With the Oireachtas and Drapier on holiday this column is being offered to backbenchers as a soap box. This week Arthur Morgan of Sinn Féin writes on the iniquity of the antiquated ground-rent system.
A century after the 1903 Wyndham Land Act, the scourge of landlordism still hangs over many Irish citizens.
How has a country whose struggle for independence was so intertwined with the Land War singularly failed to address the issue of landlordism? How would Michael Davitt and the Land League view the inability of successive governments in this State to tackle the problem?
Recently I met a group of people whose childhoods coincided with the birth of the Irish Free State. Born two generations after the heady days of the Land War, they are now pensioners and one would expect the absentee landlord to be no more than a folk memory for them. Yet these are the people who above all are bearing the brunt of landlordism today. Their lives are in turmoil because of the archaic system of ground rents.
I listened as this group of elderly citizens spoke of the fear of losing their homes, as their ground-rent leases came to an end and faceless landlords laid claim to one-eighth of the value of their home.
One man recalled a lifetime spent fighting this feudal tax. He recalled how every political party that has served in government over the past 30 years has in turn committed itself to their abolition and how all have failed to abolish ground rents. He recalled how the ministers of today spoke out angrily against ground rents from the backbenches of yesterday.
One well-known ground-rent landlord is currently demanding a sum of €54,000 for freehold interest plus legal fees - at €127 per hour - until agreement is reached from one elderly couple whose ground lease has expired. The amount demanded is based on a formula in the current legislation which allows the landlord to claim one-eighth of the market value of the family home. The alternative for those who cannot afford to buy out the expired lease is to sign a renewal of the lease for 35 years.
With the value of houses going up, people whose leases are due to expire are justifiably angry and concerned.
After 80 years of self-government there is no rationale for the perpetration of this unjust relic of colonialism against thousands of citizens, particularly in the absence of any apparent political opposition to its abolition and when the cost to the Exchequer would be negligible.
There are 250,000 ground leases in the 26 Counties. The State itself pays ground rents in many cases to English ground landlords, such as the Earl of Pembroke, who owns property around Merrion Square, or the Duke of Leinster, who owns the land around Kildare Street.
Amazingly, the Government still pays ground rent to landlords on such historic sites as the Four Courts, Kilmainham Jail, Padraic MacPiarais's school St Enda's in Rathfarnham, Dunsink Observatory, Dundrum Mental Hospital and Iveagh House.
Private landlords also own the ground leases of Arbour Hill Barracks, Cathal Brugha Barracks, Clancy Barracks, Collins Barracks, McKee Barracks, Sarsfield Barracks and a long list of Garda stations.
The majority of ground leases are, of course, on private households. People who own their house don't always own the land upon which it is built.
The formula for the new ground rent per annum is computed on the basis of the open market rental value of the house. Many who find themselves in this invidious position are elderly and have no income other than their pension.
Taxpayers should understand that it is they who are paying the ground rents on State properties and it is their hard-earned money that will be used to buy freehold interest in these properties.
Home ownership in Ireland has a long and cherished tradition and people struggle gallantly to purchase or build their homes. Ground-rent landlords contribute nothing towards this effort.
Ground-rent landlords demand money for nothing. They are parasites, gorging themselves on the sweat and tears of ordinary working people. They have no place in a just society and it is to our shame that we have allowed this system to persist for so long.
Another illustration of the peculiar attitude of successive governments to landlordism, is the reluctance to tackle landlords in the private rented sector.
The demands of tenants in the private rented sector in recent years have not differed significantly from the demands that were made by peasant farmers in the 19th century, i.e. fair rent and security of tenure.
It is not, as we are often told, a question of balancing the rights of tenants and landlords. For the home of one is merely the business interest of the other.
Eviction for people today is no different from the reality represented in photographs of evictions during the late 1880s, currently displayed in the exhibition entitled Notice to Quit in the National Photographic Archive - except today we do not see the faces of evictees, their voices are not recorded. The present Government certainly doesn't hear them. I would encourage people to visit this exhibition and witness the proud heritage of resistance to landlordism of Irish tenants in the 19th century.
We would do well to remember the achievements of previous generations on behalf of Irish tenant farmers when we examine the ineffectual legislation to protect the rights of modern-day tenants, the Residential Tenancies Bill, which is before the Dáil. Their significant victories would shame the drafter of the current Bill. It is clear that the landed aristocracy has not ceased to be a power in this State when one examines the failures of governments here to take them on.
Davitt, who was guided by the motto "Let justice be done though the heavens fall," died 97 years ago. I doubt he would be impressed by the propensity of successive Irish governments to prostrate themselves in the interest of unfettered landlordism. It is time once again to take up Davitt's fight and ensure that justice is done.
Arthur Morgan, TD for Louth, is Sinn Féin's spokesman on housing