Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 12 May 1982

Vol. 334 No. 5

Private Members' Business. - Local Government (Building Land) Bill, 1982: Second Stage (Resumed).

The following motion was moved by Deputy Quinn on Tuesday, 11 May 1982:

"That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following:—

"Dáil Éireann declines to give a second reading to the Bill

(i) in view of the probability that its provisions are repugnant to the Constitution;

(ii) because of the actions which the Government have taken in the Budget to ensure that a major part of the increased value of development land will accrue to the public through the substantially increased capital gains taxes on disposals of such land; and

(iii) because the Government intend to take whatever additional measures may be necessary to ensure that land is made available to local authorities for development free of any element of speculative gains, in line with the aims of the Kenny report, and to review the provisions of the Local Government (Planning and Development) Acts, 1963 and 1976 in regard to the zoning of land by local authorities and the operation of Section 4 of the City and County Management (Amendment) Act, 1955 in relation to planning decisions.".

—(Minister for the Environment.)

Mr. P. Barry

Last night I outlined the difficulty I had, the faults I found in the Minister's amendment and I picked up some of the points he made in his speech to which I had some objection.

This Bill is an attempt to deal with an element of the most serious social problem facing any Government and this Oireachtas that it is possible to imagine. We are talking about a proportion of the cost of what is for the vast majority of married couples — and I am particularly concerned about married couples tonight — and single people the biggest investment of their lives: purchasing a house. Deputy Quinn estimated that the cost of the site was about 25 per cent of the cost of the house. Successive Governments since the foundation of the State have endeavoured by various means to encourage people to buy their own houses, and the balance of the population were catered for by the State providing the houses and letting them at a subsidised rent. In that sense the State are caught in the net of exorbitant site costs for their own housing programme.

As I said on a number of occasions, the house purchased most cheaply is the house for which cash is paid. The minority of the population who have enough money to buy their own houses are not caught in the same way as the rest of us who have to borrow money to purchase our houses. When a person purchases a house over an extended period, the house may be very much dearer when it is finally paid for because of the high interest charges, but that is something else.

Various efforts have been made over the past 15 years to deal with this problem by various Governments, by Fianna Fáil who commissioned the Kenny Report and two Coalition Governments. As the Minister acknowledged last night we had the last Attorney General looking at this problem and on two occasions the Labour Party have listed for Second Reading a Bill to control the cost of building land. I am sure the Independent Deputies are equally concerned about this matter. Any Member who holds a clinic to which young people come who are purchasing their own houses will recognise the financial strain under which these young people live. We should ensure that that strain is not added to by the high cost of the site.

We all recognise that something must be done about the cost of the sites. I am referring particularly to land on the outskirts of expanding urban areas where, through a fortuitous accident of birth or maybe somebody inheriting land or having a farm, a person gets a windfall profit from the sale of that land. I question the word "windfall" in this case.

The danger of legislating in this area is that, willy-nilly, people who do not want to sell or who do not want to make a very big profit will be pulled into the net. In justice, they must be given a price for their land which would allow them to move, if necessary, out of their present holdings and establish themselves in another area without loss, and "loss' includes disturbance and any other costs incurred. We would all love to see caught the speculator who deliberately buys land and holds it in the hope of making a big profit. They are the people we must get.

As I said, everybody agrees that something should be done to solve this problem and all Governments have attempted to do something and failed. I suggest that the way forward is not to be continually kicking this subject around like a political football, because I do not believe any Deputy is less concerned than another, but to pool our talents and brains to solve the problem. The time has come to set up a committee of this House composed of Members from all sides so that we can bring forward legislation acceptable to all and which would not be doubtful from a constitutional point of view, as the Minister alleges Deputy Quinn's Bill is.

After 15 years we would be less than fair to the people we say we are so concerned about if we did not adopt a common approach towards solving this problem. I ask the proposers of the Bill, the Labour Party, to withdraw the Bill, and the Minister to withdraw his amendment. Let us set up a committee and guarantee that, when we come back here again to debate this very important social problem, we will have legislation which will go through the House and be acceptable to all sides of the House, and will solve this problem.

Mr. Sherlock

I was interested to hear Deputy Barry's remarks. He was a Member of a Government who failed to tackle this problem. Be that as it may.

Mr. P. Barry

If the Deputy had been here last night he would have heard what I had to say about that.

Mr. Sherlock

Ireland is now mainly an urban society. The process of urbanisation and urban renewal plays an important part in the quality of life enjoyed by our citizens. As part of the solution to this problem, it is vitally important that the State and the local authorities should have power to control the price of land required for housing and other forms of development.

Housing is an essential social necessity, and it is the statutory duty of the State to ensure that families are provided with houses in which to make their homes. Untold harm is being done to Irish family life by reason of the fact that very often young married couples have to live in temporary dwellings, in overcrowded conditions with in-laws, or as tenants of unscrupulous landlords. The family is the basis of society in Ireland. It is not recognised that breakdowns in marriage can be attributed to the fact that it takes so long for local authorities to provide adequate housing. Very often this delay is caused by the difficulty experienced by local authorities in acquiring land for housing.

In January 1971 the Government set up a committee which submitted what became known as the Kenny Report. Their terms of reference were: (1) To consider in the interests of the common good possible measures for (a) controlling the price of land required for housing and other forms of development, (b) ensuring that all or a substantial part of the increase in the value of land attributable to the decisions and operations of public authorities (including, in particular, decisions and operations relating to the provision of sewerage and water schemes by local authorities) shall be secured for the benefit of the community. (2) To report on the merits and demerits of any measures considered, with particular reference to their legal and administrative practicability. (3) To advise on what changes in the present law may be required to give effect to any measures recommended. That was proper and correct and nobody could disagree with it.

