Mr. Edmund Honohan:

In the United States, there is no problem with rent control. The difficulty in the Blake case, which is the 1982 case which challenged controlled rents, was the proposal to impose controls which effectively would have taken money from one group in society and given it to another group in society. The Supreme Court, in a judgment given by Mr. Justice O'Higgins, decided it was too specific and unfair to other groups in society. In other words, the principles of equality did not apply. Funnily enough, the Attorney General at the time, Peter Sutherland, produced alternative legislation to try to shore up the system. He went before the Supreme Court and also lost. The idea that rent restrictions can be specific and focused on particular sectors of the market seems to run the risk of falling foul of the principle that where there is to be an interference with property rights it should apply generally to the group affected and not specifically to benefit a single group.

As a matter of fact, one of the arguments to be made in favour of buying out people is the very fact the Blake decision, the prevention of rent control, is on the books. If we cannot restrict rent, we might as well go and buy rental properties. This is the point. One would run no risk at that stage because the owners would be paid compensation for what they paid for the property. It would not be an unjust attack; ipso factoit is not unjust if they are paid compensation, let us say the market price they paid for the place.

With regard to land, the Housing Act 1966 has compulsory purchase mechanisms for local authorities which requires land for housing. I do not know whether the committee wants me to cite the section on this, but it is one of a number of compulsory purchase mechanisms that has been used. Part V of the 1966 Act states: "A housing authority acquiring land compulsorily for the purposes of this Act may be authorised to do so by means of a compulsory purchase order made by the authority and submitted to and confirmed by the Minister in accordance with the provisions." There was no bother about this and it was not even challenged. I brought with me an old copy of the Electricity (Supply) Act 1927 to show the committee. Back that far it was decided to have compulsory purchase orders for the ESB. Section 45 states that if and when the board thinks it proper to acquire compulsorily any land, the board may by special order declare its intention to so acquire it. There was never any problem. Compulsory purchase orders are standard. If there is demonstrable public interest, there should not be any difficulty with a challenge.