The position in regard to time is that there are 50 minutes left. The Minister has spoken for five minutes, and the Deputy replying has 15 minutes.
Private Members' Business. - Purchase of Ground Rents—Motion (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:
"That, in the opinion of Dáil Éireann, the Government should without delay introduce proposals for legislation to enable owners of dwelling-houses and business premises in cities, towns and villages to purchase, on equitable terms, the ground rents to which such houses and premises are at present subject."—(Deputy Larkin.)
I had been saying that when the Deputies who were so favourably disposed towards adoption of the 1946 motion found themselves in office in 1948, they were either not in earnest in 1946 or, when they saw the difficulties and complexities to which Deputy O'Malley referred, they decided that action on the lines of the motion was not possible. That belief was justified by the answer which the then Minister for Justice, Deputy Mac Eoin, gave to a Labour Deputy, Deputy James Tully, who asked him in 1950 whether it was the Government's intention "to introduce proposals for legislation in the near future with a view to giving leaseholders the opportunity of buying out their ground rents at reasonable terms, such as ten to fifteen years' purchase". The Minister for Justice said: "The answer is in the negative." That was an uncompromising "no" on the part of the Minister. I have to presume that after a period of two years in office, they had ample time to have examined the position as they found it, and they took the same action as successive Governments had taken over all the years.
I presume that the reason why no action to give effect to the motion was taken was because of the difficulties and complexities to which Deputy O'Malley referred in the course of his speech. Someone may ask: "What are these difficulties and complexities?" The answer is that they are numerous—too numerous to start mentioning in detail. The most difficult, I would say, would be that of endeavouring to compensate the many interests that are often involved between the head lessor and the occupying leaseholder. Most Deputies interested in this subject know that there can be a number of these intermediate interests. There is the freeholder himself in the first instance, and there may be a developer, who perhaps takes a lease from the freeholder. Then there is the builder and then the tenant. All of these interests will have a claim and they will all, naturally, be looking for their share of the compensation.
In addition, there would be the cost of legal proceedings. There would be the searches, the assessments of the purchase value of the ground rents, complicated conveyances and so on. In addition, it would necessitate the setting up of administrative machinery of a most specialised kind to deal with such applications as might be made.
In the course of the 1946 debate on this question, Deputy J.S. O'Connor, a practising solicitor in this city, a man who had specialised in that particular branch of the law, made what I deem now to be one of the most realistic speeches on the 1946 motion. He said in the course of that speech, just as Deputy O'Malley said last Wednesday, that he was in full sympathy with the motion but that he could not see how effect could be given to it as suggested by the various speakers who participated in that debate. During his speech which, as I say, was a reasoned speech and one which expressed sympathy with the object of the motion, he said:
We have no idea of the total amount of rent involved. We have no idea of the financial assistance which would be needed from the State and we have no idea of the size and cost of the Department that would be needed to carry out a proposal of this kind. It seems to me that for that administrative side alone we would need a Department as large as the Land Commission and the Board of Works put together. I do not want to frighten anybody by suggesting that we could possibly have another Land Commission but I do not know how the proposal would be carried out otherwise, without a Department to work on the same lines as the Land Commission, and I cannot form any idea whatever of the cost of the administration of that Department.
Deputy Morrissey, another man experienced in this subject, intervened to say: "Or how long it would take." Deputy Morrissey was a Minister at a later stage. He at least realised as well as Deputy O'Connor the problems involved.
Deputy Ryan, in the course of his speech, said that if we abolish future ground rents land owners will not get the £150 to £200 extra they now get by selling the freehold. I think he is over-optimistic in making that statement because land is scarce and good building land is scarcer still. To get a site, house-hunters must pay the market price and when there is competition for a good site the price will naturally be as high as the highest bidder is prepared to pay. I am pretty certain that no one will suggest that the price of land should be controlled.
