In line with Deputy Fox's exhortation I shall endeavour to be brief and more constructive than he was. As regards this Bill we may say "A rose by any other name...". This rose still carries the thorn that you still must pay. Despite what people thought or were led to believe this Bill still says "Pay up, or shut up." That is vastly different from what was being said by the Minister's party, his supporters and by the supporters of the previous speaker at great length and on many occasions in his and my constituency during the general election.
I recall that on the night before the general election all candidates were invited to attend a residents' association meeting to discuss ground rents and their abolition without compensation. I was the only candidate who attended and I did not notice either the presence of or an apology from the previous speaker on that occasion. He did not turn up or speak up then. His colleague, the senior Deputy, sent along a copy of the manifesto and left that to represent him. If proof were needed that people thought that the manifesto meant payment without compensation, I got it that night for two hours. At least I have the consolation of knowing that the situation as I outlined it to that group then will be proved correct when this Bill becomes law. Deputy Fox and his colleagues may go back to those people and try to explain to them what I then tried to explain to them.
I am a little taken aback at the previous speaker's rather simplistic view of politics. I wish politics and public life were as simple as he seems to think they are and that, as he suggests, a woman on a widow's pension would not resent paying £5 in order to own her ground rent. Is he not talking about £5 suggested legal fees as well as the purchase price of her ground rent? Or is he suggesting that if we come across any widow who pays the £5 legal fees, he will pay the purchase cost of her ground rent? Let us not be carried away; we are still talking about the purchase of a ground rent based on the terms of the most recent long-term national loan—a higher cost now than it would have been two months ago, incidentally.
The Deputy seems to think that any social change in the area of ground rents emerged with the arrival on the scene of the 1963 Planning Act. It goes back much further, back into the 19th century. As regards change in this century, social concern and effort to protect the lessee, it began in 1928 with the Meredith Commission followed in 1931 by the Landlord and Tenant Act, known as the "tenants' charter" and it was not introduced by a Fianna Fáil Government. In 1954 there was a commission which was not set up by and did not report to a Fianna Fáil Government, followed by the 1958 Reversionary Act. In 1964 there was a commission after which the faulty, unworkable and unenforceable 1967 Landlord and Tenant Act was introduced by Fianna Fáil. It has caused tremendous headaches, annoyance and frustration for landlords and tenants and resulted in fees going into the pockets of the legal men in the ten ensuing years. That is what the Deputy's Government introduced. That was the most recent piece of legislation introduced by his colleagues. If I were he I would not be so proud of them; I would not refer to or boast about them. Neither would I suggest that the Planning Act was what helped to bring about this social change. The 1963 Planning Act required to be amended in large measure by the 1976 Planning Act which again was not introduced by a Fianna Fáil Government, a major Act which required to be introduced because of the coach and four that could be driven through the Principal Act of 1963 which was certainly introduced by somebody who was at that time, but is not now, a member of Deputy Fox's party.
Our constituents were told or led to believe, because it suited the people who said it at the time, that if the present Government were returned to power people would never again have to pay ground rents on their homes. I do not suggest that the Minister personally categorically stated that or that any Deputy in the House deliberately and categorically led the electorate astray—far be it from me to do so— but they had many and varied supporters who certainly made it their business to give the impression on the doorsteps to the electorate that following 18 June if there was a change of Government they would never again have to pay ground rent. Nobody in the House on any side can honestly say that what I have just said is not true because we all know it is true.
The dictionary defines "abolition" as annulment or abrogation; it defines "annul" as "to make void as a law; a decree or a contract or to invalidate". It defines "abrogate" as "to abolish, to annul or to repeal by authority". Surely the Minister who was for a long time Opposition spokesman on this matter and vocal at the time is now in a position to repeal by authority? If "annul" means "abrogate" which in turn means "to repeal by authority", I think nobody here suggests that this legislation is repealing by authority ground rents on private dwellings. If it is not, all I suggest is that there was a great body of public opinion, the silent people who do not take to the streets, write to newspapers or create mass demonstrations outside the RDS, who genuinely believed and were influenced in voting by that belief that Fianna Fáil would wipe out ground rents and that they would not have to pay to enjoy that benefit.