In or around that period the price of land began to soar, very often by reason of the fact that the local authorities provided services such as water, sewerage, drainage and re-zoning facilities. Then came the racketeers. Possibly we have the same situation at local level, but the problem may not be as great as it is in the metropolis. What happened? Ken Rowan came back to Ireland with £8,000. Today he is a millionaire twice over. Last year it was reported in all the papers that "wealthy landlords in Dublin stand to grab £110 million over the next few days as their lands are re-zoned for housing and factories". Under this deal — and I will mention the name; and this was announced publicly as well — Gerry Jones sold his farm of 190 acres, which he bought for £60,000 19 years ago, for £7½ million. Gallagher was in trouble with the banks recently because he failed to sell property which he bought with £10 million borrowed from the State company Irish Life. He could have picked up £5 million of the taxpayers' money. Patrick Gallagher whose firm are now in receivership has been described as playing monopoly with the streets of Dublin.

The policy pursued by successive Governments in the past was to encourage people to move from the rural to the urban areas. A growing population with increasing numbers of young married couples concentrated in urban areas provides a strong potential source of upward pressure on land prices in those areas; hence the need for a policy to control the price of the land.

The Kenny majority report put forward suggested methods for dealing with the disproportionate increase in the price of serviced and potential building land. The failure of successive Governments to implement the recommendations in the report which could be said only to be in the interest of the common good is an example of the powerful lobby and influence of the people of wealth and property.

If it is contended that the enactment of legislation and its implementation could be repugnant to the Constitution, I should like to point out that Article 43.2.1.º states:

The State recognises, however, that the exercise of the rights mentioned in the foregoing provisions of this Article ought, in civil society, to be regulated by the principles of social justice.

It is about time that the Government moved towards a policy of social justice. The best way to gain experience of this whole matter is to be a member of a local authority. Members of local authorities look to the central Government for the right decisions to enable them to do their work: the provision of services, housing being a priority. I said earlier that untold harm was being done to Irish family life by reason of the fact that young married couples have not got adequate housing accommodation and have to live in circumstances which cause marriage breakdowns in some instances. As members of local authorities from time to time we have all exerted pressure on local officials to acquire land, to build up a land bank so that that land would be available for housing when the need arose. Of course the need is there always.

Some years ago there was a restriction imposed by central Government on the amount of land a local authority could acquire. That was bad enough in itself but recently — and it rather surprised me — the Minister issued what appeared to me to be a regulation or an order taken down from the shelves, the dust being shaken off, and sent to local authorities telling their managers that they or their officials, whether they be architects, engineers or others, dare not buy land until such time as an inspector from the Department of the Environment had carried out an inspection. I say to the Minister that he should withdraw that order immediately, that it makes no sense whatever for the simple reason that we know full well that local managers, their engineers and architects or land purchase officers will carry out that task efficiently. What they require is the capital to so do. But to maintain that the high cost of local authority housing can be attributed to the fact that in the first instance, in the purchase of land, local authorities did not take certain factors into consideration does not stand up. I shall be pleased if the Minister will state that he will withdraw that order straight away, at least allowing local authority officials to proceed with their mandatory task of acquiring land, developing that land and preparing it for housing, without having to await inspection by an official of the Department before they conclude any deal.

We heard also that it was the policy of the Department of the Environment to have a devolved housing programme. Can anybody maintain that we have a devolved housing programme when a local authority must submit each proposed scheme to be scrutinised for its unit cost? One might contend that this has not to do entirely with the Bill we are discussing. I contend that it has because there are enough problems to be overcome by local authorities in the acquisition of land without having them hamstrung by regulations such as that issued recently by the Minister for the Environment.

This Bill could be deemed to constitute a half-way measure in giving some guidelines to local authorities on this most important question, that of enabling them to designate and acquire land. It is our policy in The Workers' Party to demand the full implementation of the recommendations of the Kenny Report which we see as the only solution to this problem.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): The debate on this Bill would appear to me to be unnecessarily taking up the time of this House. The handful of Members present — looking at the total absence of Members on the benches across the House — indicates the sincerity on the part of the Labour Party who are promoting the Bill. Of course we heard from Deputy Peter Barry that this Bill was not being supported by Fine Gael, which verifies what I have said, that it is purely a time-wasting exercise particularly when one considers that the very same Bill, in every detail, was introduced in this House in 1980 by Deputy Quinn. It was debated over a period of four days, I think in the month of June 1980, was supported only by Labour Deputies but not supported by the Fine Gael Party. Indeed, no member of the Fine Gael Party even contributed to the debate.

Mr. Quinn

On a point of information, I might point out that that was not so.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): In concluding the debate on that occasion Deputy Quinn conceded that the Bill was not perfect and that quite a number of alterations would be required before the Fine Gael Party might consider supporting or accepting it at any time. Yet we have the situation now in which the very same Bill has been re-introduced in this House by the same Deputy, again not obtaining support from Coalition colleagues. All that happened two years ago. I should have thought that two years was sufficiently long for the Labour Party, had they been sincere in their efforts, to effect the alterations Deputy Quinn admitted were then required.

One can only conclude that this Bill is a convenient exercise, perhaps because of the pending by-election. Fianna Fáil have always prided themselves on being the party of reality. Our approach always has been to effect social and economic change on a progressive basis, indeed not to adopt any radical schemes which might sound fine in theory but which, in practice, might carry all sorts of unforeseen circumstances or results.

