has a young married couple to-day of getting a house if there is not some degree of control? Very few married couples of the middle class or working class type can afford to go to a bank for a loan in order to acquire a house, particularly at the fabulous prices we have heard mentioned. The remedy seems to be control, so that these people will have some chance of getting a habitation at a reasonable rent.

I would be prepared to go further in the direction of control than merely controlling dwelling-houses and unfurnished flats. I suggest we should control the furnished flat. My opinion is that, after this Bill is enacted, if we do not control the furnished flat, you will have this abuse arising, that landlords, in order to evade their liabilities and to evade the incidence of this legislation, will proceed to furnish flats and will refuse to let flats unfurnished and tenants will be compelled to take their flats as furnished flats.

If that situation arises, and I have an idea it will—actually, it has arisen elsewhere—then it will be for the Minister to decide what policy he will pursue in relation to that type of letting; it will be for him to decide what type of control he will exercise. In England and Scotland, during the war, they had this type of development and they have controlled the furnished flat on the basis of the rateable valuation of the separate apartments. I cannot see any difficulty in following the same procedure here. I do not know so well what is happening in Dublin—there are Dublin Deputies here who are more informed in that respect—but I believe that that tendency has manifested itself in certain parts of the city already and it is likely to develop more acutely after this legislation is passed. Failing control of furnished flats in the way I have mentioned, I suggest that, in the case of flats let with furniture or with board and attendance, a reserve rent should be fixed on the basis of an unfurnished flat, in the first instance, and then the appropriate charge should be added for the use of furniture or the cost of board and attendance. I think that would be a better system than the system of apportionment which is envisaged in this Bill.

There are certain other matters which I would like to raise, but they are really more appropriate to the Committee Stage and I do not wish to delay the House with too much detail on these points. I would, however, like to draw attention to Section 8 (1), where it says:—

"This section applies to controlled (1923 Act). premises in respect of which evidence is forthcoming of both the following facts:—

(a) that the standard rent of the premises was determined by the court before the operative date, and

(b) the amount of the standard rent."

To my mind that should read: "either (a) or (b)". Why should you have to give both? The Minister may have an explanation for that. If the standard rent has been fixed by the court it is, of course, known and it should not be necessary to give data for both.

Section 9 (3) (b) likewise requires some elucidation. Paragraph (b) says:—

"for the purpose of the determination the tenant shall be deemed to be responsible for the rates and for all repairs."

Compare that with Section 16 (3) (a) and (b):—

"(a) the tenant shall be deemed to be responsible for the rates, and

(b) the landlord shall be deemed to be responsible for all repairs."

Why the distinction? These are matters which will have to be cleared up later. As I have said with regard to Section 11 (2) (b), some effort will have to be made to define what is an improvement and what is a structural alteration of premises. Cases have been decided where, for example, an earth closet was replaced by a water closet by direction of the local authority and this was held to be, not an improvement, but a replacement. Again, cases have been decided in the courts in which the same thing was done but not by direction of the local authority, and these have been held to be improvements. These are matters of detail which will want elucidation later.

Under Section 22, the tenant or the sanitary authority may at any time apply to the court for an order reducing the rent. Apparently that is an ex parte application on the part of the tenant without notice to the landlord, and I think in a matter of that kind, particularly where it is an application to reduce the rent, the landlord should have some notice of the intended application so that he will have an opportunity of being heard. Otherwise there may be endless proceedings if the matter is decided behind his back.

There is one point which struck me with regard to Section 28 which defines the procedure for obtaining a provisional order. The landlord may very often be a poor person. I have had cases of widows in very straitened circumstances who were landlords, and it might be as equitable to give such a person the right to apply for a provisional order as to give it to the poor tenant. What I am more concerned with in relation to this section, however, is that the application may be made in person by the tenant or his agent. I have a suspicion that that will open the door to a lot of shysters who can trade on the grievances and disabilities of tenants, that you will get mischievous individuals out on the make who will organise tenant associations street by street and organise applications, always for a consideration. These will not be trained lawyers but merely agents.

