Private Members' Business. - Prohibition of Forcible Entry and Occupation Bill, 1970: Second Stage (Resumed). – Dáil Éireann (19th Dáil) – Wednesday, 3 Feb 1971

Private Members' Business. - Prohibition of Forcible Entry and Occupation Bill, 1970: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. P. Belton

Before I reported progress I had been dealing with the political groups which the Minister mentioned in his speech who took part in these parades and protests. The Minister's predecessor did not arrest any of the people who took part in protests and parades even though he could have done so despite the fact that the stringent measures now being brought in did not exist.

The number of squatters in Dublin has fallen from 400 to 100, yet this Bill is being brought in to deal with them. Property developers are buying up buildings in the city which they intend to demolish and replace with office blocks, flats or shopping centres. I am against the number of offices being built but flats and shopping centres are essential. The Government take over many of the office blocks. As the law stands if these property developers were to allow people to live in these buildings they would not be able to get them out when eventually they decided to pull the building down and develop the site.

Deputy O'Connell mentioned that in Lewisham near London squatters are allowed to move into a room or a flat in an empty building provided they leave immediately the developers want to commence work there. They pay only a nominal rent because the building would otherwise be standing empty. If people were allowed to live in such places whether it be for six months or two years it would help to solve their immediate housing problem.

The corporation have bought a tremendous amount of property, which is boarded up and left empty until they are ready to knock it down. The corporation have bought, under compulsory purchase orders, dwellinghouses in the suburbs in order that they may widen the roads. They cannot let these places because when the time comes for work to commence they would be unable to get the tenants out. Even if the corporation have a five-or a six-year plan it may be another ten or 20 years before they get the money from the Department of Local Government to enable them to carry out their road widening programme. The main Belfast road from Larkhill to Swords was going to be widened when I was six years of age, but the money has still not been made available for that purpose. These houses could be lived in instead of just being boarded up or knocked down.

A great deal of the trouble in regard to marches arises from the fact that there is not sufficient Garda supervision. Many of the people who join parades are vandals or thugs. We on this side of the House are all for law and order. We will support the Bill in name but we will not support certain sections of it. We are opposed to section 4 completely. The definition of the word "owner" goes too far. It is a ridiculous situation when a ground landlord, whose interest might be only £1 or £10, has the right to get a person arrested. We are also opposed to section 9 because we do not think it is necessary. We are getting into a terrible state when the same Minister who brought in the threat of internment without trial now brings in arrest without warrant.

Minister for Justice (Mr. O'Malley)

When did I bring it in?

Mr. P. Belton

The Minister has threatened to bring it in. If this Bill goes through there will certainly be parades outside Leinster House and parades through the City as well. I doubt if even Hitler arrested people without a warrant. Who does the Minister think he is, coming in here with a big whip? First of all he warns people that he will intern them without trial and now he is going to arrest people without a warrant. We shall oppose that on the next Stage. We do believe in law and order and we will support it but we object to these sections.

Mr. M. O'Leary

Various speakers have made clear exactly in what sense this party opposes this particular Bill. We have made clear that we consider that the evil which leads to the unhappy situation where people are forced to move, have in fact moved in certain cases, into premises to which they had no right in strict ownership, that the compulsion which drives them in so many instances to take this course is the need of shelter for families who, under any of our codes, have no possibility of getting houses either in the open market or from the corporation.

Our criticism of this Bill is that it seeks to introduce a new penalty for this infringement. We do not deny that the person who is driven to squat is, in fact, breaking the law but we would point out that under the Constitution and indeed according to the broad religious traditions of our people the rights of the family are very much on politicians' lips and very much things that we are supposed to subscribe to without difference of party. Other speakers, more eloquent than I, have indicated the problem posed for families who at present have no hope of acquiring shelter by legitimate means. Such families are faced with terrible alternatives. I know of one family at present where the wife is in Griffith Barracks with one child and the husband—under the dispensation of Griffith Barracks he cannot live there—is living apart from the wife. When I last met her she told me she could not afford, nor could he afford, the amount needed to stay in the Iveagh Hostel. She had not seen her husband at that stage for ten days. That was one marriage on the rocks as a result of our failure to provide sufficient houses in this city.

There are at the moment 4,500 families looking for accommodation in Dublin. Therefore, whatever the drafting errors of such a Bill, the sincerity of its supporters in seeing in this Bill a manifestation of their concern for law and order could be perhaps accepted in a situation where the housing need was not as great as it is at present but their motives must be suspect when, in fact, without any change in law, simply by a change in priorities, in Government spending, in the way the Government run the country, they could direct more of our resources to building more houses and getting rid of this problem in its present dimensions. I do not deny that we will have housing problems for some years but not of the dimensions that we have at present. Where the problem is so extensive as it is, the administration which brings in a Bill which invokes new powers and seems to go out to attack, to outlaw, the whole idea of a man seeking shelter for his family, at the very least can be accused of very bad faith indeed.

Other speakers have remarked on section 4, the offence of encouragement or advocacy of offences under sections 2 or 3, which may in fact mean that people who speak critically or who seem to advocate the idea of a man seeking shelter for his family first and worrying about the law afterwards, would themselves be included under the penalties of this Bill.