It would appear to me that the programme outlined in this House by the Minister for the Environment last evening is fully consistent with the Fianna Fáil approach over the years. We must remember that the land market and the building industry constitute major elements of our economic development and that any ill-considered action which might upset them certainly would cause severe hardship and difficulties in relation to all aspects of house ownership, house building and the construction industry generally. Therefore it is necessary to move extremely carefully in this area, as the Minister suggested last evening. We must also ensure that any action we might take would not render it even more difficult for people to house themselves by drying up the supply of building land and sites, or by driving up the price of such land or sites. We must ensure that any remedial action we might take is not of a kind that would involve a great deal more bureaucracy with more money being spent on staffing and administrative costs than on the actual land purchase. Indeed this was the result of one effort made in Britain in the sixties to introduce a system such as Deputy Quinn seemed to have, in mind in re-introducing this Bill.

Last evening Deputy Quinn spoke of what he saw as self-imposed constraints which prevent us from dealing adequately with the problem of building land which, he said, in turn did nothing for the common wellbeing of the vast majority of our people. I wonder if this is really the case. How many of us would like to envisage a situation in which local councils, local officials, the Minister or his officials could decide which landowners should be singled out and given the honour of becoming public benefactors, as Deputy Fitzpatrick (Cavan-Monaghan) described the situation under this Bill when it was introduced in 1980? I do not think this Bill and its provisions could be said to be for the common good especially as we have here a very high proportion of people who own land in some form or other. Deputies should not be fooled into thinking that this Bill applies only to large tracts of development land owned by some faceless people, or some faceless company because that is not the case at all. The Bill will enable local authorities to acquire existing dwellings, offices, shops, factories and indeed buildings used for social purposes provided, in the opinion of the local authority, they are essential for the overall development of the area or that they are under-utilised in some form or other.

The Bill requires that where a local authority applies the provisions of the Bill only the current use value should be paid for any of this kind of property rather than the open market value. This seems to be giving really savage powers to local authorities. We have the greatest respect for those who serve on local councils and for local officials, but I wonder how anybody could seriously propose to impose this kind of responsibility on them. It would be grossly unfair and unjust to the people concerned, to the officials and members of the local councils. The local government system would end up in chaos and be brought into total disrepute. It would lose the support it now enjoys among the local community. That I think would be a sad day for the country.

Last night Deputy Barry spoke for 20 minutes on behalf of Fine Gael but in that time he did not say a word about the provisions of the Bill we are debating. Tonight he spoke for about eight minutes and devoted most of the time to the Bill.

Last night he said he was intrigued by the Minister's speech. I was even more puzzled at Deputy Barry's contribution and his ability to talk for so long without actually dealing with the legislation before us. Surely it is no accident that the Deputy managed to avoid for so long any reference to the Bill. He made some small reference to it tonight — that the Fine Gael Party could not support the Bill. This is exactly the same stance which that party took in 1980. Could it be that Deputy Barry and members of his party are faced with a situation in which they found the Minister's approach far more to their liking than Deputy Quinn's Bill but he could not bring himself to say that? Fine Gael have been in Government for half the period since the Kenny Report was published. They did nothing to implement the report and have not proposed any alternative.

Mr. L'Estrange

Neither did you do anything in the other half of the period.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): I do not think we have come here to listen to your interruptions. The Deputy is a good hand at that and that is about as far as his contributions go. If he is here to speak tonight I promise I will not interrupt him.

Mr. L'Estrange

I can make a contribution any time and I do not have to read it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I shall manage Deputy L'Estrange and any interruptions made. Deputy Brady will not be interrupted.

Mr. L'Estrange

I was called to order for reading a speech on a few occasions.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy could also be called to order for reading newspapers but the Chair overlooked it. Deputy Brady to proceed without interruption.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): I assure Deputy L'Estrange that, as a conscientious Deputy, I make copious notes and prepare my contributions before coming to the House.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Brady should address himself to the Chair and not enter into a dialogue between himself and Deputy L'Estrange.

Mr. L'Estrange

I would not mind that.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): The Minister's speech last night showed that the Government are serious about taking measures to deal with the problem in line with the aims of the Kenny Report. The Minister went to some trouble to spell out the approaches that are being actively considered and he explained what has been done already. This is surely a more honest approach than that adopted last night by Deputy Barry. It would seem that the party wants to run with the hare and chase with the hounds. Governments cannot do this and Fianna Fáil Governments have always behaved in a very constructive manner and are certainly not prepared to govern in that fashion. I am confident that the Minister for the Environment, with the support of the Government, can be relied on to produce a constructive programme, an action programme in relation to the whole matter of building land.

The present Bill was obviously introduced to bolster up the declining fortunes of the Labour Party when the by-election is being fought. Our society has always accepted the right of private ownership of property. Our Constitution enshrines that.

Mr. L'Estrange

Not always.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): Our society also accepts free enterprise as a basic element in the economy. These facts may be unpalatable to the Labour Party and I am quite sure that their erstwhile comrades in Government, including Deputy L'Estrange, do not question either the right of private ownership or free enterprise.

Mr. L'Estrange

I remember the thirties when land was confiscated — 300 acres and a woman in Meath ended up with £99.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): If that is the best Deputy L'Estrange can do, to go back 50 years, I fear the ability on that side of the House leaves much to be desired.