I know of the existence of these people in the City of Dublin at the moment. They are not interested in the tenants but in what they can screw out of their pockets. These gentlemen will come along again now that they have this power to trade on tenant grievances, and organise applications to the court. I suggest that some steps should be taken in the Bill to prevent that type of individual operating on the tenant. The only suggestion that I can make at the moment is that the acceptance or offer of remuneration or fee to an agent of that kind should be prohibited. Such an agent may be a mischievous individual who will not be a lawyer. He will be some fellow calling himself the Drumcondra Town Tenants' Association or something like that who sees a chance of making money. He will organise the tenants and say to them: "I will get your applications through but it will cost you so much per head. Make up the money and you will get your rights." I should like to see some effort made in the Bill to stop that type of operation.

In addition I think that the particulars to be furnished by an applicant should be specified, and not only that but it is questionable if the applicant should not be made to verify on oath what is set out in those particulars. Otherwise you will have all types of cranks and crazy people putting up extraordinary stories and the court clerk inundated with a lot of rubbish. As to the system by which the court clerk and the district justice will operate, all I can say is that it is the first evidence of the encroachment of bureaucracy on this matter of the relationship between landlord and tenant. It is the first step in the direction of cutting out the courts and it is not a development I welcome at all.

I think that the qualifications and experience of the court valuers to be appointed by the Minister should be set out in some detail in the Bill, or, if qualifications or experience are not considered essential, at least that the court valuers, whether the District Court valuer or the special valuer, should be a member of some recognised, and, if necessary, State-recognised, valuers' or auctioneers' association. So far as I can see, this system is a compromise between the recommendations of Mr. Justice Black's tribunal and those recently put forward by the English tribunal.

I would have preferred to see some system of registration introduced. While undoubtedly the courts in time will have registers which can be referred to for evidence of rents, they nevertheless will have only a very limited number of these cases registered, and it would have been better if the Minister had gone the whole hog and had imposed on the local authorities the duty of collecting the necessary information as to the rents of houses under their jurisdiction and to register them in their registers. That could easily be done. The rate collectors and rent collectors of the local authorities could very easily supply that information, and there would then be available an authentic system of registration which could be referred to at any time. That would have been better than this system of attempting to build up, through the applications coming to the district justice, a system of rent registers as contemplated in the Bill.

Section 28 specifies that any person who, in support of an application under the section, furnishes or causes to be furnished to the District Court clerk particulars which are false or misleading in any material respect shall, unless he proves he acted innocently and without intending to deceive, be guilty of an offence and shall be liable, on summary conviction thereof, to a fine not exceeding £10. There you have a violation of an old legal principle. He is presumed guilty until he proves his innocence. We have had this principle introduced into other Bills and I, as a lawyer, resent the introduction of that vicious principle. He is deemed guilty of an offence unless he can prove that he acted innocently, but the tenant may be some ignorant, infirm old man or woman who is very vague about the particulars which must be furnished to the District Court clerk. In addition, there is no provision as to who is to prosecute. Who prosecutes in the event of his committing an offence? Is it the police, the court clerk, or some official of the Department of Justice? I think that should be clarified.

There is another provision in the Bill that may cause some trouble in actual practice. Under Section 36 the valuer is given the right of entry into a house. It will be an offence to resist his entry. I can visualise a case where you have one or two flats in a house. The flat the valuer wants to visit may be on the top floor of the house. When the valuer appears the man on the ground floor may say "You will not come in here; you have no right to come in here; you can go in through the window or climb a ladder, but you are not going in through my hall-door." I admit that may be an extreme case, but something of that kind may occur, particularly in urban areas.

There is another point as regards the valuers. I think that where a valuer is deputed either by the Minister or the district justice to make an investigation and report he should not be a competent witness in any subsequent proceedings that may arise out of that case. I think it would be improper if he were to give evidence on either side in subsequent proceedings. Deputy O'Connor mentioned, I think, a pertinent point as regards small premises— that is to say, that the tenant must show that the premises are rated at £10 or less. I think the provision should be made in Section 50, where it is necessary to have an apportionment of the valuation of a house that is let in separate flats, that no fee should be charged to the tenants of these small premises. If that were done it might get over the difficulty mentioned by Deputy O'Connor.