The 1931 Act gave leaseholders, for the first time, a statutory right to have a lease renewed. Moreover it prescribed the terms which were to be included in the renewal lease in default of agreement. It guaranteed a new lease for a term of at least 99 years and, in the important matter of rent, it provided that the ground landlord could not charge more than one-quarter of the letting value. It is no exaggeration to say that all the major anomalies and abuses which were characteristic of the leasehold system were swept away by the 1931 Act. It was not until 1954 that leaseholders in Britain were given rights of renewal and the terms of renewal are not as favourable as those that are enjoyed in this country despite the statement that Deputy T.F. O'Higgins made here the other evening when he said that ground rents could be purchased in Britain. They cannot be purchased in Britain any more than they can be purchased here. That can only be done by voluntary agreement between the owner of the ground rent and the tenant. That operates in Great Britain and the same position operates here. If two people agree to do business with each other there should be no difficulty whatever in reaching agreement and having a contract entered into. In the Six Counties, the leaseholders are still in the position of having no rights whatever when their leases expire. We have advanced a considerable distance in this part of the country.
The three major recommendations in the Conroy Commission Report were all designed to improve the position of leaseholders and were given effect to in the Landlord and Tenant (Reversionary Leases) Act, 1958—that is the Act I referred to in the course of my opening remarks last Wednesday. Firstly, the right to obtain a renewal lease on favourable terms prescribed by the 1931 Act was extended to certain leaseholders who, for technical reasons, had been excluded from the scope of that Act. Secondly, compensation was provided for any leaseholder who was refused a reversionary lease. Thirdly, the maximum rent which a ground landlord might charge under a renewal lease was reduced from one-quarter of the letting value to one-sixth. That was another valuable advance.
The 1958 Act could be described as an all-Party Act because it arose from the consideration which the previous Government gave to this question and I must presume that that was as far as they were prepared to advance at that time. The Bill was introduced and given a second reading but it lapsed because of the dissolution of the Dáil. That was the measure which I had the privilege of introducing and which is now known as the Landlord and Tenant (Reversionary Leases) Act, 1958. We can all take some credit for that Act.
The first requirement which any compulsory purchase scheme must satisfy is that it should be on the basis of paying the full market price to the landlord for his interest and any scheme providing for the payment of anything less than that would contain an element of confiscation, would be unjust, and would be of very doubtful constitutional validity. Many leaseholders, as we all know, are people of moderate means whose houses are generally already mortgaged. They would not be able to provide the purchase money either from their own resources or by borrowing. I think it would not be too much to say that most leaseholders are in that position. As for the remainder, it seems to me it would be difficult to persuade the majority of them to spend from their own resources, or to borrow, the purchase money of a ground rent in preference to alternative methods of investing or spending particularly when it is more than doubtful that their purchase of the rent would make any difference to the selling price of the house should a sale become necessary.
Some time ago I met a friend that I knew in the old days who was something of a fanatic in regard to ground rents. I knew that he was always nagging the ground landlord to give him the right to purchase. He eventually secured that right and made the purchase. He had a family of two girls and one boy and his intention was to purchase the freehold so that in due course he could pass the house on to his son. When I met him a short time ago I asked him how he had fared in this respect. He seemed to be a disappointed man, whose dreams had not been realised.
The two girls had married in due course. They naturally wanted modern houses which they got eventually. When the son got married he, too, was not satisfied with this older type of house, a fine house in the Rathgar area with three storeys and a basement, and got a modern house also. The house is now left on the man's hands and he told me: "In due course, it will be sold and I am certain I will not get a penny more even though I have the freehold of it." In other words, the fact that it is freehold will not be taken into consideration when a sale is being made. That is another aspect of this discussion.
Apart from the considerations which have been discussed, there are also several serious disadvantages connected with any scheme of compulsory purchase. A major difficulty arises in connection with the restrictive covenants contained in ground leases with the object of maintaining the amenities of the estate or neighbourhood. It would be unjust to his neighbours if a leaseholder could free himself from these covenants by acquiring the freehold and then proceed to carry on a trade or business which might seriously depreciate the amenities and the value of property in the vicinity.
That has actually happened and most Deputies have had the experience of somebody turning a residential house into a shop and starting some type of business which was most objectionable to the people of the neighbourhood, such as a cheap café with one of these juke boxes blaring away into the small hours of the morning or, as in another case, somebody opening a chip potato shop with its objectionable fumes. I appreciate these covenants are irksome to individual tenants. However, we must grant that they are freely entered into between the tenants and the ground landlord for the benefit of the neighbourhood as a whole.