Mr. L'Estrange

That was in the day of Eamon de Valera. I remember it well.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): I am sure the vast majority of Deputies in the House are opposed to discrimination against any citizen and would be totally opposed for that reason to the Bill now before us. I say this because Deputy Quinn's Bill is potentially the most discriminatory piece of legislation to come before the House in my time as a Deputy. It specifically requires local authorities to designate special areas of land in their functional area and state that in these designated areas a different pricing system will apply while in the undesignated area the present free market system will operate. Is this the Labour Party's idea of treating all citizens equally and giving equal rights to all? The group of people who would be most affected by Deputy Quinn's proposals are the small farmers — I am quite sure Deputy L'Estrange will be concerned for them—who live in the vicinity of towns and might find themselves in the position of making a modest sum by selling part of their land for building sites. Certainly the people of Dublin 4 or the Donnybrook set would not be affected by these proposals and the same applies——

Mr. L'Estrange

What about the quotation in The Irish Press yesterday concerning wheeling and dealing between Haughey and Gallagher? Tell me something about that.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): I spoke earlier about the free market and private ownership of property.

Mr. L'Estrange

That appeared in The Irish Press yesterday.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Let us deal with the Bill. If the Deputy contributes later I am sure that there are a number of points he would wish to raise and I certainly, as I have indicated, will not interrupt him. The Chair would like the Deputy to remain silent and allow Deputy Brady to speak without interruption. I would also suggest to Deputy Brady that he should not, by naming Deputy L'Estrange with such frequency, appear to be appealing to him to respond.

Mr. L'Estrange

He asked me about the small farmers and our concern for them. We would be more concerned about them than the Gallaghers.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): I shall refrain from referring to Deputy L'Estrange by name again.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

You give him a significance which he seems to relish. I suggest that you address your remarks to the Chair.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): I do not think he deserves that significance. I spoke earlier about the free market and private ownership of property. If we stayed with both of these we would have no need for Deputy Quinn's Bill. Section 6 of the Bill before us deals with the proposed designated areas. This section attempts to provide criteria to guide the local authority as to what land to include in a designated area but it fails in this because it uses such phrases as “the lands will probably be used” and “in the opinion of the local authority”. This kind of phrase immediately raises the possibility of argument as to what degree of probability must be present or what are the considerations on which the local authority's opinion is to be based. That sort of loose, vague provision, which raises questions as to its meaning, almost invariably leads to arguments that are settled only in the courts after prolonged and costly proceedings. This will result in greater expense and higher prices for people who are seeking to purchase homes or to be housed.

Apart from the drafting points I have raised, there is also the major point of the principle involved in the provisions of section 6. This section, in conjuction with other provisions of the Bill, would simply bring about an almost total blight on development in an area. The local authorities are given special powers to designate and acquire property if it is under-utilised, but there is no definition of "under-utilised" in the Bill. How can a local authority decide if a house, a shop, a factory, a garden or a storage shed is under-utilised? Opinions about whether property is under-utilised will vary widely. The Bill in this respect appears to try to confer on local authorities arbitrary and undefined powers which could, unfortunately, lead to a certain amount of abuse, although it is more likely that local authorities could find those kind of powers so dubious that they would not attempt to use them at all.

In section 10 of Deputy Quinn's Bill the House is being asked to throw out fundamental concepts embodied in the Planning Act, 1963. Subsection (1) abolishes the principle enshrined in sections 26 and 30 of the Planning Act, 1963, that planning permission can be refused, revoked or modified only as a consideration of the proper planning and development of the area. The Bill requires this principle to be swept aside completely and replaced by a new principle that a planning authority may refuse to grant planning permission for the development of land in respect of a designated area in relation to an order which has been confirmed, on the grounds that such land is included in that order.

It appears to be the intention that the normal planning criteria, be they related to an amenity or any normal orderly planning, will not operate in the case of a refusal of planning permission in a designated area. The only thing that will matter is that the local authority have the power to expropriate the owner from an existing use value. It can be seen that sections of this Bill would cause serious confusion and would work unduly harshly against the vast majority of the population. As if this bulldozer attack on planning principles were not bad enough, the Bill also removes all the carefully contrived structures built into the 1963 Planning Act in relation to compensation.

Anybody who reads the complex provisions can see that, in providing for compensation arising from refusal of planning permission, the rights of the individual property owner as well as the common good have been taken into consideration. This will automatically be cancelled out under the provisions of the Bill. If this Bill were implemented it would mean the elected members of local authorities would be burdened with responsibility for drawing up the demarcation lines between areas where there would be, on one side, restricted marketable land and, on the other side, an open market. In a restricted area the local authority would have the absolute say in the acquisition of all land for private development and public works. The only exceptions would be land on which development has commenced in respect of which planning permission had been granted, land used for community, recreational and sporting purposes and land which is the property of a public authority.

The Bill does not provide the criteria for establishing the conditions under which the local authority would form an opinion that the overall development and renewal of an area is or is not necessary. We all accept that this type of vague provision invariably ends up in cases being brought to court with consequential expenses and long drawn out delays causing expense to every party concerned.

We are all concerned to ensure that land at reasonable prices for the purpose of house building is available and is maintained. We are also concerned that abnormal increases in the price of land should not benefit the big speculator at the expense of the ordinary citizen and our young people who are seeking housing for the first time. I am sure nobody in the House would approve of that. This Bill would add chaos to the overall situation of housing and the construction industry, not to mention the chaos it would cause to local authorities.

