I beg to move: "Section 3, Sub-section (1): To add at the end of Sub-section (1) the words: (iv.) This Act shall not apply to any dwellinghouse that has become vacant, or to any existing tenancy terminated by the voluntary act of the tenant." I have been asked to propose this amendment. There have been property owners who before August, 1914, built cottages or who owned cottages which they let at an uneconomic rent to employees or to persons whom they wished for personal private reasons to benefit. Many of these owners no longer have employees to house. The persons they sought to benefit may die, or may choose, without pressure put or any suggestion made, to leave the neighbourhood and settle elsewhere. It would certainly be impossible, it would surely not be fair, to compel such owners to continue to let these dwellings at the uneconomic rent which they accepted for reasons which no longer exist. If the law makes it penal, and quite rightly, for the landlord to allow an inhabited house to fall into disrepair, it is surely only justice that he should be allowed to demand a rent sufficient to cover the cost of these repairs as well as to pay him a reasonable interest on the money sunk on these buildings. In this Bill, as in the British Bill which it supersedes, no mention is made of a landlord in such circumstances, and the consequence of this omission is that it will work out that he will not be allowed, under any circumstances, to increase his rent beyond the amount specified in the Bill, which very likely in many cases will not bring it up to anything like the economic rent it ought to be.

I have been asked to bring this forward, firstly, because it will be another obstacle in the way of houses to let coming into the market, since a landlord in that position will in self-defence be obliged to refuse to let at an inevitable loss. This was brought to my notice by a specific case which occurred not many months ago. An employer had let a cottage at a ridiculously low rent, an avowedly low rent, to an employee whom he valued greatly. After a couple of years that cottage became vacant, as the business came to an end, and the employee went elsewhere, to a distant county, where he was just as well paid, and where, being very skilled, he had no difficulty in finding employment. A prospective tenant approached the landlord, a man who considered himself in status far above the man who had left. He agreed to take the cottage at a fair rent. For some years all went well. Recently, however, this man also received a better-paid job in another county, and he gave notice that he was leaving. No difficulty was put in his way, although he was somewhat in arrears with the rent. After he left a claim was made for the arrears, but the tenant retorted that under the Rent Restrictions Act the landlord had no right to ask for a rent higher than the previous tenant had paid. A counter-claim was also made by the tenant for the difference between what he had paid and what the Act allowed the landlord to charge. That wiped out the arrears, and counsel, on being consulted, explained that there was no mention of a landlord's rights in such circumstances in the Act. If the landlord brought the case to court, a decision would probably be given against him. This clause is to prevent such a miscarriage of justice, and to enable the owner to raise the rent to the limit at which it would pay him. It is very obvious that when a landlord knows house property will not bring him in sufficient to pay for repairs, and that if he lets the house he must keep it in repair, being only human, he will let the house fall to pieces if he cannot sell it.

I second the amendment.

I must oppose this amendment, as it weakens the fundamental principle underlying this Bill. It means that where a house becomes vacant the landlord can profiteer as much as he likes on the incoming tenant. That is one of the main reasons why this Bill had to be introduced. Senator the Countess of Desart has put up one side of the case, but we have also to put up the other side. It is notorious in the city of Dublin and in other large centres in the country that where a house becomes vacant landlords are not asking for rent. It is not a rent they are asking for; it is blackmail they are demanding; and, because of the scarcity of houses, people are compelled to pay any price that the landlords demand. In order to prevent such profiteering on the part of landlords it was essential that the Rent Restrictions Act be introduced. If we accept this amendment, it gets right under the whole principle underlying this Bill. Senator the Countess of Desart has referred to what I assume is the case of an agricultural labourer who is living in a house owned by the employer. When the labourer had left the employment and gone to another county, people have demanded that they should get the house at the same rent as the previous occupier. That is only one small case in comparison with the position of house occupiers in large centres. If this amendment is passed, I believe it would violate the whole usefulness of this Bill, which aims at getting at landlords who are profiteering by putting a huge increase on the rent of houses that become unoccupied. As a matter of fact, at the present time it is notorious in the city of Dublin that when a house does by some chance become vacant the landlord will not let it at all because he is compelled to do so at something like a fair figure. Instead of letting the house, the landlord sells it, and profiteers in another direction. The Seanad could not conscientiously accept this amendment, as, if they did so, the Bill would be of no further use.

May I say that the case I mentioned was not that of an agricultural labourer. The original tenant was a foreman joiner, and the second tenant who wanted to claim the advantage of the Rent Restriction Act was an insurance agent.

I agree substantially with Senator Farren. The object of the Bill is to control, not tenancies, but houses, and not all houses, but houses built under normal conditions. Owing to the European war and the stoppage on a large scale of building operations, and owing also in England to the flow of the population from the rural to the urban areas, the shortage of houses became acute. In 1915 the State stepped in to limit and control the free play of economic forces between the contracting parties and to control houses. The effect of the amendment would be to exclude from the effects of that control certain houses. A specific case has been quoted in support of the amendment. There is nothing quite so misleading as the specific case. In the discussions of this Bill in the Dáil we had many specific cases, but they are always open to this weakness, that the person quoting them has a monopoly of knowledge concerning them, and is alone in a position to discuss them. You cannot deal with a general situation on the basis of a specific case unless this specific case can be shown to be typical or can be shown to be merely one of many that exist on a large scale. The amendment says "this Act shall not apply to any dwelling-house that has become vacant or to any existing tenancies terminated by the voluntary act of the tenant." If these houses are released from control you are, as Senator Farren said, getting away from the effect of the Act—getting away from the whole purpose of the Act—which is to limit the play of economic forces, to limit the play of supply and demand, and to say that in the existing house shortage the landlord shall not be entitled to charge a rent which a scarcity situation would create.

There seems to be no sufficient reason for exempting a house simply because it has become vacant or simply because the existing tenant has voluntarily terminated his tenancy. It is to deal with a grave social evil that this Bill is brought in, to meet a situation that would arise at the expiration of the 1920 Act on the 24th of this month, and to control which has been considered necessary in varying degrees as far back as 1915. Remembering that it is control of houses, remembering that it is to meet a serious shortage which constitutes an evil in our social system, there is no case for exempting a particular class of house in circumstances that are purely accidental circumstances. Houses built since April, 1919, are not controlled; they were built in the shortage, and those who built them out of their savings or possibly out of their overdrafts at the bank took grave risks, and paid high prices for materials and so on, and it was not thought fit to control such houses. But in regard to houses built back in normal times there is a case for control because of the shortage and because of the collective necessity exceeding the individual right. It is on that that the Bill is based, and it is on that all prior legislation was passed, and there is no case for exempting the particular class of house which is sought to be exempted by this amendment.

Does the Senator wish the amendment put to the Seanad?

No, I am quite prepared to withdraw the amendment. I have given my views.