There is little doubt that the introduction of a compulsory purchase scheme would result in the abolition of the building lease system which, whatever its defects, has in the past facilitated the provision of houses at a lower capital outlay to the purchaser. I believe that without the leasehold system the cost of the postwar building drive and the enormous drain it imposed on State capital funds would have been greatly increased and there would have been serious risk of a breakdown.
Referring back to the restrictive covenants I should like to refer to the letter which Deputy Larkin quoted in his opening speech. It was a letter addressed to Deputy Corish by a young man in some part of the country who was making a complaint in regard to some property he had inherited from his father who in turn, had inherited it from his uncle. It would appear that the young man wanted to make a letting of some portion of the premises. He made application to the landlord and the landlord, for some reason best known to himself, refused permission. Unfortunately the young man, like the angry young men of today, decided to take the law into his own hands, and proceeded to make the subletting. That was a breach of a covenant freely entered into. The peculiar thing about it is that there has been no mention of any such disagreement having existed between the young man's granduncle and the then ground landlord or between the young man's father and the ground landlord. In fact, it appears that four such sublettings were made in the past. It was not until this young man himself entered into the business that the first disagreement occurred.
If this young man had acted wisely he would have consulted a solicitor after he had been refused permission and before doing anything else. The solicitor would no doubt have advised him that he should apply for relief under the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1931, which provides that where there is a covenant of this kind in a lease the landlord's consent may not be unreasonably withheld. I do not know —perhaps Deputy Ryan, who is a lawyer, could tell us—whether that breach of the covenant will prevent that young man's taking the case to court and getting a decision on the reasonableness or otherwise of the landlord's refusal. It may be that he will have to correct the breach which he committed. I should imagine so.
Mr. Ryan
He would have to correct the breach and then ask for permission again.
Yes. It has been suggested in the course of the debate that ground rents should not be created in the future. That is a suggestion which, I may tell the House, the Government considered arising out of the tabling of this motion. Some time ago, I was instructed by the Government to have that matter examined. I am having it examined departmentally—with what results I cannot say yet—with a view to seeing if it is possible, for the future at any rate, to eliminate ground rents.
Finally, it is necessary to look at this question with a view to seeing whether the advantages to the community generally, as distinct from particular leaseholders, of a compulsory scheme would not, perhaps, be outweighed by the attendant disadvantages, such as the upsetting effect it would have on building development and investments in ground rents and the legal costs of transfer. The number of leaseholders who would, in fact, avail themselves of such a scheme is, as I say, likely to be small and the legal costs involved might often be substantial. Moreover, many leaseholders are themselves landlords and in these cases occupying tenants would receive no benefit from a purchase scheme. In these circumstances the promotion of the necessary legislation, which itself would be bound to be complex and controversial, should not, in my opinion, be undertaken without a thorough examination by a committee of experts who would have every facility afforded to them of looking into all aspects of the possibility of legislating for the purchase of ground rents on the lines suggested by the motion.
I cannot say when such a committee could be set up because of the overplus of work that is at present occupying the energies of all branches of my Department. In particular, owing to the heavy programme of important legislation now requiring priority it may not be possible to deal with this matter for some time.
The Minister is a most reasonable man and he has made a very forceful case against this motion. He mentioned the complexities and the difficulties that would face the body set up to help people to acquire the freehold of the properties of which they are in possession and the difficulty of compensating the lessor and the lessee. I do not think there would be any great difficulty because in the majority of leases, even where they are covenants, an arrangement could be made that the freehold could be purchased by a tenant. At the same time if the covenants were important to the rest of the properties, or other people, that matter could be dealt with at the take-over, as the saying is.
The important thing that I can see in this is that there would not be any great difficulty in assessing the value of these ground rents. I know a great many people who would be very glad to sell their ground rents for 10 or 12 years' purchase. The only difficulty would be that the people living in the houses would not be able to put up the money. That I think is the object of this motion, that the Government should bring in legislation and moneys would be made available to the people who could come to an arrangement with their landlords. The bankers are not so hot on this themselves but if an arrangement were made there could be a purchase scheme similar to the land purchase scheme. There were many difficulties and complexities in relation to taking over all the land in Ireland. We had to get the Land Commission to do it and although people decry the Commission it did a good job. It would not be necessary to have enormous machinery like the Land Commission because this is more or less an open and shut business.