I have already outlined the difficulties that would arise under the Bill when a local authority would have to acquire the land or take it compulsorily. We are also assuming that the houses that might be built would be local authority houses. If we assume that private houses are acquired in that area, the authority then resell the land to a private builder, thus increasing costs. We all accept that the vast majority of houses built in the Dublin area each year are built by the private sector. I believe that should be encouraged. It should not be left to local authorities to build all the houses needed. That simply cannot be done. The major demand for houses by young couples is for those built privately. That is where we should be concentrating our efforts. We should try to encourage young couples to save for the purchase of their own homes. We should try to make it easier for them to obtain loans, to meet repayments and, above all, to ensure that housing is available to young couples at reasonable prices, prices which an ordinary young couple starting life are able to afford.

Although our laws are not perfect, I believe they can be improved, but this type of Bill we have before us would not improve the position in any way whatever. It would add chaos, difficulties and disappointment to the lot of people seeking homes, particularly our young married people, apart from the other technical difficulties that would arise. We have heard Deputy Barry say that Fine Gael will not be supporting this Bill. Should Deputy Quinn or the Labour Party decide to bring similar legislation before the House again one would hope that they would at least do a little more homework first and not bring before us what is a rehash of something that took place two years earlier. In acting in this way the Labour Party are being cynical. They are trying to take advantage of a political opportunity at this by-election time. Deputy L'Estrange will understand that, he being an expert on that sort of ploy.

Mr. L'Estrange

I can only smile at that hypocrisy since the Leader of the Deputy's party will not announce the extra Ministers of State until the by-election is over lest some people might be annoyed and refuse to work in the election area.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Brady, please.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): The Deputy should not accuse us of political hypocrisy.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should confine himself to the debate.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): The Deputy must not be suited to the Dublin West constituency. I am amazed at the empty benches on the Fine Gael side.

Mr. L'Estrange

They are out canvassing and I am sitting here because I am acting Whip. That is the only reason I am here this evening.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): This Bill is ill-timed and it is very badly drafted. If any Deputy thinks seriously that the kind of system proposed by the Labour Party would work, he should think again. Does any deputy think, for instance, that any majority of elected members of a local authority could do what this Bill, if enacted, would oblige them to do? It happens sometimes that zoning decisions taken by local authorities seem to add to the value of the land zoned but the Bill proposes that decisions to designate land would have the effect of reducing it in value and such reduction could bring the land value down to a half, a quarter, or even only one-tenth of its market value.

Mr. L'Estrange

Who bought land for £10,000, had it rezoned and sold it for £300,000? Was it not the Deputy's leader?

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): I am confident that very few Deputies would accept the type of criteria proposed in this Bill because if we were to start on the slippery slope of taking land compulsorily from citizens for as little as one-tenth of its market value we would be on a road on which there would be no turning back, a road that could lead only to disaster.

Mr. Higgins

I do not intend to spend much time referring to the speech we have just heard. I find it a tedious rehash of the bankrupt arguments put on to the record of the House in June 1980 and which can be found at Volumes 321 and 322 of the Official Report. That speech ended on a very interesting note. This Bill has been described as putting society on a slippery slope on which there would be a drift away from the market value of land. Earlier, reference was made to the Bill being ill-timed.

It is very interesting to note that not once was the phrase "overdue" heard in the speech. Our people, those, for example, who have urgent housing needs or who have relatives who have urgent housing needs, believe that legislation such as this is overdue and they will not thank Deputy Brady for his rehashed objections or for his suggestion that the legislation is ill-timed and inoperable.

Mr. Brady

(Dublin North-Central): They will not thank Deputy Quinn either.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Higgins must be allowed to make his speech without interruption.

Mr. L'Estrange

He is not afraid of interruptions.

An Ceann Comhairle

But the Chair is here to protect him.

Mr. Higgins

In the 30 minutes available to me I had to make many choices as to how I would use that time. I thought, for example, of looking around the House and listing the names of all those I know to have benefited from speculation or who had contacts with different people who benefited from the sale of land but I decided that to proceed in that manner would occupy most of my time. Consequently, I decided to address myself instead to the principles of the Bill.

To those who are interested in legislation of this kind I want to say that it is legislation that will not be welcomed by those who are in favour of speculation, that it will not be welcomed by those who wish to make vast private fortunes from social investment in services, who, for example, have sat on land or who have bought buildings and allowed them to decay, waiting for zoning decisions and for decisions for change of usage. Neither will the Bill be welcomed by the spokespersons of such people, political and otherwise, but it will be welcomed by all those people who every weekend meet Deputies from all sides of the House to explain their housing needs. Each weekend all of us meet the many women who push prams and go-cars to our clinics, so called, to seek our help in regard to housing.

It is very interesting that the Labour Party should be accused of cynicism. Is it not regrettable that the political spokesperson for the largest party in the House would not be influenced more by the people with housing needs rather than by those who own property and who are in a minority, who are only a fraction of the people Deputies meet at weekends and who are in need of housing?

Obviously we are to have a tedious rerun of the old objections that were prepared for the Minister in 1980. It might be appropriate to dispose of a few of them rather quickly. There is one in particular which I will address to you, Sir, as Chairman of this Assembly. It is an objection that I regard as subversive in its suggestion. I refer to the suggestion that was made in the Minister's speech last night and one that was made also by his party in June 1980 that people who sit in this Legislature should be inhibited from introducing a Bill of this kind in anticipation of constitutionality. I put it to the House that it is a matter for the President and the Council of State to decide to what it is appropriate for the President to affix his signature or on what to seek an opinion from the Supreme Court. It is impertinent in a speech to this Legislature to suggest that we must be impotent while a fear exists that any one of these other organs within the Constitution may express unfavourable or negative opinion. To suggest that is to suggest a diminished role for the Legislature.

