Deputy Crotty and Deputy Lehane made the point that if this Bill goes through it will have the effect of reducing unemployment in the building industry and that it will put into remunerative employment certain of our skilled workers and labourers who are idle at the moment. On the other hand, if this Bill is put into operation and the business community outlined in the Bill is saved and exempted from any further increases in valuations because of extensions or improvements to their premises, surely it is clear to everybody that it is the builders' labourers and building operatives who will have to carry the additional burden of rates on their own houses to pay for the people who, we are now told, will make work for them. This question of valuation is not new. It is because it is so old that it causes so much trouble. Our valuation system is based on an Act brought into operation over 100 years ago. The greatest cause of grievance to-day is not the revaluing of new premises or of premises which have been improved or extended but the fact that a number of valuations are out of date and premises are not bearing the rates that they should carry.
Take, for instance, the case of a business premises to which some small addition was made which resulted in the valuation of, say, £50 being increased to £100. In my opinion the owner of the premises has no cause for complaint. If he maintains that the addition to his premises warrants only a 25 per cent. increase in valuation, which would bring his valuation to £62 10s., I maintain that the person was for many years getting away with a lower valuation than his premises should carry. When he carries out some alteration and the premises are revalued, he has no grouse because he has been getting away with less than his true valuation for 10 to 20 years.
Take the case of a private house in aterrace of houses in which the owner started a little shop for the sale of tobacco, confectionery or minerals. No notice may have been taken of that business venture at the start. Perhaps due to the owner's initiative or to increased prosperity in the area the business became really lucrative. The grouse is not with the shopkeeper in that dwelling-house if he finds his valuation increased, but with his nextdoor neighbour who is paying rates on the same valuation.
This Bill, if passed, would perpetuate that type of grievance. We can only get rid of the grievances that arise as a result of our valuation code by a complete revaluation of the whole country. It is true that a Minister of this House was about to bring in such a Bill for revaluation. I was not a member of the House at that time but from what I have heard I consider that the Minister was lucky in not being run out of the country for proposing such a terrible thing. Yet we all know that the only hope is in complete revaluation. The damage is not being done by the present valuation code but by the manner in which it is administered.
In the absence of any better system, the system of valuing premises and property on letting value is as fair as possible. Many of the grievances in connection with the code have been created by the fact that individual persons were reported by, possibly, the rate collector who was instructed by the local authority to report cases of improvements being carried out. In many cases that has resulted in increased valuations. The grievance is not so much that the valuation has been increased in that case but that the valuation of the premises next door has not been increased. If the valuation of all premises were brought up to date the result would be a lower rate per £ in every county and everybody would be on an equal footing.
There may be other solutions—they have not been suggested in this House —but in my opinion the only solution is to retain the present system of valuing property according to the letting value, relating it to the locality and the district. If that were done and thewhole country were revalued according to present-day values we would have a fairly satisfactory system. To say that this Bill should be welcomed because it will relieve a certain group of the disabilities inherent in the present system is a very wrong approach to this question. Unless it is done for some ulterior motive, I cannot see why anybody should try to press such a Bill through the House.
It has been said that the Bill has had the effect of getting all Parties talking on the subject. If the Bill was introduced for that purpose, it was not a bad idea. If they are genuinely behind this measure I certainly would have no time for it and could not possibly see it do any of the things that are claimed for it by its sponsors. Instead, for instance, of improving the situation generally, would not this matter of relieving certain business premises of any increase in valuation due to improvements or extensions have the effect of further increasing the disparities that already exist as between one premises and another? If a house or a building is being used for a business and that business is improving and increasing, surely no matter what business it is that house as a result of this increased business is a better letting proposition to-day than it was last year, and if there is an increase in valuation because of that, I think it is quite a fair way to do the matter, but our whole problem is that all those places are not being done and kept up to date. If we can by any further legislation in the near future bring about some measure that will see to it that the country as a whole is revalued from the North to the South and from the East to the West and that none of the new valuations so struck will be put into operation until the last is finished—in other words, if they start this month in County Dublin and they do not finish in Donegal or Kerry until this time two years—then I would say that the various valuations should be suspended until such time as the last tenement or property should have got its new valuation, and then all should go on together.
One way at the moment that is open to anybody under the present code of valuation, or to any county, to bring about revision or revaluation of its county is that by the request of the local authority duly furnished to the Valuation Commissioners here in Dublin a valuation revision, if you like, but really in effect a revaluation of that county or rating authority, can be carried out. So far as I understand, there is in operation, or at least a precedent for, such a measure to go through this House so as to relieve those who are revalued within the county of certain property taxes and income-tax legislation. I understand that something of this nature occurred in Waterford some years ago and, to my mind, it could be applied possibly with good effect to all the other counties as they saw fit to apply for revision or revaluation. To say this and to make that claim and that statement in a local authority is rather dangerous for anybody in public life, because of the fact that so much confusion can be created in the minds of ratepayers and so much misrepresentation can be made out of such a statement. But if we look at it with reason and without trying to confuse we will see that without really putting any new valuation code through this House in any way any local authorities in the counties throughout the Twenty-Six Counties can, in effect, bring about that revision and that revaluation on the entire country without having to have new legislation at all. I think myself, and I have said it in my own county council some time ago, that it would be a good thing, and a most disirable thing. When I come to mention my own county council, I think that it would not only be a good thing and a most desirable thing that in my own county particularly such a revaluation should be requested because, as this House knows and people throughout the country know, we have a valution crisis, if you like to call it that, existing at the moment in a town in our county, and that is, Buncrana. Buncrana revaluation was brought about by the self-same means as I have now suggested all county councils may use, when the local urban council byvote of such council asked for a revaluation.