I do not think it is fair for Deputy O'Malley to come along to pin the stand which the Government are making on the shoulders of Deputy Sean MacEoin because away back in 1951 or 1952 in answer to a question he said that he did not intend bringing in legislation. He probably had something else on his plate at the time but the fact that a former Minister made that statement does not mean that the House is going to stand rigidly by it, or that it would give the Minister a foundation to stand over what Deputy MacEoin said.
Of course he was speaking for the Government.
I know that but on a former occasion I heard a Leader of a Party say that he would not do something and a fortnight afterwards he did it and it was a most important thing.
A Deputy
What was it?
Taking the Oath.
Surely the Deputy is not going back to that?
I was asked a question and I gave the answer. I did not intend mentioning it.
Where is the Oath now?
It is an empty formula which it was expected would be——
And, in spite of all the people on the other side, it has gone forever.
He said he was not going to take it——
(Interruptions.)
Order.
The Deputy was hanging up his stockings then—two big stockings with two big holes in them.
I was.
There were holes in them and they were not able to hold anything.
Deputy Lynch on the motion.
I know a number of people with holes in their stockings.
Deputy Davern must cease interrupting and allow Deputy Lynch to conclude.
Deputy Lynch should not have mentioned the Oath.
It is treason to mention it.
The Deputy should be ashamed.
I am not ashamed at all. Last week I heard speakers attack ground landlords and talk about what happened in Dublin and of how people acquired great portions of the city of Dublin. They said that they have been drawing ground rents for the past 200 or 300 years. Well, that was due to Dublin Corporation and the Dublin people. They gave them these big patches of ground because they were friends of theirs and they gave them for peppercorns.
Where local authorities are ground landlords they are reasonable and generous landlords. The local authority to which I belong, the Waterford Corporation, own 90 per cent. of the ground rents in Waterford. They did not dish them out for peppercorns and they did not rack rent them. They own an enormous amount of land around the city and, when people want to erect small dwellings, they are supplied with a site on a 75 years' lease, with no fine and at £2 a year, and there are eight or nine houses to the acre. Please God, whenever there is legislation on this problem, that aspect will be taken into consideration. It would not be fair to pin down very generous landlords who were local authorities.
This motion is reasonable because it refers to purchase on equitable terms. The movers of the motion are not endeavouring to confiscate people's land or ground rents. What the motion asks is that legislation should be introduced to give people living in houses and paying a ground rent the opportunity of purchasing that ground rent. They could be purchased in the same manner as the land was purchased by the Land Commission, as I mentioned before. An arrangement could be made for so many years' purchase. The money would be paid down immediately to the landlord; the tenant would pay so much a year for so many years and then he would be in the clear. That I think is the object of the motion; it is reasonable and I shall support it.
The mover of the motion is entitled to 15 minutes to conclude. Only one minute remains if any other speaker wishes to intervene.
I do not want to intrude on Deputy Larkin's time, but perhaps he might give me three or four minutes. The Minister has given us a very reasoned analysis of the pros and cons of the whole question of ground rents. His conclusions do not fully convince me, but nevertheless he has given us a factual appraisal of this question of ground rents. It is quite clear from his remarks and from what we have heard in the House that this question is so forbidding that Governments have shied from it completely. Some day, some Government will have to tackle this problem. It is a longstanding problem which probably began in the days when land was privately owned.
We have to remember that in all the Land Acts from 1895 to 1903, under the British regime, and again in 1923, under our own Government, definite reductions were given whereas the ground rents remained as they were over the years, particularly the old ground rents. Undoubtedly, those people who have been drawing ground rents over the years have been amply repaid for wherever they lost in the little land they gave for housing.