I shall explain this very simply. If, after having been discussed by this House and by the Seanad, this Bill were found to be unconstitutional, it would perhaps join other Bills that had also been found to have been unconstitutional but all the Bills that have been found unconstitutional would be a perfect record of what representatives in this Assembly had considered necessary to bring before their fellow elected Members. Then the scrutiny could shift to the constitutional provision that is being used as a block to socially desirable legislation. Instead, we have a repetition once again of the extraordinary spectacle of the Constitution being waved as an impediment to socially desirable legislation. That is a cowardly and dishonourable point and one that does not fit honourably within a reasonable interpretation of the Constitution.

There are other points that have been made by many speakers but which can be grouped together under one suggestion, that is, that the Bill is inoperable in some of its provisions. However, the mover of the Bill, Deputy Quinn, said explicitly that we would welcome suggestions and proposed amendments to the Bill. My reply to Deputy Barry, who suggested that we withdraw the Bill, that the Government withdraw their amendments and that the matter be sent to a special committee is that there is nothing to stop the House going into Committee on the Bill so that we can hear all the wonderful, positive suggestions people have to offer for making it a better piece of legislation than it is in its draft form. A semi-constitutional issue arises here. Is the onus on the Labour Party to have every dot and comma of a Bill perfect in draftmanship before it can be introduced in the House? That suggestion is absurd and it reflects the unique advantage the Cabinet enjoy within the Irish parliamentary system of having an exclusive and monopolised claim on the services of the permanent civil service. To make the suggestion that sections could be better in drafting or in wording is just one of those ways of seeking a cheap advantage from a parliamentary system that is unique in this feature and is different from other parliamentary assemblies in other parts of the world.

I should now like to deal with the fundamentals of the legislation before us. Like Deputy Brady, I read the debate of June 1980, when a similar Bill was introduced, as reported at volumes 321 and 322 of the Official Report. On that occasion many speakers decided to give an opinion about the importance of land as a concept to the Irish people. People who were against the Bill said that land had a curious hold over the minds of the Irish people. The suggestion was made tacitly that the Land War in the last century was carried out so as to establish the principles of greed and speculation in this century and that, if one took away the possibilities of vast unearned fortunes being made from speculation, one would be working against the principles of Davitt and those who followed him. Only those who have a record of abusing history could make such a suggestion, and it was made two years ago. We all know that the land movement at the end of the last century was a response to the social and population pressures in which — the phrase used was congests — the countryside was filled with people who could not sustain themselves on the land. People below the subsistence line died while others emigrated. The pressure for land was that it be used socially, that smallholders be allowed to make a living from it. It is a corruption to suggest that that impulse is the same impulse as in the mind of the speculator that exists today.

I should like to reply to a fundamental of this contained in the suggestion made by Deputy Brady. To suggest that to stop speculation is to interfere with that sacred concept in the Irish mind, private property, and that it will equally attack free enterprise is wrong. How much a price, even within the mixed economy or the capitalist system that prevails here, have we paid for this disastrous social attitude? How can buying a building, waiting for it to fall down in a few years' time and then waiting for the area to be rezoned be called enterprise? How can buying a farm, sitting back and waiting for it to increase in value when it is rezoned be called enterprise? Today we see it in another sense within their own miserable economic system, the proponents of private enterprise. How many millions are tied up in decaying buildings waiting for decisions so that vast miserable private fortunes can be made? How much money is tied up, for example, in land on the periphery of cities waiting for rezoning decisions that will generate private fortunes? Those private fortunes which are made on the backs of the homeless, will be spent in such a way as to win the adulation of the public, the support of the public and the votes of the public so that they can sit in this assembly and it will not be a source of embarrassment to know that they began their seedy careers in speculation and in making money out of the misery of the homeless.

The Bill before the house will rightly be opposed by those people, but I should like to tell the House the reason it is being introduced by the Labour Party. We believe it is time to address ourselves to a question we have been neglecting and all Governments have been neglecting. I am generous in my criticism in that respect. We have to make a fundamental choice. The population is expanding and land is fixed. Do we take the fixity of land as a principle for exploitation against an expanding population or do we address ourselves to the fixity of land as a problem and devise a land policy that will be able to handle the immense possibilities of the expansion of the population? That is not some peripheral socialist suggestion.

The Minister, when replying, might like to refer to why such a suggestion from the National Economic and Social Council last year in report No. 55 made a plea for a land policy. The council suggested that something should be done about the Kenny Report or, if that was felt to be insufficient, that something better than it should be adopted. The Council suggested that, if the Kenny Report were not the model, a new strategy on how to approach the question of land should be devised. That was not the suggestion of a socialist but of the commissioned researcher who published his findings in that report, entitled Urbanisation, Problems of Growth and Decay in Dublin. Did that report say, "Go into the Dáil, Minister, and tell Members what you said two years ago"? Or would such a report have said in 1980: "Let us think of reasons why we can block this"? Will the legislator be thanked for having put on the record, nearly a decade after the establishment of the Kenny Committee, the fact that it has found things wrong again this week about the suggestion of developing a land policy?

In this city there are people without shelter and there are people with shelter who will work for one-third of the working week to generate the money to pay the building societies for the roof over their heads. There are other young people who are thinking of getting married and they know they will work for the financial institutions for one-third of their lives. Will they thank the legislature? We will say that we found it difficult to reconcile with the Constitution but they will reply: "If you did that why did you not allow it to go through your Legislature and through the constitutional process?" If the Government party believe that there is wonderful support for the objections to the Bill, I challenge them this evening to put it to a referendum, to put it side by side with the referendum they have agreed to hold this year so that we can see the support they will get and the support the Labour Party will get for removing this constitutional impediment, if it is held to exist. It is not an argument to suggest that there are constitutional impediments or to come up with the lesser argument that sections of it are inoperable, how one would decide about the size of a garden and so on.