There is the overall question of why exactly the existing law is not sufficient to deal with this problem. I am one of those who believe that on a political level squatting does not seem to change housing policy. Housing policy can be changed in this House. Only the Deputies in this House can change the whole dismal picture. The elected Government are the people with the cash and the power to do something about housing. The Opposition and the people outside can only speak out against the injustice and the failure of the housing policies. We can attempt to get the public to give us the power to do something.

We have attacked rent and the whole mess of the housing situation in this country at the moment. I make distinctions between people. We must give the benefit of the doubt to people who, having no other refuge, and no possibility of accommodation, find themselves forced into a position of taking over property where their need has been proven and where a family have no choice between the open skies and shelter. No one, understanding the place which the family is supposed to hold in our society, could blame such a family for taking that accommodation. We might not condone such action. Property owners might throw up their hands in horror. Which is the more admirable husband —the man with a wife and children who leaves them on the side of the road or the man who takes over vacant property and shelters them? St. Thomas Aquinas would give a short answer to that question. Who was carrying out the imperatives of justice? Obviously, it was the man who sought shelter for his family.

Mr. Desmond

Deputy Gallagher does not think so.

Mr. M. O'Leary

Deputy Gallagher has more extensive accommodation than the sort I am talking about. This Bill is vindictive in that the Minister who introduced it is a member of a Cabinet that has failed to provide sufficient houses. The Government show no indication of changing their sorry record on housing. If the Minister and the Government think that a neat little piece of legislation like this will stop the agitation for better housing they are mistaken. We are well aware of the fall from grace of the Tory Government, but even a Tory Government under Mr. Heath had not considered it necessary to bring in the kind of dynamite included in this Bill. We question whether the existing law is not sufficient to deal with the excesses occurring in the matter of take-over of property.

Legislation has been passed which gives ample powers to the forces of law and order to ensure that anarchy does not take place in our society. No one need feel alarmed about being able to sleep safely in bed at night.

This Bill faces us with a delicate moral choice. Where the democratically elected authority fails to carry out certain policies and fails to do its duty leaving people without elementary shelter and without the possibility of getting accommodation from the local authority or in the open market, we are faced with a real problem. A family with one child needs shelter as badly as a family with four children. The unhappy position at present is that Dublin Corporation must reject all applications for housing from families with one child. To Dublin Corporation such a family just does not exist officially. There are various advocates of birth control but it seems to us that Dublin Corporation do not acknowledge that a family exists until they have two children. The logical conclusion of the present housing situation would seem to suggest that two children should be provided practically on the wedding day. Certainly virtue is ill-rewarded under the present priority scheme of Dublin Corporation. The family with one child do not exist in the official mind. It is a hideous situation to find ourselves in where a child's birth must be considered as a matter for application forms and an essential element in the matter of the parents gaining a house. This is a hideous concept.

This Bill does not guarantee that one extra house will be built or one extra flat provided. It does not say that the vast number of families in need of accommodation will be reduced. It suggests penalties for anyone who for whatever reason finds himself taking shelter in property which is not his own. I can understand that it is not the forces of law and order who are annoyed by people taking over corporation property. We are all aware of subtenants in a multiple dwelling who are on a waiting list and who are enraged when they find people going into accommodation "out of the queue", as they say. Their annoyance is probably understandable. Under existing legislation it is possible to deal with such people. Many couples have been forced against their will to take over such flats and accommodation. There has been an element of agitation about these grievances. If the grievances did not exist there could be no agitation. Agitators account for only a tiny fraction of our people. The thing that propels ordinary couples into an impossible situation is the grievous housing shortage. Young couples have no possibility of obtaining suitable accommodation.

This Minister who has been in office for a short period, is becoming more and more identified with taking legislative sledge-hammers to smash small nuts. This Bill is a monument to that kind of thing. Legislative sledge-hammers are taken out in an attempt to settle a housing problem. This Bill, under the Department of Justice, is an attempt to solve a problem which the Department of Justice know nothing about. The social problem concerned is elsewhere. The Minister responsible for housing is not in a position to provide extra houses. If the priorities of the Government are peace, silence and quiet, and not new houses, this Bill appears to spell that out. It diverts attention from the principal problem, which is the lack of housing. That is why this Bill is necessary and that is why it is inappropriate. The Bill seeks to get rid of protests and agitation and to drive underground expressions of discontent which have become a feature of our lives in recent years. We really need more houses; there is a chronic shortage of housing. There is no solution in squatting in available rooms.

I sympathise with the position of those who have their backs against the wall, their families separated and their marriages breaking up and who are without any prospect of accommodation or of flats on a rented basis and who feel forced to take over property which is not their own. I appreciate their predicament. It is doubtful if the Government do so. I am not convinced of the sincerity of the Minister's arguments.

The question of fish-ins has been mentioned. They are seen as forcible entry. There has been agitation in recent years and fish-ins have commanded considerable public support. They are an imaginative form of agitation and have pointed out the contradiction of ownership based on antiquated fishing rights in many parts of the country. Surely they are worthy of our public thanks? The Government may feel aggrieved about agitation which does not seem to be conceived with constructive good in mind but this is one such agitation which certainly has brought to the attention of the public the glaring anomalies in the matter of fishing rights in this country. Do we take it that the Government take a pretty closed view of the question of fishing rights? In any democracy agitation can only take place and subsist over a period where the grievance is well-founded in the people's dissatisfaction. The agitation must have its origin in the real problems among the people. A democracy in which agitation has disappeared as a feature of political life is in trouble. Agitation should not be outlawed in any democracy. The aspect of this Bill which most concerns us is that it presumes to come down heavily, with imprisonment, in fact, on the father of a family who has no political convictions of one kind or another, but who is simply seeking shelter for his family. Where the fate of such a man is imprisonment under this Bill, we think that Bill is wrong. We believe that a Government which can produce such a Bill do not understand the situation we are faced with.