This matter calls for redress of some kind. I sympathise with the Minister and the Government who would have to face up to this problem. Many of the persons who are benefiting from ground rents in this country are resident abroad. The people who pay the ground rents have to pay the income tax for them. Admittedly, they deduct it from the ground rent. Nevertheless, the person paying the ground rent has to pay the income tax on the ground rent for the person resident in England. I suppose the income tax authorities are perfectly entitled to have the tax collected in that way but the position is anomalous.
I do not know anything about local authorities but I believe some local authorities are drawing ground rents in respect of houses being built at the present time. May I draw the Minister's attention to the fact that, since 1934, housing has made rapid progress and that this question of ground rents has been repeated, especially in the towns and cities. In some towns where the landlord owns all the property, the ground rent is iniquitous; it is abnormally high. People who have been drawing ground rents over the years have certainly got their pound of flesh.
The motion is a modest one. Redress of some kind is called for. If the Minister gave an assurance that the Government would tackle this problem, it would be comforting to the sponsors of the motion and to the others here who have no interest whatever in ground rents.
I readily admit that ground rents have been made a stock-in-trade in recent years and that committees of various kinds have purchased ground rents in order to have recurring annual revenue.
May I point out that the debate on this motion will conclude at five minutes past eight?
I have been surprised by the attitude taken by the Minister in expressing the views of the Government on this matter. The Minister gave a fairly long dissertation on the difficulties involved, after accusing a previous Minister for Justice of some lack of courage or lack of sincerity because he failed to bring in a motion on the same lines to the House.
What this motion asks of the House is very simple: it is to state whether in this year 1960 it is a good and proper thing that the citizens should be put in a position to buy the small plots of ground on which their houses stand.
Over the years, there have been exhortations from Ministers of the present Government and of previous Governments on the value to the community of private ownership of homes. It has been pointed out frequently that the only responsible citizens are those who own their homes or who are in the process of purchasing their homes. Yet, the same Government, the same Ministers and the same Party who advocate private ownership of homes as a most desirable position say here that they do not think ownership of the home should extend to the ground on which the home stands.
For many years since this State was formed and prior to that, the argument has been put before the people that the ground on which their homes stand is part of Ireland and should be owned by the Irish people, that individual citizens should have their right in their homestead and in their plot of ground. I am afraid this Minister for Justice, like his predecessors since this State was formed, is not prepared to face up to the problem.
Everybody knows that ground rents are in many cases not owned by the people who originally owned the ground on which the houses were built. Everybody knows that when a builder builds 20, 30 or 50 houses, almost within a matter of years, the ground rents on those houses are sold to somebody else and the bulk of the ground rents, possibly, are controlled by a relatively small number of people.
Deputy Booth last week painted a heartrending picture of the poor builder who provided houses for people and had to pay a fine for the ground, which he had to pass on. What happens? Somebody owns 20, 50, 100 or 200 acres. He sells or leases that ground to a developer. The developer runs in roadways in certain cases and builders, large or small, come in and build houses. They may build an estate; they may build a few houses here and there. Millions of pounds of public money have been made available for the purpose of assisting people to buy their houses. Considerable benefit of that expenditure is going to people who own the land or whose forebears owned the land or who buy the land. In 99 per cent. of cases, they do not spend one cent in developing the land. Because a city or town develop areas and build up their communities, people whose only right in the matter is ownership of land can say: "We own this land. Not only can we insist on getting ground rent in perpetuity but we can enforce covenants and regulations on the people who occupy the houses built on that land."
The Minister referred to protection of people against exploitation, against the withdrawal of amenities as a result of neighbours turning their residences into fish and chip shops, cheap cafés and so on. The fact is that in many cases the people responsible for that type of development are the ground landlords. How many cases do we know where ground landlords and even people who built houses, because of some difficulty in disposing of residential property at a particular time, turned the property into fish and chip shops and cafés, without any regard at all for even the people to whom they sold the houses? The Minister is aware of such cases in his own constituency.
I do not pretend for one moment that anybody whose name appears on the motion pretends to think that this problem is easily solved but I do not think you will solve any problem by seeing difficulties and complexities and quoting what somebody said in 1946 and what somebody else said in 1956.
Would the Deputy read the speeches made by his colleagues in 1946?
The Deputy is a member of this House in the year 1960 and not 1946, 1932 or 1922. Since 1946, millions of pounds of public money have been made available to people to buy their houses.
