Pier and Harbour Provisional Order Confirmation Act, 1929
|
Restrictions on displacing persons of the working classes. |
2.—(1) The Buncrana Harbour Commissioners (in this section referred to as the Commissioners) incorporated by the Order set out in the Schedule to this Act, shall not, in exercise of the powers conferred on them by the said Order, purchase or acquire in any local area any house or houses which, on the first day of January, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-nine, were, or have been since that date or shall hereafter be, occupied, either wholly or partially, by thirty or more persons belonging to the working class as tenants or lodgers, unless and until the Commissioners shall— | |
(a) have obtained the approval of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health (in this section referred to as the Minister) to a scheme (in this section referred to as a new dwellings scheme) for providing new dwellings for the persons residing in such houses, or for such number or proportion of such persons as the Minister shall, after inquiry, deem necessary, having regard to the number of persons residing in the houses liable to be taken, and working within one mile therefrom, and to the amount of vacant suitable accommodation in the immediate neighbourhood of the houses liable to be taken, or to the place of employment of such persons and all the other circumstances of the case, and | ||
(b) have given security to the satisfaction of the Minister for the carrying out of such new dwellings scheme. | ||
(2) The approval of the Minister to any new dwellings scheme may be given either absolutely or conditionally, and after the Minister has approved of any such scheme he may from time to time approve either absolutely or conditionally of any modifications in such scheme. | ||
(3) Every new dwellings scheme shall contain provisions— | ||
(a) prescribing the time within which it shall be carried out; | ||
(b) requiring the new dwellings proposed to be provided under such scheme to conform to standards to be approved by the Minister; and | ||
(c) requiring such new dwellings to be completely fit for occupation before the persons residing in the houses the purchase or acquisition of which necessitated the making of such scheme are displaced. | ||
The Minister may, if he so thinks fit, in the case of any new dwellings scheme, dispense with the insertion in such scheme of the requirements of paragraph (c) of this sub-section, and such dispensation may be granted subject to such conditions as the Minister may think proper in the circumstances. | ||
(4) Every provision contained in a new dwellings scheme, and every condition subject to which the Minister may have approved of such a scheme, and every modification made in any such scheme after the Minister has approved thereof, and every condition subject to which the Minister has dispensed with the requirements of paragraph (c) of the foregoing sub-section, shall be enforceable by a writ of mandamus to be obtained by the Minister out of the High Court. | ||
(5) If the Commissioners acquire or appropriate any house or houses for the purposes of the said Order in contravention of this section or displace or cause to be displaced the persons residing in any house or houses in contravention of the requirements of a new dwellings scheme they shall be liable to a penalty of five hundred pounds in respect of every such house and such penalty shall be recoverable by the Minister by action in the High Court. | ||
The High Court may if it so thinks fit in any action brought under this sub-section reduce the penalty imposed by this sub-section. | ||
All moneys recovered by the Minister under this sub-section shall be paid into or disposed of for the benefit of the Exchequer in such manner as the Minister for Finance shall direct. | ||
(6) For the purpose of carrying out a new dwellings scheme the Commissioners may appropriate any land for the time being belonging to them or which they have power to acquire. | ||
(7) For the purpose of carrying out a new dwellings scheme the Commissioners may purchase such land as they may require and for the purposes of such purchase sections 202, 203 and 214 of the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878 as amended by any subsequent enactment shall be incorporated with the said Order and shall apply to the purchase of land by the Commissioners for the purpose of any such scheme in like manner in all respects as if the Commissioners were a sanitary authority within the meaning of the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878 and such scheme were one of the purposes of that Act. | ||
(8) The Commissioners may erect on any land belonging to them or purchased or acquired by them under the said Order or any Provisional Order made under and by virtue of any enactment hereby incorporated with the said Order such dwellings of the working classes as may be necessary for the purpose of a new dwellings scheme and may sell, demise, let or otherwise dispose of such dwellings and any land purchased or acquired as aforesaid. | ||
(9) All land on which any buildings have been erected or provided by the Commissioners in pursuance of a new dwellings scheme shall for a period of twenty-five years from the date of the approval of such scheme by the Minister be appropriated for the purpose of such buildings and every conveyance, lease or demise of such land made or granted from time to time during the said period shall have endorsed thereon a notice that the land comprised therein is subject to such appropriation. | ||
The Minister may, if he so thinks fit, at any time dispense with all or any of the requirements of this sub-section subject to such conditions (if any) as he may prescribe. | ||
(10) The Commissioners may apply for all or any of the purposes of this section (being purposes to which capital is properly applicable) any moneys which they may be authorised to raise or apply for the general purposes of their undertaking. | ||
(11) The Minister may direct the holding of such inquiries in relation to any new dwellings scheme as he may think necessary and for the purposes of any such inquiry an inspector of the Department of Local Government and Public Health shall in relation to such inquiry have the same powers as if such inquiry were an inquiry directed by the Minister to be held by such inspector under the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878, as amended by any subsequent enactment. | ||
(12) The Commissioners shall pay to the Minister a sum, to be fixed by the Minister, in respect of the preparation and issue of a Provisional Order by him under any enactment hereby incorporated with the said Order, and also any expenses in relation to any inquiry held under this section, including the expenses of any witnesses attending such inquiry on the summons of an inspector, and a sum to be fixed by the Minister not exceeding three guineas a day as a fee to such inspector. | ||
(13) Any house purchased or acquired by the Commissioners for or in connection with any of the purposes of a new buildings scheme 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 conferred by this section and to have been occupied on the said first day of January, 1929 by the same number of persons belonging to the working class as were occupying the said houses at the date of their purchase or acquisition. | ||
In the event of the Minister being unable to ascertain the number of such persons occupying such house at the date of such purchase or acquisition, such house shall be deemed to have been at such date occupied by such number of persons as in the opinion of the Minister it might have been sufficient to accommodate. | ||
(14) In this section— | ||
the expression “local area” means and includes an urban or rural district, a borough or a county borough; | ||
the word “house” means any house or part of a house occupied as a separate dwelling; | ||
the expression “the working class” means mechanics, artisans, labourers and other persons 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 of such persons who may be residing with them. |