The Bill which we are opposing in every respect does not attempt to add any fresh thinking to the problem of the housing shortage. The penalties at law for dealing with squatting where it does take place, and where it is not legitimate but is seen to be done for a prior and preconceived purpose, exist at present. They are on the Statute Book and can be invoked and have been invoked. We see no fresh reason—nor has the Minister given us any fresh reason—for any new law. It has not been needed elsewhere and we do not see that it is needed here. Local bodies have ample authority to deal with squatters and to get them out of corporation dwellings. As far as we can see, whether we are simple or otherwise, there is no need for this vindictive Bill and we ask the Minister to withdraw these sections and, in fact, to withdraw the Bill as a whole.

Mr. Enright

When a person commits an offence or breaks the law, there are two courses of action that may be taken against him. He may have committed an offence which was in breach of the civil law and the person who was wronged or who suffered an injury can get a decree for damages in the courts. This right will be enforced and carried out, and the person who is wronged can get redress in a civil court.

A person who commits a different offence may be liable for criminal prosecution. In a criminal prosecution the case is brought by the State and the accused is tried. He may be fined or, because he is in breach of the criminal law, he may be sent to prison. In this country when a person is sent to jail he pays his debt to society and that should be the end of it. Let there be no doubt about the fact that once a person is sentenced and does his term in jail, there is a slur on his character. A person's character and good name are as important to him as any part of him, be it his sight, his hearing or anything else. A person's good name is very precious to him. His character is very important to him whether he is walking the streets or is a millionaire. Once you lose your good reputation or your good name, you can never regain it while you are on this earth. The stigma of having committed an offence and having been in jail remains until you pass into the next world.

This Bill will put yet another criminal offence on the Statute Book. Is that necessary or desirable in relation to the offences mentioned in this Bill? In his opening speech the Minister gave some reasons for bringing in this Bill. He said it was to prevent squatting and fish-ins. He said that these offences are being committed "mainly at the instigation of quasi-political groups". I believe this is the kernel of the matter. The Minister was referring to people who were involved in breaches of the law but, apparently for political reasons, no action was taken against them.

One of the cases of squatting that springs to mind is the case of Hume Street. I wonder does the House agree with the action that was taken in Hume Street? They tried every peaceful and orderly means at their disposal to direct the attention of the Government to what was happening. Yet another Georgian building was to be torn down in the name of progress and improvement. I believe that many of the students and people who helped to save that building did a service to the country. They were not successful until they went in and squatted in the building.

In regard to much of the illegal squatting that has taken place I wonder why it happened. One of the reasons was mentioned by the previous speaker, that is, the housing situation. We should be very saddened by that housing situation. There have been blase reports and propaganda about the number of houses that were being built but the glaring truth is that the housing situation is catastrophic at the moment. The number of people waiting for houses is deplorable. It is one of the fundamental rights of any family to ask the Government to provide them with a house and to be provided with a house.

You do not have to travel very far to see how grave the housing situation is. In Clondalkin people are forced to live in caravans. Along the airport road and in Shankill and around the city of Dublin, families have to suffer the humiliation of living in caravans. These people are not living in these caravans by choice; they are living in them because they have to. Not so long ago I was in Dublin south-west during the by-election and I was saddened by the housing situation there. The Minister may say that his party won the by-election. They did, but the situation there was enough to sadden the heart of anybody. All over the country people are living in houses in which farmers would not house their livestock.

We are debating here the Prohibition of Forcible Entry and Occupation Bill, 1970. One of the reasons why people have tried to bring the attention of the Government to bear on their particular situation is the fact that they have not been able to obtain houses for themselves. We have the ludicrous situation in Dublin where houses are allocated by lottery. The Minister, in his introductory speech, said that, if there is to be elementary justice, houses must continue to be allocated in an orderly manner. How orderly is it when houses are allocated by lottery? Elementary justice is non-existent in that situation.

The Minister referred to fish-ins. The Minister is well aware that there is a commission inquiring into inland fisheries at the moment and it would have been wiser for the Minister to have waited until the findings of that commission had been published. He would then be in a better position to know whether or not this Bill is necessary. I question the right of syndicates and groups to purchase fishing rights. I doubt if any man has the right to prevent a citizen of this country fishing with a rod and line in any river. Local people have rights and no one man and no one group has any right to these fish over and above the rights of those born and reared in the locality. The Minister should have awaited the commission's findings.

This Bill seeks to prohibit people airing lawful grievances. It makes no effort to remedy the situation which gives rise to these grievances. Where squatting is concerned this is a landlord's Bill. The Bill is ruthless since the penalties are jail for the offences the Bill seeks to create. The Bill is also too vague. Its timing is open to question. On 4th December last the Government gave notice that they might bring into operation Part II of the Offences Against the State Act, 1940, including internment without trial. This was no idle threat. The Secretary-General of the Council of Europe was informed of the Government's decision. The threat is still there. Any Minister of State would have power of arrest and internment without trial. On top of that we have this measure and only yesterday the Minister said he was going to resurrect the Criminal Justice Bill. I do not know what provisions it contains but I am sure it will limit legitimate protest. There are people, particularly the homeless, who have much to protest about. The Bill will probably prohibit marches and demonstrations. I do not think such powers are necessary. Last night the Minister voted against prohibiting people carrying flick-knives and other weapons in dance halls and elsewhere. No one should be allowed to carry flick-knives or offensive weapons of any kind anywhere. The Minister voted against that measure but here most undemocratic powers are being sought by the Government.