There are only two years between 1946 and 1948.
How much money was made available to make it possible for people to buy the ground upon which their houses stand? All this motion asks is that this House place on record its belief that it is proper that legislation be introduced to make it possible for Irish citizens to purchase ground rents. If the Minister and his colleagues do not believe that is a good thing to do; if they do not believe that Irish citizens, who have homes and who are buying their homes, should also have the right to purchase the ground on which the houses stand, let them vote against this motion.
If the Minister says he accepts the principle of this motion and is prepared to do something tangible so far as setting up machinery to examine and report to this House on the steps necessary to implement this, we would be quite prepared to accept it, but the Minister has not said that. He has made certain difficulties and has not given any indication, so far as I can see, that there is any clear intention of dealing with this matter. Consequently, I feel that the only thing for the House to do is to go on record as to whether it is or is not a desirable thing to have legislation introduced for the purpose of permitting people to purchase their ground rents.
I do not know how many people want to purchase ground rents. The Minister may be right but I do know that if it is good and proper for people to be assisted to purchase their homes, the right which goes with it to purchase the ground on which their homes are built should not be denied them. At the present moment, the power lies only in the hands of ground landlords and nobody else. No tenant, no house purchaser and no house owner can say: "I want to purchase the ground rent. Let us enter into a deal", because the owner, who may be an Irish citizen or in very many cases, an alien, can say: "You have no right to buy the ground rent. I do not propose to enter into any agreement to sell you this ground rent. I shall observe the law in so far as the conditions of renting the ground are concerned but I do not propose to sell you one inch of it. I am going to exercise my right and you have no right."
It appears to me that so long as that position continues, we still have a right in this country of overriding the right of the landlords as against the ordinary citizens of the country. I think it is time that this House set about the task, even though it may take a long time, even though there may be complexities, of doing something about it. I would, therefore, ask that the House adopt this motion, which, even the Minister cannot say, has not been set down in reasonable terms.
Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 43; Níl, 59.
Tá
- Beirne, John.
- Belton, Jack.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Browne, Noel C.
- Burke, James.
- Byrne, Patrick.
- Byrne, Tom.
- Casey, Seán.
- Coburn, George.
- Coogan, Fintan.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Lynch, Thaddeus.
- McQuillan, John.
- Manley, Timothy.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, William.
- Norton, William.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- O'Sullivan, Denis J.
- Desmond, Daniel.
- Dillon, James M.
- Donnellan, Michael.
- Everett, James.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finucane, Patrick.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Hogan, Bridget.
- Kenny, Henry.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Larkin, Denis.
- Lindsay, Patrick.
- Palmer, Patrick W.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Rogers, Patrick J.
- Russell, George E.
- Ryan, Richie.
- Spring, Dan.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Tierney, Patrick.
- Wycherley, Florence.
Níl
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Blaney, Neil T.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Kevin.
- Booth, Lionel.
- Brady, Philip A.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Browne, Seán.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Calleary, Phelim A.
- Childers, Erskine.
- Collins, James J.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Crowley, Honor M.
- Cummins, Patrick J.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Davern, Mick.
- Doherty, Seán.
- Donegan, Batt.
- Dooley, Patrick.
- Egan, Kieran P.
- Egan, Nicholas.
- Faulkner, Padraig.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Galvin, John.
- Gibbons, James.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gogan, Richard P.
- Haughey, Charles.
- Healy, Augustine A.
- Hillery, Patrick J.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Humphreys, Francis.
- Johnston, Henry M.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lemass, Seán.
- Loughman, Frank.
- Lynch, Celia.
- Lynch, Jack.
- MacCarthy, Seán.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- Maher, Peadar.
- Medlar, Martin.
- Millar, Anthony G.
- Moher, John W.
- Moloney, Daniel J.
- Mooney, Patrick.
- Moran, Michael.
- Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
- Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
- Ormonde, John.
- O'Toole, James.
- Ryan, Mary B.
- Teehan, Patrick J.
- Traynor, Oscar.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Casey and Kyne; Níl, Deputies Ó Briain and Loughman.
Question declared lost.