I would suggest that if the condition of things described by Deputy Costello exists in the City of Dublin, provision might be included in Section 37 to prevent a landlord getting possession of premises after a specified date, that is where he has acquired the ownership of premises by purchase or lease. I am not quite clear as regards Section 51. I would like to know from the Minister whether it is intended to prevent a tenant of a house assigning his interest in it for a valuable consideration. Is that to be the policy, and has that been definitely decided? If that is not the policy, then I think Section 51 certainly prevents a tenant doing that. Therefore, I think the section would need to be re-worded, and that instead of the word "person" there should be inserted the word "landlord". On this matter of premiums and the acceptance of the payment of premiums and, generally speaking, restrictions, it has been decided in the English courts that the restrictions in this matter apply only to the landlord or the sub-lessor. Whether that will apply here or not I cannot say. It does seem to me that that position will need to be clarified later on, so as to make it clear if it is the decided policy to prevent a tenant in any circumstances from assigning for a valuable consideration.

So much for what is in the Bill. I would like to say a word now as to what is not in it. I think it is a matter for serious consideration that furnished dwellings, or parts of dwellings, should be included within the provisions of the Bill. I also think it is a matter for consideration as to whether we should not now attempt to have a proper register of rents established throughout the country. I also think that the provision whereby this Act is not to apply to tenancies for a term of 14 years or upwards should go, because if any clever landlord wishes to defeat the letter and the spirit of the Act, all he need do is to insist on a tenant accepting a 15 years' tenancy. Then it will be outside the Act. That is a matter that, I think, has been considered in England, and the recommendation has been that that provision should go.

It would have helped considerably, in approaching this problem, if some survey had been made beforehand by the Minister's Department as to the housing position through the country, and as to the different categories of houses which will be affected by this Bill. In the absence of that information, it is difficult to form an accurate opinion as to what is the exact problem we have to face. In conclusion, I congratulate the Minister and the officials of his Department on having put before the House, within reasonable compass, the existing law on rent restriction.

Mr. McGilligan

I would like to say a few words about this much debated Part III of the Bill. Deputy Dillon congratulated the Minister on his courage in introducing it, but everybody else told him it was going to fail. I cannot understand why it was introduced. I can see behind it the impact of two motives, the first being to save the occupants of small dwellings costs —that can be done in any case—and the second, apparently, was an attempt to save time. That particular aim can only be achieved if it is true that the district justices are not fully employed, and that the District Court clerks are not fully employed. I do not think that either of these things is a fact. I think we see reflected here the official view in connection with rumours that have been prevalent for some time of trouble between the Department and the courts, particularly the District Courts—the attempt to get the hours at which the District Courts sit prolonged.

This is a subterfuge. The district justice is not asked to sit for any longer period, but he is asked to do something outside the court. It is the same thing under a new name. The Minister will find that he will not succeed in getting this work done, for the simple reason that, apart altogether from the district justice, the District Court clerk has as much to do as any man can reasonably be expected to do in the time for which he is being paid.

I think the criticism of this part of the measure which we have heard from people like Deputy O'Connor and Deputy Costello, who have definite experience of procedure in these matters, who know the court system very well, and who, being active practitioners there, have a better knowledge of it than the Minister's civil servants ever had, should lead the Minister to a reconsideration of this matter, and to the acceptance of what Deputy Costello has proposed. The occupant of the small dwelling—the "small premises" as it is called here—can be protected against costs by preserving, in the main, the matters that are set out in Section 31. The section would have to be revised in order to have it a complete application to the Circuit Court, or possibly the District Court in the first instance. There is no reason at all to believe that, by getting some poor person, the occupant of a small premises, to wander into the District Court clerk and give him such particulars as the District Court clerk by a series of questions is able to get out of him, you are going to aid in the development of the required particulars, rather than by getting that person, with the knowledge that he is not going to be mulcted in costs, to go to a solicitor, and getting from him with whatever documentary evidence he has the particulars that would be required eventually to enable a court to make up its mind upon what is the proper rent to be applied to the premises.

I take it that the flaw which has been pointed out by most people who have spoken here in connection with this will be rectified, and I assume it was intended that that should be the method whereby the slum dweller would get to the courts. What has been pointed out in regard to the necessity for a separate valuation will, if the Bill remains in its present form, prevent that having full effect, and I am assuming that some arrangement will be arrived at whereby those apportionments will be made, so that a person will not be faced with some amazing difficulties, amongst other things that he has a valuation under a particular amount.

I suggest to the Minister that he should take the advice of this House and keep the dweller in those small premises preserved against the impact of costs which will keep him out of court, but let the thing be a direct court application made on information supplied by the applicant through a solicitor acting in the ordinary way. The Minister may decide that this is a matter which will come before the court at regular periods; that there will be, say, two periods in each of the terms during which those applications would take pride of place so that they would be cleared out of the way in a short space of time.