When one looks at all the powers being sought in these three Bills one asks oneself: What is behind all these powers? These powers should not be given to any Government, except in time of war or in time of emergency. The Government demand these powers in time of peace. I do not believe this Bill is necessary. The civil law is sufficient to cope with the matters which this Bill seeks to cover. The civil law may need to be made more efficient. I believe the Department of Justice should make time to arrange to speed up the work of the civil courts. Waiting lists at present are much too long. An effort should be made to improve the civil law so as to enable it to cope with the few offences mentioned here.

In the Garda Síochána we have one of the best police forces in the world. Everybody respects them and this is as it should be. Nobody can make any reflection on them. The Force has discharged its duties honourably and efficiently but if this Bill is enacted and the gardaí are forced to carry out its provisions it will certainly bring the gardaí into disrespect and make them very unpopular. Much of the work they will be doing will be unnecessary because remedies should be provided in the civil law and not in the criminal courts.

Mr. M.E. Dockrell

We have heard a good deal of discussion and argument on this Bill. Some Deputies have gone through the legal aspects of it with a fine comb to such an extent that one would imagine one was listening to a speech on the Committee Stage rather than on the broad principles of the Bill. I am not casting any aspersions on the Chair in that respect but the Bill has been very widely discussed in its general aspects and as regards the legal position if it becomes law.

Like many other Deputies I have spent much time listening to lawyers and they have one thing in common with the medical profession, another great profession, in that they never by any chance agree, so that the ordinary layman has to pick his way between the various legal opinions and, of course, legal opinion can sometimes be tinged with the political view of the person giving it and this can happen in here. I am not afraid of the legal aspects of the Bill or the legal position that will ensure from it except in regard to section 4, about which I am not entirely happy. One must however, take a stand on the Bill and I believe it is largely necessary. We have had the position in Dublin of people illegally forcing their way into various houses and barricading themselves in and indeed, sometimes receiving comfort and aid from Members of this House.

I yield to nobody in my love and admiration for the beautiful Georgian architecture of this city but, in fact, successive Irish Governments have never shown any particular interest in our beautiful heritage of buildings and while I have felt that it was little short of a tragedy that those houses at the corner of Stephen's Green and Hume Street should be bought for the purpose of pulling them down and great as is my love for that aspect of Dublin life, I have a greater love for law and order. As long as it was legal to purchase these houses through the normal channels and the ordinary process of law and town planning involved, no matter how much I would feel it was a pity they could not be preserved, I would not condone the breaking of the law in order to preserve them because we have seen not only in Ireland but in every country in the world the terrible results which have flowed from the breakdown of law and order. So, I feel that people who value the rule of law must stand behind the Government when they do this. No party has any prouder record in the maintenance of law and order in this country than Fine Gael.

We have heard arguments about landlords and landlordism. These are nonsense. Those are emotive words. They are being used deliberately to rouse the feelings of certain people to invoke their pity. They are what the Americans would call "tear-jerkers". They are being used to frighten us.

Statutes, going back 500 or 600 years and right up to the last century have been quoted. The position is very different today. Those people who have gone into these various houses have not gone in seeking shelter from the cold, they have gone in in order to call attention to the housing situation in Dublin. I have been connected for a great many years with Dublin Corporation and in no capital city in the world is there a local authority with a prouder record of building houses than Dublin Corporation. At present something like 50 per cent, if not fully 50 per cent, of the population of Dublin is housed through Dublin Corporation. This means that every time you walk down a street or every time you travel in a bus in the city half the people you meet have been housed by Dublin Corporation. I do not suppose any other capital city in the world has that record. That does not mean that anybody can rest on his oars. I do not think the Government have done all that they could or should have done in relation to housing. There is a great deal more to be done.

Turning now to the question of pulling down houses, vacant sites and so on, this again is an emotive thing. Dublin being largely an 18th century city has now, in the case of many of its houses—and unfortunately in the case of many of its most beautiful houses—come to the point at which it is appallingly difficult and expensive to maintain those houses. I am aware that in some cases if more attention had been paid to the by-laws in the past the houses would not be in the position in which they are today. However, those who have to plan for the city of Dublin, the City Manager and his staff, have to deal with facts as they find them in the 1970s. Of course sometimes houses could have been kept going if money had been spent on them. Nowadays, however, in many cases the cost will not pay and they have to come down. This is a great pity and I do not put the houses in Hume Street or in Merrion Square in that category but I will just cite this instance for the House.

