I move recommendation No. 1:—
Section 1, sub-section (1). To delete in line 18 the words and brackets "whether before or after the passing of this Act)" and to substitute therefor the words "after the passing of this Act."
The object of this recommendation, as of the others appearing on the Order Paper in my name, is to deprive the Bill of its retrospective character. Perhaps these particular recommendations may not be the best way to achieve that purpose, but, if the Government is wise enough to reconsider the matter, it would be possible for them to devise some other method to do it which would be more effective. I think the Government ought very seriously to consider the proposals put forward in these recommendations. As was said yesterday, retrospective legislation may be necessary, from time to time, but it is something to be avoided. I do not think we can take the Minister's point of view that this Bill is intended simply to make clear the intention of the Dáil. Take the phraseology used in the Bill about removing doubts. That is only implied because the courts have not yet given a decision and so, from the Government point of view, legislation may not, in the end, prove to be necessary. If they had waited the decision of the courts and it was adverse, the Bill would still be in the same form except in the opening words, and it could not be considered anything different from any other legislation going through the Oireachtas, and not something put there in a special way for the guidance of the court. Therefore we have to ignore the opening words of the section in considering this matter and face the thing as a definite act of retrospective legislation. Nothing has been put forward by the Minister that would prove it to be necessary to legislate retrospectively in this matter, and especially to justify retrospective legislation in the peculiar circumstances of this case.
Some of the retrospective legislation that has taken place in the past was in defence of our own courts. That matter has been fully discussed. The legislation dealing with the Privy Council, although retrospective in form, was for the purpose of preventing the Privy Council upsetting a decision of the Supreme Court here, and was quite different from any legislation that might be directed against our own courts. This coming in in the middle of litigation has a peculiarly objectionable flavour. It is much more objectionable than if the Government had waited until the courts had given their decision and then frankly reversed it on the basis of the various arguments the Minister has used. I think when the case is at hearing in the courts, when the contest has begun. as it were, for the Minister to step in to alter the rules in his own favour is something that is going to have very many reactions, and is going to tend very seriously to undermine the respect in which the courts ought to be held, and is going to undermine the reputation of the State for fair play. Senator Johnson referred to that yesterday. There is the question of defending and maintaining the credit of the State. There is also the question of maintaining the character of the State for justice and scrupulous regard for the rights of individuals or a group of individuals who may comprise a particular corporation. When the Government comes in in the somewhat brusque and brutal way in which it intervenes in this Bill, it is going to make litigants who might be advised that they have a claim against the State feel that it is not worth while promoting that claim. It has already been said that the intention of the Oireachtas must be taken to be expressed in its Acts.
While it is quite right constitutionally, I should say, for the Government to come in at any point with proposals to make the meaning of the Oireachtas clearer, it is the duty of the Government to consider whether it is expedient, taking the long view, to do so, and whether the impression of governmental disregard for certain types of public decency created by action of this sort may not have serious reactions in future. It is not as if the Government had to take this drastic and, I think, unprecedented action because, as I have already said, it differs from any other item of retrospective legislation which has been before the Oireachtas. Nothing that has been put forward would justify it. In fact, in the Minister's speech yesterday he seemed to me to prove that it is not necessary that the retrospective side of this Bill should be insisted upon. He did declare that if this £716,000 were not kept back from the county councils it would have to be met out of general taxation and that a large portion of it would fall on people in counties where there was practically no deficiency, on people who were not concerned with agriculture and who had not in any way benefited from land purchase. He said that they would have to bear a large share of it, but in another part of his speech the Minister told us that over £1,000,000 arrears had been collected in the eight months up to February and March last. He said that of that sum he reckoned that £1,000,000 had been collected in cash, showing that those who owed the money were well able to pay.
If the people who have defaulted are well able to pay then it only remains for the Government to use the machinery at their disposal and they will pay and, therefore, instead of this £716,000 falling largely on people who paid their annuities and who individually owe no debt to anybody, the whole of the amount will be collected off those by whom it is due. That seems to me to be a much better way of dealing with the matter than carrying through this retrospective legislation and non-suiting the councils who have brought the Government into the courts, or better than throwing the deficiency on general taxation. If, on the other hand, as we contend, most of those who owe the money are not able to pay, it is just as well that the Minister should make an effort to get the money from them and that the position should be made clear beyond all doubt, because if they are not able to pay, then whether the burden falls on the general community or is dealt with in some other way, it is certainly unwise for the Minister to pass the debts of those who have failed to pay on to the shoulders of their neighbours who are almost in the same position. If the people cannot pay this burden should not be thrown on the rates. Rather than shake the confidence of litigants as to the way in which they will be treated by the Government, he should take all the steps he can take to recover the money.
I would suggest, therefore, that in all the circumstances it is undesirable to pass this section as it stands with retrospective effect and it is, furthermore, unnecessary. It is unnecessary even in counties in which the deficiency from the point of view of preventing injustice to people is small, because if the Minister's contention is right, and if £1,000,000 arrears was collected in eight months, it will require less than that period with the machinery at the Minister's disposal to clear off the sum that is involved here. If that is done, and the Minister's contention is right, there is neither hardship nor injustice done to anybody. If the Minister's contention is not right, then the matter that has been in dispute and the subject of a good deal of discussion will be disposed of and the Government and the Dáil can face, in the light of full knowledge, the problems that are now arising in connection with the collection of land annuities.