The whole matter of ground rents is a strange one. When you look back at their history you discover the original ground rents were collected by the landlords who were the only planning authority then existing. In a way, like many other anachronisms in legislation, they were probably socially necessary and perhaps desirable in the 19th century because at least they had the effect of bringing some semblance of order and planning into urban areas especially. They ensured that one's neighbour could not decide to build a folly or open a bawdy house or set up some other practice in the house next door because the ground landlord would arrive in his coach and four with footmen and attendants and very quickly deal with the person who stepped out of line and broke the terms of the lease. We have come a long way from those days and, as Deputy Fox says, through the activities of various Governments and changes in planning and other legislation we have moved away from control being exercised to some extent for the public good under the ground rents system.
In the earlier part of this century when speculative building became popular, for some time the value of ground rents was taken into account by the builder in fixing the price of houses. It is suggested that because people were not involved in the tradition of house purchase they were slow to purchase private houses which were being built in quantity. In an effort to encourage people to purchase those houses the builders sold them at less than their actual cost price anticipating that their eventual profit would derive from the ground rent they raised on the property. In so far as that happened it was a good thing because it encouraged people to become involved in the purchase of their own homes.
We have moved a long way from that situation. We have moved to a stage where builders, with no justification and no adjustment to the original sale price of the house, were raising ground rents on property as well as charging the full purchase price. They were also in a position to obtain a regular income from the ground rents. Another type of person owns ground rents. I endeavoured to be honest and point this out to people in my constituency. I pointed out that ground rents were until recently regarded as a gilt-edged investment or the gilt-edged part of a portfolio and as such major assurance and insurance companies, pensions trusts and small investors over the years became involved in the purchase of large blocks of ground leases. As such, I pointed out, it would be ridiculous to suggest that ground rents be wiped out without compensation being paid by somebody to those genuine investors. It was never on, and anybody who approached politics in a practical and honest way knew it was never on, to suggest that ground rents were going to be abolished without compensation. I am afraid certain supporters of the Government did that. It was never on to suggest that there should be abolition of ground rents without compensation, as certain members of residents' associations did and as was suggested by certain officers of ACRA. I make that statement in spite of the remarks of the Minister and officers of that association. I heard senior officers of ACRA—one of them is now an elected representative at local level— demand at public meetings that ground rents be abolished without any compensation being paid by the lessee. In fact, I heard those officers go further and suggest that compensation be paid by the ground landlord to the householder on foot of the unfair payments which they had made traditionally over the years.
It is well to realise that that is the extreme situation which faced the previous Government from certain quarters. Not only was abolition of ground rents without compensation being demanded but certain people were suggesting that compensation be paid to the householder because ground rents were an unfair imposition which he should not have been asked to pay from the start. I asked those people whether they had been coerced or forced into signing the contract to purchase their house on which they knew there was a ground rent clause, and they said they had been forced to purchase their houses because there was no freehold property available at the time.
For that reason they purchased the leasehold property, paid the ground rent but now felt that because that was an unfair imposition they were entitled to compensation. That extreme situation which existed in 1974 and 1975 is a far cry from the sorrowful tears we heard ten minutes ago about social justice and about Fine Gael not wanting people to own their own homes. It ill behoves anybody, especially when one bears in mind the experience of the last speaker, to make suggestions like that. Anybody with even a cursory knowledge of the history of Irish politics in this century knows that such a remark does not need to be contradicted or denied.
Whether the Minister accepts it or not the undertaking given by his party in their manifesto had the effect in the run-up to the election of giving the impression to ACRA and some of their members that the Minister and his party would wipe out ground rents in the way some of them had demanded, without their having to pay compensation. That is what influenced the insertion by them on a regular basis in the last days prior to the election of advertisements in the Dublin newspapers clearly indicating that they were exhorting their members to vote for the Minister's party. That was a regrettable intrusion by any supposed non-political organisation into the realms of politics at such a sensitive time. I would say the same if during the next election campaign they inserted an advertisement urging people to vote for my party. That association should be in the business of realising that they represent a myriad of people of all political views, that they need to deal with public representatives of all shades of opinion and that they would not get far if they put all their eggs in one basket. Those baskets have a habit of falling and when they do they fall with a mighty crash.