Are we given intelligence, benefit and privilege in society to work for the State or to be elected to represent the State to produce such piddling objections to a Bill like this? Why not respond to the Bill and say: "Yes, we accept the principles of it but we will ask the Labour Party to put it back for a while so that we can sit in committee with them to improve it"? That is not the response. We are being opposed on Second Stage on the principles of the Bill. The people who do not vote for it will be people who will be lining up on the opposite side of the road to the homeless and those who are being exploited in housing. We should be clear about that. We have not had an indication of an improved Bill but a list of things that may be introduced, clawbacks of profits.

I should like to address myself to some of the alternatives. To say that it is intended to tax the gains of speculation is obviously better than having tax-free speculation, as we have had for so long in this State. However, it involves the principle of speculation and one cannot have an adequate land policy unless one looks at speculation itself and at the manner in which it takes place, unless one is willing to strike at it at its source. How can one say that even a partial solution like that, which is better than nothing, is an adequate substitution for legislation like this?

There is, abroad in the public, a sense of urgency about this legislation. I will go so far as to say that not only is there support for a Bill like this among the general public and those who understand and feel strongly about housing, but that if the Association of County Managers were asked about this they would be in favour of legislation like that. However, that will not happen after the vote is taken on the Second Reading of this Bill. They will not be asked. The Bill will have been defeated again.

If you asked people who work, for example, as public representatives all around the country — who, it is suggested, would not have the capacity to take the decisions which this Bill would ask of them as put by Deputy Brady a few minutes ago — what they think of this Bill, they would tell you they want such legislation, that something should be done about this minority of people who insist on abusing constitutional provisions to make vast private fortunes at the expense of the majority who need housing.

Mr. L'Estrange

They are making plenty of money now, but they will be taxed after the by-election.

Mr. Higgins

There are other very important aspects of this Bill. It would provide the land upon which houses would be built. The point has already been covered by Deputy Quinn as to the proportion of the total cost of housing that site cost constitutes. I do not want to enter into dispute as to whether this is as low as ten per cent, as some people put it in 1980, 35 per cent, or whatever. The fact is that if you can produce legislation like this, you have controlled one of the primary aspects of high housing cost. That is the philosophy of this legislation, it is no less than that. The public need requires that. We must do it. Supposing we do not do it, the high price of housing land, in relation to the cost of local authority housing provision — and I would not want to delay on that because the Government have already dismissed it as less important than private housing as we have just heard — and even in relation to private housing, is obviously, passed on in the house price. One effect of this legislation would be to control that element. It would not do the three or four things which Deputy Barrett, then Minister for the Environment, suggested in June 1980, and which was suggested last night by his successor and by Deputy Brady. You could summarise those objections of two years ago as follows:

It will strike terror into all those who have dearly held the concept of private property in their hearts. It will discourage private builders from moving into the building area. Unemployment will follow, decay and blight. The public would not support such a constitutional decision as is being suggested by the Labour Party. A layer of bureaucracy will be created.

Mr. L'Estrange

Oh, my goodness.

Mr. Higgins

It will impede the provision of housing, private and public. Similar legislation to this has failed in Britain.

And then there is a little rider:

But, however, in Wales where they went on the open market, the Welsh Land Authority performed a little better than the rest of Britain.

Of course, the reason is given. It bought its land on the open market. If you are going to let the market put the price on land for both public and private housing, what you are essentially doing is accepting the principle of speculation on one of the principal components in land price sales and also simply making a social need fit the market and provide the rewards which that market will confer on the few people involved in speculation, from the grass to the putting of the final bits of furniture into the house. Let us say that — market considerations. However if you believe that, say to the people in a constitutional referendum "We have been put in doubt as to whether these private property clauses should be given precedence over other social provisions". Do not hide behind them, I say to the Government. Test the people. It is a long time since 1937. There were even daft people like myself who read the history of that Constitution and how it was written and who might argue that the right of people to make vast private speculative profit would never have been envisaged by Mr. de Valera. Perhaps it was not. If so, let us find out. Let us have a referendum on these clauses and get a straight answer.

Then the seedy, subversive suggestion was made in 1980 which, no doubt, will be repeated now, that the Supreme Court might not decide in favour of this legislation. Last night we heard how the Supreme Court had taken certain decisions in relation to rent restrictions and might be likely to make a similar decision on a Bill of this kind. That is an improper suggestion from an elected assembly in the Dáil. The Supreme Court is free to make up its own mind in relation to every piece of legislation which is placed before it. To suggest, in anticipation, a decision of the court is to hide behind something which you have not the courage to face up to yourself.

In the situation where local authorities, in the absence of this legislation, had to buy building land on the open market, let us be clear on the effect which that has had historically. Members of the Department of Local Government can advise the Minister to refute this in his reply. I would like to feel that I am wrong on this, but my own work suggests that this is the case. Sometimes local authorities will attempt to build up a land bank and, while they are acquiring land, few houses will be built. Then, they attempt to build houses and the amount of land which they have remains frozen. Then the houses are built and they are out of land and have to go on the market again for land.