We live in an imperfect world. In a perfect world every man would be prepared to act for the common good, even to his great financial detriment. Unfortunately that is not possible and there are houses and sites in Dublin today, and in every city in Western Europe, which are so valuable when they are used in the most modern fashion that the individual who owns them if he can sell them for redevelopment will get many times the value of the premises because modern offices may be put up on those sites. It is easy to say to somebody else, "Oh, Mr. So-and-So" or "Mrs. So-and-So", as it may well be—"you cannot sell this house to the redevelopers because we will not allow it. You must live there" and if he or she says, "But a great deal of money has to be spent on it and I have not got the money" we then, in this democratic age, even although it may be an imperfect world in which we live, rightly say that that owner must be compensated. However, we are not prepared to compensate the owner. That is one of the dilemmas. I heard of a man who owned a house in one of the areas about which there was a great deal of discussion. He owned the premises, in which he did not live but in which he worked, and he was offered something like £17,000——

An Ceann Comhairle

I am afraid we are getting away from the Bill.

Mr. M.E. Dockrell

No, I am not, with due respect. I am trying to prove that these changes which are taking place in Dublin and which are leading the people to make forcible entries into buildings are the result of economic forces which in many cases are pressing the owners of those buildings into taking steps which are not popular with certain sections of the community. How are we going to compensate people since to do so would put such a vast burden on the community that the powers, whether they be the corporation or the Government, would be faced with either appropriating the house in the name of the people or letting economic forces operate to a certain extent?

That is the dilemma in which Dublin has been placed but very many of the houses, the pulling down of which we deplore, have to come down because they have reached the end of their life. In many cases it is completely uneconomic to keep them in proper repair. I remember talking to a man who lived and spent a great deal of his time working in one of the houses in the Fitzwilliam Square—Fitzwilliam Place area and I said "Oh, what an exquisite house that is". In fact, this is a relative of my own. I said "That is a beautiful house. I hope nothing will ever happen that these house will be pulled down". He said to me "You would not say they were so nice if you had to live in them. They require an endless amount of money to keep them in repair because the roofs, chimneys and other items need constant attention."

It is not an easy matter to maintain these very beautiful houses in a reasonable state of repair. One has only to look at the old mansions down in the country. Many years ago their owners gave up the struggle and now many of them are in a state of total disrepair. I am sure even a millionaire would be aghast at the amount of money needed to make those houses up-to-date and comfortable by 20th century standards.

This is some of the background behind this Bill. It is the first time in my life that I had found myself making a case from the Opposition benches for a Government Bill but my party share the view I have on this matter. One has to take one's stand on a matter such as this. We live in a strange age in which law has broken down. We see many instances where people make forcible entry. There was one house on Merrion Road into which some people moved. All kinds of views were expressed on placards made by the young people who occupied the house. After several months the Garda moved in and the house was demolished.

I am told that the law is defective. I do not know if it is as defective in relation to ejectment of people as a result of forcible entry as the Government would make out. I think we have suffered from a degree of timidity, not to say cowardice, on the part of the Government for not enforcing the law or permitting the Garda to take steps. However, when the Bill is passed the Government cannot say that they have not been armed sufficiently to deal with the problems which are arising in the 1970's and which are being made use of by ill-disposed persons.

We have heard much emotive language about landlords, fishing rights and so on, and how forcible entry was justified. Such views were expressed by some speakers in this House both yesterday and today. Having an historical mind on occasions, I can remember a famous forcible entry made at the beginning of the Russian Revolution. There was a forcible entry on behalf of the Bolsheviks into the Smolny Institute. They sat there for many months and planned and brought about the downfall of the Kerenski Government who had not the courage to put them out. That was one case of forcible entry that led to extraordinary and tragic events for that country and which brought profound changes to the world. One could put forward many arguments for gentle, but firm, enforcement of law and order.

Fish-ins were mentioned by the Minister and taken up by various speakers. I might say that I do not fish; neither do I shoot and I do not own any land. I have not a vested interest as such in the maintenance of fish or game and so on, but unless there is some degree of preservation there will not be a trout or a salmon left in Irish rivers. We all have a kind of sneaking regard for the poacher. I even heard a Deputy on these benches speaking sympathetically about poachers when one would not expect him to have any great love for them. However, if the rivers in Ireland were made free for everybody it would not be just the man with the rod and line who would use them. People would arrive in motor cars and would dynamite a stretch of river or they would net the river at night, or during the day, when there was a run of fish which could gravely affect fishing prospects for future years. Exactly the same situation would result as has happened on the oceans of the world where the whales have been hunted practically out of existence because of the greed of men. Therefore, unless there is a degree of preservation of our rivers there will not be a minnow left. Dynamite would be used on our rivers, and indeed this has happened not only on our rivers but on rivers in other countries, and this could stun and kill all the fish. That is the other side of the emotive words "landlords", "fishing rights" and "fish-in".

Then there is the question of squatting of itinerants or tinkers. "Tinkers" has apparently become an insulting word. I do not want to insult people but there is a great deal of false sympathy for some of these people. Itinerants have come around Dublin and parked their caravans on the side of the road. I am speaking from knowledge. I do not know what some of the men do. They seem to collect rags and scrap iron, but one can see the women catching the bus into town in the morning and making for Stephen's Green and areas around there. I am sure they can be seen on the north side of the city as well. Anyone can see them sitting with tiny children and begging from passers-by. What happens to the children they leave behind, those who are big enough to walk? They are left to roam around. The Garda have told me they have no powers to move these people, who know their rights very well and will not move. We are not helping the problem with that sort of false pity and false sympathy in leaving them there. This problem must be faced by the Government.

