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Restrictions on displacing persons of working class.
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26.—(1) The Company shall not under the powers conferred by this Act purchase or acquire in any local area any house or houses which on the 15th day of December, 1926, were or have been since that date or shall hereafter be either wholly or partially occupied by thirty or more persons belonging to the working classes as tenants or lodgers unless and until the Company shall have
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(a) Obtained the approval of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health to a scheme for providing new dwellings for such number of persons as were residing in such houses on the said 15th day of December, 1926, or for such number or proportion of such persons as the said Minister shall after inquiry deem necessary, having regard to the number of persons on or after that date residing in such houses and working within one mile therefrom and to the amount of vacant suitable accommodation in the immediate neighbourhood of such houses or to the place of employment of such persons and to all the circumstances of the case; and
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(b) Given security to the satisfaction of the said Minister for the carrying out of the scheme.
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(2) The approval of the said Minister to any scheme under this section may be given either absolutely or conditionally and after the said Minister has approved of any such scheme he may from time to time approve either absolutely or conditionally of any modifications in the scheme.
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(3) Every scheme under this section shall contain provisions prescribing the time within which it shall be carried out and shall require the new dwellings proposed to be provided under the scheme to be completed fit for occupation before the persons residing in the houses in respect of which the scheme is made are displaced: Provided that the said Minister may dispense with the last-mentioned requirement subject to such conditions (if any) as he may see fit.
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(4) Any provisions of any scheme under this section or any conditions subject to which the Minister may have approved of any scheme or of any modifications of any scheme or subject to which he may have dispensed with the above-mentioned requirement shall be enforceable by a writ of mandamus to be obtained by the said Minister out of the High Court.
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(5) If the Company acquire or appropriate any house or houses for the purposes of this Act in contravention of the foregoing provisions or displace or cause to be displaced the persons residing in any house or houses in contravention of the requirements of the scheme they shall be liable to a penalty of £500 in respect of every such house which penalty shall be recoverable by the said Minister by action in the High Court: Provided that the Court may, if it think fit, reduce such penalty.
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(6) For the purpose of carrying out any scheme under this section the Company may appropriate any lands for the time being belonging to them or which they may have power to acquire and may purchase such further lands as they may require and for the purpose of any such purchase sections 202, 203 and 214 of the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878 as amended by any subsequent enactment shall be incorporated with this Act and shall apply to the purchase of lands by the Company for the purposes of any scheme under this section in the same manner in all respects as if the Company were a sanitary authority within the meaning of the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878 and the scheme were one of the purposes of that Act.
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(7) The Company may on any lands belonging to them or purchased or acquired under this section or any provisional order issued in pursuance of this section, erect such dwellings for persons of the working class as may be necessary for the purpose of any scheme under this section and may sell demise or let or otherwise dispose of such dwellings and any lands purchased or acquired as aforesaid and may apply for the purposes of this section to which capital is properly applicable or any of such purposes any moneys which they may be authorised to raise or apply for the general purposes of their undertaking: Provided that all lands on which any buildings have been erected or provided by the Company in pursuance of any scheme under this section shall for a period of twenty-five years from the date of the scheme be appropriated for the purpose of such dwellings and every conveyance demise or lease of such lands and buildings shall be endorsed with notice of this enactment: Provided also that the said Minister may at any time dispense with all or any of the requirements of this sub-section subject to such conditions (if any) as he may see fit.
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(8) The said Minister may direct any inquiries to be held which he may deem necessary in relation to any scheme under this section, and the inspector of the said Minister shall for the purposes of any such inquiry have all such powers as he has for the purpose of inquiries directed by the said Minister under the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878.
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(9) The Company shall pay to that said Minister a sum to be fixed by the Minister in respect of the preparation and issue of any provisional order in pursuance of this section and any expenses incurred by that Minister in relation to any inquiries under this section including the expenses of any witnesses summoned by the inspector.
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(10) Any houses purchased or acquired by the Company for or in connection with any of the purposes of this Act whether purchased or acquired in exercise of the powers conferred by this Act or otherwise and whether before or after the passing of this Act which may have been occupied by persons of the working class within five years before the passing of this Act shall for the purposes of this section be deemed to have been acquired under the powers of this Act and to have been occupied on the said 15th of December, 1926 by the same number of persons belonging to the working class as were occupying the said houses at the date of their acquisition: Provided that if the said Minister is unable to ascertain the number of such persons who were then occupying the said houses the said houses shall be deemed to have been occupied by such number of such persons as in the opinion of the said Minister they might have been sufficient to accommodate.
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(11) For the purposes of this section the expression “local areas” means any urban or rural district borough or county borough, the expression “house” means any house or part of a house occupied as a separate dwelling, and the expression “working class” means mechanics artizans labourers and others working for wages hawkers costermongers persons not working for wages but working at some trade or handicraft without employing others except members of their own family and persons other than domestic servants whose income in any case does not exceed an average of thirty shillings a week and the families of any such persons who may be residing with them.
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