HC Deb 21 May 1822 vol 7 cc721-2
Sir J. Newport

rose to move for leave to bring in a bill "to authorize occupying tenants in Ireland to tender in part payment of rent receipts for grand jury and parochial assessments, subject to certain exceptions." This bill materially concerned the interests of a large portion of the people of Ireland, whose distresses it was calculated to relieve, as well as to place them in a greater degree of certainty as to the payments which they had to incur with their rent. The grand jury presentments in Ireland were peculiarly extensive and severely pressing in their' nature upon the occupying tenant. Soon after the Union, the Irish presentments did not exceed 400,000l., and they amounted to 1,200,000l., a sum always paid by the occupying tenant, one variable in its nature, and against which the tenant had no means of providing at the time he made his bargain with the landlord. It would be material to consider whether the latter ought not to bear some portion of this expense. He did not mean to meddle with existing contracts. The object of his bill was prospective, and only to affect future bargains. He thought the disbursements, though made in the first instance by the tenant, should be repayable to him by the landlord on the settlement for rent. It was most desirable in Ireland that the tenant should be placed in such a situation as to know exactly what sum he had to pay, and not be responsible for local payments of the kind he alluded to, in addition to his After a short conversation, leave was given to bring in the bill.