HC Deb 28 July 1896 vol 43 cc844-5

"Where any holding is held under a contract of tenancy, empowering the landlord to resume the whole or any part thereof for the purpose of building or planting, a judicial rent may be fixed in respect thereof, without prejudice to the right of the landlord to resume possession at any time for the bonâ fide purposes aforesaid, upon the terms contained in the said contract of tenancy, or, if no terms are contained therein, upon such terms as a landlord can be authorised to resume a holding, or any part thereof, under Section 5 of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881."

He said that this clause would do an act of justice to a large body of deserving tenants who had been excluded from the Act by what was almost an accident.

Clause read a First time.

MR. T. M. HEALY

hoped that the Government would not reject this Amendment, moved from their own Benches, after they had accepted so many from the right hon. Member for Dublin University to the detriment of the tenants. The clause would simply be removing a doubt in the law as to the position of the tenants concerned.

SIR THOMAS LEA (Londonderry, S.)

said that there was a strong feeling in his constituency that the tenants concerned had been hardly used by being excluded almost accidentally.

MR. GERALD BALFOUR

said that the particular case in the mind of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who moved the clause was a hard one; but the clause would have a general application. However, as there had been no objection to the clause, the Government would accept it with some modification. If there was an express provision in the contract between the landlord and tenant that the landlord might resume, he did not think that in the resumption they should leave those terms to be decided under Section 5 of the Land Act of 1881. He proposed, therefore, to omit all the words after "therein" and to insert the words "on the terms that the rent of the holding be proportionately abated."

Clause read a Second time; Amendment agreed to; clause, as amended, added to the Bill.

MR. DILLON moved the following clause:—