The people who are doing the real work in connection with the itinerants are the settlement committees who are slowly educating them. Many of these people are not poor. I was speaking about the children they leave behind. Some of these children are wild and have got into mischief; they have broken in and entered and stolen. I am not saying this is done by the majority of them but naturally these children are lacking in supervision. Many of these itinerants are around where I live and I know what happens. I know the feeling of hatred that is worked up in people around them. That is one of the tragedies, because these unfortunate people should not be disliked. They should be very much pitied and it should be a very early priority of the Government to accommodate them. It is a question of finding proper sites, then moving them on to the sites and educating them.

A young girl, a member of my own family, goes at the week-ends to the itinerants in Walkinstown to teach some of them to read. There is a girl of fifteen who is very anxious to learn. This young woman who is teaching the itinerants cannot give them all the time she would like. This youngster I have mentioned had never seen a map before. She did not know where Dublin was in relation to Ireland and I am sure she did not know where Ireland was in relation to the rest of the world, or the concept of north, south, east and west. All sorts of things like that have to be contended with as well as housing. You cannot just move people into houses.

The powers in this Bill should help to bring about a situation in which we in Ireland can grapple firmly with this problem. As I say, it is a problem of education and money. Many of these people are anxious to get out of the rut in which they are caught by their poverty and their lack of education. For these reasons I think this Bill should be supported. It is not a perfect Bill but we are a democratic country. I do not think hardship will be solved by this Bill. I have heard so many cries down through the years I have been in this Chamber, you would think the skies were going to fall. The skies have not yet fallen as a result of various pieces of legislation that have been introduced over the years. Things never work out as badly as predicted because there is always the saving grace, I would like to think, of the Irish character which tends to soften things, and also because there is an Opposition that watches and a Government that are in touch with people in the country, on occasions. Sometimes they get out of touch but other times they have the same ways of knowing that they have been harsh as we have.

Another safeguard we have is the decisions which are taken in our courts. All those forces tend to mould our legislation here in a way which is in conformity roughly with the will of the people. In my opinion and the opinion of this party we cannot permit law and order to be smashed down under the guise of a democratic process. These people who squat will tell you that they are democratic and are only doing it for the most democratic reasons. One only has to look at the placards they put up outside to see that it is anything but democratic. It is down with anybody who does not agree with them. I have seen people walking up and down outside Leinster House carrying placards which state: "Hang the landlords" and "Hang the tyrants". That is all very well but a person cannot take part in a sit-in for a democratic reason and then hang placards outside urging the populous to hang the people who happen to disagree with their way of thinking. This is what is happening in this extraordinary world in which we live.

I am glad to see that the Government have at last had some degree of sense about this. I hope they will have the guts to enforce the measures in this Bill with justice, mercy and kindness. Let it be clearly understood that Ireland is a country which respects the forces of law and order, whose Government stand up for them and protect people from mob violence and mob rule.

Mr. Clinton

Like Deputy Dockrell I am not a lawyer and consequently I have not the competence to dissect the legal niceties of this Bill any more than he has. Deputy Dockrell said something which I think he may not really have intended to say and I should like to deal with that point now. I understood him to say we were supporting this Bill but that is not really correct. We have decided not to vote against this Bill on its Second Reading. There is a very big difference between the two things and I am sure that is what Deputy Dockrell meant.

Mr. M.E. Dockrell

I said I did not like section 4.

Mr. Clinton

The views of this party were very clearly put by our spokesman when he said that we were not voting against this Bill on its Second Reading but we were hoping, with the co-operation of the Minister and those on the Government benches, that it might be possible so to amend this Bill as to make it acceptable to us.

Everybody in the House, it is fair to say, is concerned about law and order. Certainly I am concerned with law and order. I do not believe anybody should be allowed to commit lawless acts which will seriously disturb the lives of ordinary decent people, Deputy Fitzpatrick was quite right when he said that the fact the Government thought it was necessary to introduce penal legislation of this kind is a serious reflection on the Government itself. It is a reflection of the Government's failure during many long years.

It was this party which laid the foundations of the State and laid them fairly well. It was this party who set up the Garda Síochána and did not arm them. The Government have not armed them and the Garda themselves do not want to be armed because they know that force meets force. The more criminal an offence is made the more dangerous the people will be who attempt to commit that offence.

I have already said I am not able to make my way through the legal niceties of this legislation and decide what the civil law can deal with and what it is necessary to bring in the criminal court to handle, but it is all wrong to give the Garda Síochána the power of arrest without warrant. This is a serious situation. The greatest complaint which can be made about the law is that it is too slow, too tedious and too expensive as it stands, but surely it is possible to amend the law and make it more effective?

What is wrong with this country at the present time is that there are not enough houses and not enough jobs. The Government are not giving us a good example. We are not getting enough encouragement to make a real effort to do the right thing.

There should be a distinction between the different reasons for squatting but this Bill does not make any such distinction; it deals with all squatters. Why is all this lawlessness appearing now? Why has it not happened in the past? There are good reasons why it has not happened in the past. Let us take, for instance, fishins. How long have people been agitating because most of the valuable inland fisheries are owned by alien landlords? What have the Government done to bring about a situation whereby ordinary people are able to obtain access to these fisheries instead of just the rich, who are able to pay heavily for them? If the Government were sincere about this they would acknowledge that the people who are protesting have a grievance. They would tell them that it was the Government's intention over a period of years to buy out these fishing rights and they would include a certain amount in the Budget annually for this purpose. There has been no recognition of this fact and no attempt has been made to change the situation. The people are denied access to these amenities because there is no programme on the part of the Government to ensure that these rights are not in the hands of an exclusive few.