In asking for that revaluation they apparently only saw the good side of asking. They only saw that dwelling-houses which had grown into shops over the years were only paying the old dwelling-house valuation like their next door neighbours who were still living in them as dwelling-houses. They saw things like this, and that what were originally dwelling-houses had enhanced so much in value due to business carried on in them without any structural alteration. When they saw these things in Buncrana, which has flourished and prospered very well under recent law, the disparity in the actual valuations and the old valuations of different premises, although the buildings were originally the same, and in actual structural effect are still the same, was very noticeable. They put this through their local urban council with a view to remedying that situation of where a person was living in a house valued 20 years ago as a dwelling-house at £7 or £10, and another had meantime started up and succeeded very well in running a shop in the house next door. They thought it was time those people next door should carry a fair share of valuation on premises used as business premises, although built as dwelling-houses. Therefore, they asked for and they got very promptly a revaluation of the town. But, as I say, in asking for that apparently they only saw the good side of this manner of equating the different valuations in this town. They did not realise one very fundamental thing, and that was that Buncrana, although a local authority exists there and controls the destinies of that town, is at the same time only part of a rating unit; and, instead of only having to strike a rate to carry the costs of their own town which would work out all right no matter whether it was under the old valuation or the new, where they have been really badly hit is that they must pay the county rate as well as the town. In the town their valuations have been increased by almost 50 per cent. Outside, in the areas of the rating unit in the county, the valuations have notbeen so increased, and the result is that, the rest of the county being a much greater part of the rating unit than Buncrana, an amount has been demanded on that town on a new increased valuation which is in a much greater proportion to what they should be paying all the way through.
They did not apparently see that sang when they were putting this through, and although they saw it very quickly afterwards, and made all efforts to try and stop this being put into effect, it was of no avail, because once the Commissioners of Valuation get hold of a request issued in proper order by a local authority that request must and will be carried through by them, and that new valuation will be struck and enforced irrespective of what other actions that local authority may afterwards decide to take or why they acted.
As I say, in each county or in any county it is now a desirable thing to ask for a revaluation of the entire rating unit. I think that is a good thing in any county, but at the moment it is not only a good thing in our county for the town of Buncrana but it is very essential for that town that some such effort should be made by our local authority for a kick-off in Donegal, so as to relieve Buncrana of an unjust and undue load which they are now carrying because of the revaluation asked for by their own urban council under the misapprehension that it could only bring about good.
Under sub-section (2) of Section 3 of this Bill it is suggested that "Where an increase in the valuation of the tenement including such building is made on an application for the revision of such valuation by reason solely of such enlargement or improvement, such increase shall not have effect until the expiration of a period of seven years from the date of such increase." I cannot see why that particular case should be made for the business community. It is fairly true to say that if a businessman is improving his premises, if he adds to the size of his premises, if he improves their structural layout, it is fairly certain that he is a successful businessman,and if he is a successful businessman he must also be a sensible one, so I take it then that if he adds to his premises in that way and expends money on it he is doing it from a purely business point of view, from a point of view of commercial gain. Surely if he can see that by extending his premises and improving them he could make more money and make a greater success of his business, the rest of the ratepayers in the rating unit or in the county should not allow him to go on for seven years without having any return from him by way of rates on that improved and increased business house, because during those same seven years, I take it, he will be reaping the rewards of his efforts. He will be reaping the benefit of the gain which he hoped to get as a result of his improved business house.
As I have already said, a businessman is a sensible man as, otherwise, he would not be long in business. If he decided to add to his house he is quite sure, before doing so, that it will add to his profits. That being so, surely the community in his particular county can expect part of that profit which is taken from the people as a whole in the same county and surely part of that profit should not be grudged to the community in general in the way of rates when the valuation is increased. I can see no reason for making an exception in this particular case. Neither can I see any particular reason why any part of this Bill should go through, because I can only see its effects in one way. If the effects of this Bill are to make more obvious the disparities that already exist and to increase the grievances and grouses that we all know of throughout the country at the moment due to the inequitable system of valuation—if the Bill can only add to all that, and I can see it achieving nothing else—then no good case can be made for it and we should, with all haste, turn it down and, if possible, bring in some measure in the future which will cater not merely for a particular section of the community but which will try to remedy the grievances which are in existence in all sections at the moment.