Look at the structure of local authority finances in that period and you will find that it did exactly what we are being accused of doing in this Bill in relation to unemployment — it created a stop-go effect in relation to the provision of houses. It produced unemployment, uncertainty and bad planning in that regard. It did all the things which it is suggested that our Bill would do. It has not just been doing them recently, it has been doing them for many decades. Sometimes the local authorities can be building houses and sometimes acquiring land. Under the present structure, they cannot be doing both and because of that, they are purchasing land on the open market and producing not only uncertainty in relation to the provision of housing and far fewer houses than are needed, but bringing chaos and unemployment into all aspects of the building industry.

To summarise, the great, dramatic movement in population in Ireland, it has been said, has been from rural areas into cities and towns. When the last census was analysed, preliminary results would seem to suggest that it is now not only Dublin which is experiencing an acute housing shortage, but also the towns. In the Dublin area, the problem is a suburban one, in relation to the facilities required in the greater Dublin area. This is a very important aspect. We have allowed that urbanisation, that regional imbalance to happen. It brings about rural decay which is the other side of the coin, houses being neglected and abandoned in rural areas which are deprived of traditional industries, areas from which people have come to other areas where there is pressure on schools, on transport, on all the things which are needed, and has created urban diseconomy there.

This has come about because of the opposition fundamentally and totally to the concept of planning. We have generally opposed planning. We claim to have an industrial policy, a policy in relation to energy, and in relation to employment, and that we have been able to "manage" with our plan. Within planning, in particular the planning of urban space, we have had a dreadful result. Our population has come flocking and disbanded to urban areas and, at the same time, we have had no legislative response to create the framework in space in which that population might acquire the most necessary basic need they have — shelter. We have made no provision for that. So the homeless join the people who live within the unplanned educational sector and the unplanned industrial sector but there is a difference. Deputy Quinn made reference to class. It is very interesting to look at the history and shape of cities and see how cross space class divisions were measured, people requiring space around them which had a certain view, the position of riches on the hills in the cities of the world. Today the major expansion of our population is taking place within cities and towns. The fixity of land is being used to confer a benefit on speculation. The expansion of the population is being ignored. It has been told it must dance to the tune of speculation. The response of this Legislature has been to say that they believe that when the Constitution was written ownership of land had to be protected as an aspect of private property and must be protected today as the principle for generating private speculative fortunes. Our response is that it must go on because it is constitutional and proper and, at best, we will tax the greatest volume of ill-gotten gains.

Meanwhile, the population expands, creating homeless people and housing which is too dear and I warn my fellow legislators in this regard. If we go on ignoring the problem of unemployment and the unplanned economy with its consequences on employment, if we put homelessness side by side with that people will seek a solution and it will not be a solution that we will be allowed the luxury of debating in this House. If this Bill is defeated it will not be a defeat for the Labour Party, it will be the refusal of people to address themselves to probably the most serious problem next to unemployment that society faces. I support the Bill.

Mr. Briscoe

I understand the intention behind the Bill, that it is prompted by gross abuses by certain people which happened in the past in land speculation. Having said that, we recognise also that it is all very well to introduce a Bill like this but Deputy Higgins seems to think that because most people — even in his own party — consider it to be unconstitutional we should enact it anyway and let the courts decide. He also seems to think that to do otherwise would be a disgrace. My philosophy as a public representative has always been that my first priority in this House is to uphold the constitutional rights of the citizens and that is a very important right. We cannot deliberately pass legislation——

Mr. L'Estrange

It is a slightly constitutional party.

Mr. Briscoe

When I was a member of Dublin Corporation I found it hard to understand why sites were costing so much to builders on land which had been purchased by the corporation many years before at a much lower figure and sold at a very much higher figure. I thought the corporation were speculating in making huge profits on land which they had acquired years before. I thought this land should be sold for sites at a price which would make it economical for young house purchasers to buy. It was explained to me that as the years went by, and as the price of land increased, in order for the corporation to acquire more land they had to charge an inflated price so that they could continue to purchase land. That taught me the lesson that the State then becomes the speculator and that you are caught in this cycle. Many things combine to make a house very expensive, not least the professional fees paid to architects.

The Labour Party admit that the Bill is not perfect and would like to see it debated in more detail on Committee Stage. One difficulty is that if a person wants to buy land in a designated area, permission has to be given by the local authority. All private dwellings in land and property would come to a standstill. It might mean that a farmer could not sell off a few sites to his neighbour's children to enable them to build houses so that they could live in their own area. There are a number of other points to be considered. One point is that where it was considered by the local authority that the land was being under-utilised they might step in. In that case one is leaving oneself open to asking who is going to make this judgment? While people are rebelling against bureaucracy, we are creating an even greater inanimate bureaucracy which might not have the ability to see how this will affect people's lives. The Government have stated that they have taken steps, initially through taxation, to try to bring back some of the money by increasing capital gains tax in the recent budget——

Mr. L'Estrange

Who changed the 1968 Finance Bill when he bought a farm for £10,000 and sold it for £300,000? He already owns one island and is trying to get control of another.

Mr. Briscoe

I wonder why Deputy L'Estrange came into the House this evening. He has had plenty of opportunity to speak as he has been here since the debate began. The Minister said last night that in order to crack down on exorbitant profits from dealing in building land and to ensure that a significant proportion of windfall gains resulting from the provision of local services are returned to the community, significant changes were decided on and announced in the budget statement on 25 March. A capital gains tax of 50 per cent on gains from disposals of development land was announced, 5 per cent higher than the rate proposed in the Coalition budget. I did not hear any praise for Fianna Fáil for having brought that level up a bit higher than the Coalition, which was partnered by the Labour Party. I do not like speculation.

Debate adjourned.

The Dáil adjourned at 8.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 13 May 1982.