I would hate to see us arrive back at the situation which existed in the landlord days when it was treason even to tread on a farm and anyone who crossed a fence found himself in jail and arrested without warrant. I cannot understand the mentality behind this Bill. If a person misbehaves himself in a public house and starts a row, if the person who owns or runs the public house is not able to deal with him, he can call in the guards and the guards will throw the man out. I cannot understand why the same thing cannot apply to squatters. I have great sympathy with people, some of whom have been on the housing list for 15 years and are still waiting for a house. Deputy Dockrell did not make it any easier for me to make this case when he said that Dublin Corporation had a proud record in the provision of houses. It may be a fact that they built many houses in Dublin but no regard is being had to the fact that the people of the country are flocking into the cities and towns because there is nothing left for them in rural Ireland, because this Government have no policy for rural Ireland and have never had a policy to keep the people in rural Ireland and they are creating an enormous problem in the Dublin region. When a family in extreme conditions due to the fact that they are homeless move into an empty house—they do not want to break into the house, they do not want to commit an unlawful act but they have no place to go; through no fault of their own they have not been housed—it has the undesirable effect that the most deserving, if one were to house people on that basis, would not get a house first. One must have order and one must have a way to deal with it but I do not think it should be dealt with or could possibly be dealt with, and I do not think the people will stand for it anyway, with the severity that is proposed in this measure.

Deputy Dockrell referred to the unfortunate itinerants. I have seen attempts to remove itinerants from certain areas. I have seen them brought to court by the local authority and I have heard the justice ask the people: "Where are you going to put them?" When they tried to get an order to shift them they were just told to come back when they had some place to put these people. These people forcibly entered these grounds but the people sitting on the bench at present do not consider that they committed an unlawful act in the circumstances because of the background that is there.

Unfortunately, this Bill seems to be all-embracing and to be able to hit everybody with equal severity. I have not got anything like the same sympathy for the people who occupy houses for other reasons of protest. Like Deputy Dockrell I have a fair amount of appreciation of buildings of architectural merit and up to a point I defend those who protest very strongly when such buildings are knocked down but we must be reasonable about all this and we must be balanced in our outlook. Again the Government have not shown the concern that is necessary to meet the reasonable protests of people of this kind and they have driven them to worse protests. If they are really concerned and anxious to preserve certain buildings and certain streets and facades why do they not pinpoint them? Why do they not list them and say: "This is it and there can be no change from this" and then carry out the law? This has not been done. This bad example of lawlessness has started at the top. The decisions of the planning authority, who have the right and the responsibility to give planning decisions, have been thwarted on numerous occasions. Their decisions have been thwarted to suit the tacateers and the racketeers in this city, and to facilitate them. There is no doubt about that. People have seen themselves being evicted from houses and driven here and there simply because certain developers decided to buy up the property where they lived and surround them and tell them to get out. Talk about fixety of tenure. One has very little rights when this sort of thing is happening and allowed by the laws of the land.

Again, if one looks at the trouble that started on lands owned by foreigners the same thing applied. There was this forcible entry, burnings and everything else brought about again by the failure of the Government to introduce effective legislation in time to prevent foreigners from coming in here and getting possession of these farms. Even the law introduced after many years of agitation from the Opposition is still not effective and can be side-stepped and is being side-stepped.

In those circumstances and with that sort of background it may be necessary to introduce some form of more effective legislation but let it be known to everybody that it is because of the failure of the Government in so many departments and because of the hopeless example they have given that this type of legislation is necessary.

It has been pointed out already in this debate that in England where there is quite an amount of forcible entry and squatting they did not introduce this sort of legislation and they apparently are able to deal with it and it has not been necessary for the best part of 50 years in this country. If we had more indication from the Government that they are making the best possible effort to meet the situation of the homeless people and to meet the reasonable protests of people who are trying to correct wrongs this sort of legislation would not be necessary. There will always be the few who will have to be dealt with and dealt with fairly harshly.

Deputy Dockrell mentioned the unfortunate fact that we have lawyers on both sides of the House disagreeing on the type of legislation that is necessary to deal with a particular situation. It does not make it any easier for those who have not got legal training to decide who is right in this regard. There is a considerable amount of disagreement. The belief of the people in this party is that it may be possible on Committee Stage so to amend this Bill as to make it acceptable but they condemn the Government and the Minister that this type of legislation should be considered necessary and they blame them for the reasons that have brought it about. The discontent that exists in this city is largely due to the failure of the Government to provide sufficient houses for the people, due also to the fact that speculators and racketeers have been allowed to buy up property and demolish it before the eyes of people who have not got a roof over their heads and also because we have not got sufficient gardaí to control things when they start to go out of hand. All of us have protested against this from time to time. This is an age when everybody works a shorter day and where every employment requires more people to do the same amount of work. In the Garda Síochána there are far fewer people to do the same amount of work or a greater amount of work and it is a greater amount of work mainly because of the great aggregation of the population because of the flight from the land and the fact that nobody wants to stay in rural Ireland because there has been no policy for rural Ireland and the people refuse to accept the situation any longer.