I find myself intrigued by the recurrence here of certain matters that were in the old legislation. I find occurring here again this old business of the statutory tenant, and whether he has or has not the right to assign his interests. As far as I understand the principle of the Rent Act, the person who is protected by the Rent Act is protected against ejectment, say, for arrears of rent. I am speaking generally. He has been given permanent protection during his period of life. That is extended to his widow, if he is a married man, or in other cases to certain other members of the family. There is a provision here that the tenant will not assign the premises or any part thereof without the consent in writing of the landlord. What can he assign? What has he to assign? What is the interest that is assignable? Is X, who is protected under the Rent Acts, going to be allowed with the landlord's permission to assign to Y the right that Y will live in the house while X is alive, or is it that X will assign to Y the right to live in the house while Y is alive? What is the right that is protected? That is one of the puzzles which have been occurring for years, and I see here that it is simply repeated.

Outside of that, there is the big general problem. Everybody has said that this Bill is aimed to meet this problem. Everybody has said that the problem is that there are too few houses for the number of people who require them. The Minister has been blessed for having brought in emergency legislation. But it is nonsense to call it emergency legislation. This Act is to continue until 1950. If it is not continued after 1950, not merely does this Act go, but all the others go too. This is a situation which is not going to have arrived by the year 1950. Nobody can conceive that there can be any pretence whatever that it is coming in 1950 or even in 1960. What is the problem? Too few houses. Nearly everybody who has spoken has put the question: Will this legislation help or retard building? I do not think there is anybody in the House, with the exception of Deputy Coogan, who has not had the same answer for that. It will tend to retard building.

Deputy Martin O'Sullivan says there has not been very much building done in recent years except by the municipality here and by public utility societies. The private builder has been driven out of this particular type of speculation because of the impact of earlier Rent Acts. I am sure the Minister has statistics, and he should provide them for the House. I think it will be found that prior to 1914 there was no such thing as rent control. Prior to 1919, with the exception of certain unsavoury places— and Dublin was one of the most unsavoury—there was no great problem with regard to an acute shortage of housing. The last war diverted people from house building. People had to put their efforts into certain other activities, and the replacement of houses as they went out of commission failed. Then, when the last war was over, it was found that this shortage had appeared for the first time. Then rent control started, and since that private builders have been driven more and more into the building of picture houses, luxury hotels, and superior types of dwellings. Are we to try to induce those men back, or are we to treat housing in the same way as we to treat education, as something given to the people whether they can pay or not? If the Minister had made up his mind on that particular social problem, he should make this Bill the occasion for telling us what the policy is, and how far this Bill will go to meet one little fraction of that social problem.

The problem, of course, is an enormous one. Deputy Costello said we should induce the private builder back into building. That would help in part, but one of the biggest difficulties is that, no matter what the private builder will do, the income basis of a great part of this community is such that out of that income they cannot make any approach to the economic rent of even the most cheaply built house under present conditions. Therefore, we are faced in any event with this, that for a low level of society in this country—and the number of people on that level is increasing—housing has to be provided for them in part. They cannot meet the cost out of their own incomes. People who have been dealing with those cases in court know that very often judges of the most humane type are faced with very serious problems. They are asked to evict people who have not been able to pay rent. Those people come there with promises to pay, giving all indications of a peculiarly hard period in their lives, during which perhaps illness has eaten up their resources. They come along with amazing arrears, and they are given time to pay them off, but they come up again and again and eventually they are put out. Again and again, the judge has had to remark: "The difficulty you are in is that you are paying for housing accommodation far more than your position in life entitles people to ask from you."

I do not think the private builder will catch up on that particular part of the problem. The only solution is to try to raise the income level of the people in this country, and that, of course, the Minister is not attempting to do. He has at least collective responsibility with his colleagues for the standstill Order. It is impossible to ask people who are being paid on a currency which is now worth just half what it was worth in 1939 to continue to pay anything in the nature of a real rent, an economic rent, for any sort of house, even one erected pre-war. How then, on a pre-war wage reduced in purchasing power by half, the Minister expects people to be able to meet the rent of a post-war built house, I cannot understand. I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.