I was surprised to hear Fianna Fáil speakers say that this is new legislation and that the National Coalition did nothing about ground rents until their last days in office. The last attempt to regularise this was made in January 1977. A comprehensive attempt was made then to reform the entire code governing ground rents and it ill behoves anybody to suggest that this is the first attempt at reform that has arrived in recent times. We all know that for whatever reason, what-ever piece of cosmetics, window-dressing or public relations the Minister for Justice decided to embark upon, he took the National Coalition's comprehensive Bill and chopped it into three parts. He is calling them a trilogy of Bills. We have had the first, this is the second and, presumably, we will have the third shortly. When one considers that the first and second were carbon copies of the National Coalition Bill, one can assume that the third will also be a direct copy of Senator Cooney's Bill. When I hear the sanctimonious way different Fianna Fáil speakers refer to this legislation and the great attempts at social good being made by their party, efforts that were never before contemplated or bothered about by any other party, I wonder why the Minister did not refer to these as a trinity than a trilogy. Had he done that he might have been able to imply that there was a divine imprimatur on them now that they have been introduced by him.
I do not see any guarantee that by transferring responsibility for the execution of this measure to the Land Registry in Dublin, rather than the county registrar as suggested in the previous Bill, the method will be any more efficient. I am inclined to think that the only reason the Minister dropped the suggestion that all these matters should be handled locally by the county registrar was for the sake of change. He did not want to introduce a Bill which was almost identical to that introduced by his predecessor and decided to take this matter away from the county registrar because it will have the same effect ultimately although it may take longer, it may be less efficient and more frustrating for people in rural Ireland. I suggest that that is no more than change for change's sake. People in rural Ireland when in their county town on business felt capable of wandering into the office of the county registrar explaining to him that they wanted to purchase the ground rent and asking him to put the matter in train, bearing in mind that the documentation in relation to the lease would have been in the possession of the county registrar. I do not think that such people in rural Ireland would consider themselves in a position to get in touch with the Land Registry in Dublin. I am afraid many people in rural Ireland will decide that they will have to employ a solicitor to deal with the Land Registry. I do not see any man in a remote part of the country deciding he is going to take on the Land Registry in Dublin and asking them to execute his affairs. He will ask a solicitor to do it for him. It is a pity that that kind of situation will arise.
All of us know the difficulty that exists in the Land Registry at the moment because of shortage of staff and bad working conditions. The Minister has told us that a number of staff have been appointed already and are working on the backlog of ordinary work but he did not say how many additional staff will be employed to handle applications for the purchase of ground rents. It might be helpful to Members of the House if the Minister would indicate how many staff will take up duty in the Land Registry in order to service this legislation.
I appreciate that in the normal course of events solicitors' fees in matters such as this should be relatively small and should be fixed by scale. However, if there is any difficulty or query in relation to the title and if this involves correspondence between the solicitor in a rural town and the Land Registry in Dublin, or makes it necessary for him to travel to Dublin to sort out the matter, then in that case the fees a solicitor would be entitled to charge could be quite considerable. I am asking the Minister to contemplate the idea of putting a fixed maximum on the fees a solicitor might charge in such a case. I realise that in the normal course of events the solicitor's charges would be very small but if difficulty arises in relation to the title, if there is a lot of correspondence and perhaps a visit to Dublin by the solicitor, then the charges might become quite considerable. From that point of view there should be a maximum on the solicitor's charges.
With great glee the Minister has been harping on his predecessor's reference to £25 and his commitment to £5. It is fair to point out that under the 1967 Act the arbitration fee was £1.50 and 50p stamp duty, making a total of £2. The Minister is now setting the cost at £12.