Our policy on this Bill is quite clear. We will not vote against it on the Second Stage in the hope that we will find the Minister to be reasonable. We are accepting his assurance in the last paragraph of his statement where he himself does not try to pretend that this is a measure that cannot be drastically improved in the course of the Committee Stage. I hope that attitude will be obvious when we get into the part of the Bill where it can be tested but we have unfortunately come up against attitudes on the part of individual Ministers where they reject everything that is put forward simply because it is put forward by the Opposition feeling it cannot be right. Any Minister who comes into this House with that sort of attitude can expect to be opposed every inch of the way. If this Bill goes through the House in the form in which it has been presented we will have more trouble in this country than ever we had before. One might as well arm the police. This is the sort of opposition which the Minister will get to the Bill. I hope that the Minister will see, on reflection, that section 4 is unacceptable to the people.

Another thing struck me as rather peculiar about section 2. Section 2 deals with the offence of forcible entry on land or a vehicle. It reads:

A person who forcibly enters land or a vehicle shall be guilty of an offence unless—

(a) he is the owner of the land or vehicle, or

(b) if he is not the owner, he does not interfere with the use and enjoyment of the land or vehicle by the owner and, if requested to leave the land or vehicle by the owner or by a member of the Garda Síochána in uniform, he does so with all reasonable speed and in a peaceable manner.

What will happen to the inspector who goes down from the Land Commission and forcibly enters a man's farm and from that day forward the man cannot sell his farm or offer it for sale, nor can he raise money on it? The inspector sterilises that holding from the day he puts his foot on it. How will he be affected by this section? There is no mention here of lawful entry. As the law stands, he is entitled to enter under the 1965 Act. He will now obviously become a criminal, if this piece of legislation goes through the House, because he is certainly going in without the owner's consent and he is certainly interfering with the use of the land and property by the legitimate owner. Section 2 also requires a re-examination by somebody capable of doing it. I am satisfied with the various points put forward by our spokesman, Deputy Tom Fitzpatrick. This is a piece of legislation with which we disagree completely. We do not propose to vote against it. We hope to be able to amend it at the Committee Stage in order to make it acceptable in the circumstances in which this country now finds itself, as a result of the Government failure and neglect.

Minister for Justice (Mr. O'Malley)

I have been listening to the very long and varied debate. It is one in which many conflicting views were presented. It is difficult to stand up immediately after the speeches and deal with them all in chronological order or in the order of the various topics which were referred to. To some extent, therefore, I must ask the indulgence of the House when dealing with certain individual topics although they may not necessarily be in the order in which they were raised by the Deputies.

The debate has a number of different divisions. One of the distinguishing marks of the first of the three days of debate was that there was very little discussion about the Bill but tremendous analysis of the speech I made in moving the Second Reading. On the second day the Deputies did not refer to the speech but began to question motives and personalities with regard to the Bill. One of the factors which struck me most about the debate here today was that almost every speaker seemed to pick on one point, and that is the power that would be given to the Garda Síochána under section 9 of the Bill to arrest without warrant. Virtually every speaker expressed the most profound horror at this unusual and very drastic proposal, and spoke of its savouring of a police state and being something which was foreign to Irish law, of being something unnecessary, unusual and an unwanted power for the Garda. Some speakers possibly believe that, in fact, the power of arrest without warrant is in some way unusual. Other speakers on the benches opposite know there is nothing unusual in this. For the sake of scoring political points they led other members of the House, who are not as familiar with the law as they are, to believe that there is something sinister and drastic in a power of arrest without warrant. I will, therefore, point out the significance of the limitations on the power proposed. We might discuss first of all in a more general way the existing powers, under both common law and statutes, of arrest without warrant in this country.

A member of the Garda Síochána has a common law power to arrest without warrant, firstly, on reasonable suspicion that the person concerned has committed a felony. The person does not have to have committed a felony. The garda has only to have a reasonable suspicion. He may be wrong, but if his suspicion was reasonable that is sufficient. Deputies may ask what is a felony. Therefore, how many sorts of crimes does this apply to? A felony is the more serious of the two historical divisions into which the indictable crimes are divided. It includes all forms of larceny and various other forms of damage to property or assault of varying kinds on a person. In effect, it includes many hundreds of different and fairly common-place crimes. Secondly, a garda has power to arrest without warrant if he sees a breach of the peace being committed. Breaches of the peace are not uncommon in our country, unfortunately. The power of the garda to arrest without warrant is, therefore, exercisable on that heading frequently. Thirdly, the garda has a power to arrest without warrant if he is assaulted or obstructed in the execution of his duties. He has a statutory power of arrest if he finds a person committing a indictable offence at night. That is a very wide power. It is wider than the common law power, inasmuch as it extends to any indictable offence whatever provided it is being committed at night. A garda has a statutory power of arrest without warrant if he finds a person loitering at night with an intent to commit any one of various specified felonies. The power of arrest without warrant in these cases is conferred by a large variety of statutes which are connected with these felonies. The third main group of statutory powers of arrest without warrant which a garda has is in relevant statutes where he is specifically given that power. Deputies who express such horror, and surprise, and so on, at the limited powers proposed in this Bill would do well to remember that, in legislation as recent as the Road Traffic Act, there are several instances of specific power of arrest without warrant for a member of the Garda Síochána.

Mr. P. Belton

We objected to it.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Wednesday, 3 Feb 1971

Private Members' Business. - Prohibition of Forcible Entry and Occupation Bill, 1970: Second Stage (Resumed).

Deputies

An Leas-Cheann Comharle

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 3 Feb 1971