I move:
That it is expedient to authorise such payments out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas as are necessary to give effect to any Act of the present session to amend and extend the Rates on Agricultural Land (Relief) Acts, 1939 to 1962.
Committee on Finance - Rates on Agricultural Land (Relief) Bill, 1964—Money Resolution.
This is a Bill which we cannot amend, being a money Bill, and for that reason there is no point in not giving the Minister all stages of the Bill now. I was disappointed that the Minister did not deal in his opening statement or when replying on the Second Reading with a resolution which was sent to him by Naas Urban Council. The position in relation to farmers in urban council areas is that they are not included in the relief given by the various Relief of Rates Acts. The official case is that people in urban areas receive benefits arising out of their proximity to the town and are in a different position from people in rural areas. In certain cases, that may be true but it is not true in the case of the very large urban areas. Anybody who knows large urban areas will realise that there are substantial areas of land in these urban areas which are not getting any benefit whatsoever out of the urbanisation and, at the same time, are being penalised very heavily indeed, because of the provisions of these Acts.
Naturally, one talks about the areas one knows best. The Naas urban area is within the first five largest urban areas in the country. Whether one examines it from the Mowread end, the north end where the dual carriageway now ends, or from the south-west, round Jigginstown, where the by-pass road goes off what used to be a very dangerous canal bridge, the same thing must strike any observer. In both cases, there is absolutely no difference between the land in the urban area at those extremities and the land outside that area. Yet the farmer who happens to be just outside the urban area gets this measure of derating while the farmer within the urban area does not get any such measure of relief at all. The Minister has probably seen correspondence sent to him from time to time by the members of the Naas Urban Council who feel that they are being most unfairly penalised and that the substantial part of the Naas urban area that is in that area and yet is, in fact, nothing but farmland should receive attention.
I do not know what statistics the Minister may have but I think it is an undoubted fact that there are, perhaps, a dozen urban areas in the country that are too big for their present urbanisation. It would seem that the only remedy is to deurbanise completely and that it is not open to them to shrink the urban areas. If it were open to them to do so, I know that Naas and Kildare would be prepared to consider doing so with a view to making the urban area responsible for genuinely urban problems and leaving the rural area to be dealt with by the county council. As they understand the position, it is not possible to do that and it is a question of complete deurbanisation and the status of town commissioners such as Droichead Nua or leaving it as it is.
The members of the urban council petitioned the Minister on many occasions and again this year when the relief was announced in the Budget. I have not the exact details to my hand what they put into that petition but it was a well-reasoned case and gave a great deal of statistics, facts and figures in relation to it. I am disappointed, as I know the farmers in the urban periphery of Naas will be disappointed, that their appeal has not been met by the Minister.
This is a problem which I have heard on a number of occasions. I should say briefly that until we started stepping up the percentage relief, which we have done in the last few Bills in this House, the farmers in Naas were doing much better than the farmers outside with their land. The reason I did not mention it in this Bill was that it was not in order to discuss it here.
It would have been in order on the Second Reading but I was at another meeting.
I did not mention it because I was not aware of it. It is also true to say that until those outside the urban area have their lot improved under this measure, the people within the urban area, and particularly in Naas, are better off and more relieved to a greater extent than their neighbours across the boundry. So far as the Deputy's grievance is concerned, the situation in Naas is, as I know it, that land values for building purposes are very stiff within the urban area. It certainly is no reflection of what the value of land is outside in the ordinary rural parts. It is not easy to get land for building purposes at all, as is instanced by a recent public inquiry.
I think both the Minister and I should keep off that one for different reasons.
I shall not; I shall go further.
When the Bill is in Committee, I can go back.
You can go back as far as you like. £300 per acre had to be paid for over seven acres of land in Naas, which was not eminently suitable for building either. Naturally, it was chosen only because nothing better could be got for less. These sort of figures are indicative even in Naas where they have these large areas. It implies that there is a buildup of values there, a disproportion in relation to agricultural land outside and in rural parts. Over and above, I think it is fair to say that, although Deputy Sweetman appears to think differently. I believe if the urban council feels strongly about this, it should, in fact, seek to have its boundary changed and have some of the land now not wanted and not used agriculturally added to the county health district.
I do not think they are aware of that. They thought they had to deurbanise completely, or not at all.
That is not so. This is purely legal and technical. My advice is that they could so do, though I do not expect they actually would. Being near Dublin and having fair prospects, as I see it, the possibility is the land within the boundary, even though it may suffer comparatively, has likely possibilities as against the advantages we had in the past before we improved the agricultural rebate grant for lands outside urban areas. Despite all that, I think they are apt to stay in it rather than move out.
The Minister has not been reading The Leinster Leader lately.
I do not read all I should. I think it is really true. There are the services and the advantages which follow and accrue to those having property and residing within the urban boundary. The fact that land is not easy to come by for building purposes in a wide area of the Naas urban council district is indicative that people think highly of it at the moment and have no urge to part with it. Over all, I do not think if they had the option, they would opt out. I think they could have that option if the urban council and the local people thought strongly about it.
What difference does building development in a rural area make? It would be exactly the same in an urban area as in a rural area. It is the land that matters, not whether it is inside or outside the urban boundary.
They have facilities as an urban area which they would not have as a rural area. At least they should have and, if not, perhaps the urban council might have a look at that aspect of it.
We could press in relation to that, in the manner in which the Minister's Department passed certain plans and, to put it mildly, the plans did not quite carry out what was hoped.
You will have to write and tell me about that. It does not ring a bell at all.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolution reported and agreed to.
Bill put through Committee, reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.
Is this a Money Bill?
No, it is not; I checked up on that.
Then, I have slipped up. I gave the Minister all Stages believing it was a Money Bill and that I could not amend it. Anyway, I would have been caught.