Brennan v A.G. & Wexford County Council
| Jurisdiction | Ireland |
| Judge | Mr. Justice Barrington |
| Judgment Date | 23 July 1982 |
| Neutral Citation | 1982 WJSC-HC 2701 |
| Docket Number | Record Number 10670P/1980 |
| Court | High Court |
| Date | 23 July 1982 |
1982 WJSC-HC 2701
THE HIGH COURT
- and -
Judgment of Mr. Justice Barringtondelivered the 23rd day of July 1982.
The Plaintiffs are farmers. In this case they claim that relevant provisions of the Valuation Acts 1852–1864 are inconsistent with the Constitution and no longer form part of the law of the State. They also question the validity of the valuations placed on their respective farms under those Acts.
All the Plaintiffs live in County Wexford and the second-named Defendants are the County Council of the County of Wexford At the beginning of the hearing the second-named Defendants announced that they did not propose to make any independentsubmissions but to leave the Defence of the Valuation Acts to the Attorney General. They accordingly asked for, and were granted, leave to absent themselves from the hearing, reserving their rights in relation to costs.
Historical Background - The Griffith Valuation.
The valuation challenged in each case is the valuation placed on the Plaintiffs' farms under the primary valuation of the farms of the country known as the Griffith Valuation.
The first Government Valuation of lands in Ireland was commenced in 1830 for the purposes of levying grand jury cess. The unit of valuation was the townland and the valuation of land was to be made with reference to a soale of agricultural prices. When the whole of Ireland, with the exception of six countries, had been valued the passing of the Poor Law Act of 1838 rendered a separate valuation of each tenement necessary for the purposes of levying the poor rate.
The existence of two valuations, one for levying grand jury cess and the other for levying the poor rate, led to the passing of the Valuation Act of 1852 and, under this and amending Acts, the valuation of the lands and buildings ofIreland was carried out.
This case is concerned only with the valuation of the lands. The valuation of buildings raises other and different considerations.
The valuation of each tenement was made by reference to an estimate of the net annual value thereof. The net annual value was to be estimated by reference to the average prices of several articles of agricultural produce listed in the Act. The list of prices was set out in Section 11 of the Act and represented an average of the prices prevailing in the three years 1849 to 1852. In these three years, which followed on the Famine, the price of agricultural produce was in fact depressed and this was to give rise to difficulties as the valuation proceeded.
The valuation, which was carried out under the direction of Sir Richard Griffith, was commenced in the South of Ireland in 1852 and completed in 1866, the North being valued last. The valuation of Carlow was the first completed and the valuation of Armagh the last. The valuation of Kerry was completed on the 19th of July 1853; that of Tipperaryon the 29th of June 1853; that of Wexford on the 7th of July 1854; that of Meath on the 10th of July 1855; that of Leitrim on the 6th of July 1857; that of Cavan on the 25th of June 1857; and that of Monaghan on the 1st of July 1861 (see Appendix 2 to the Report from the Select Committee on General Valuation dated the 27th of July 1869).
In the course of the 14 years during which the work was in progress, agriculture became more prosperous and rents rose with the result that the valuation given to agricultural land in the North of Ireland was higher than in the South.
In the years after the Famine the country was in great distress. The social pressure on the valuators when they began their work in the South was to keep the valuations low. As they worked North the country was recovering and the prices for agricultural products were good. The linen industry in particular was thriving and the price of flax was high. Despite the table of prices contained in Section 11 of the 1852 Act the valuators tended to place higher values on lands in the North of thecountry.
alternatively, despite Sir Richard's efforts, not all of them took identical views as to the value of land. Some striking anomalies occur particularly at townland borders. These may result from defects in the original townland valuation. For instance, Doctor Bielenberg, the Farm Consultant, in the course of the hearing before me referred to two adjoining farms on the Ashbourne Road near St. Margarets Co. Dublin with land of equal quality. One of them is valued at £1.13 per acre while the other is valued at £1.94 per acre. Such anomalies probably result from human frailty or error and hardly detract from Griffith's great achievement. But they do mean that, even in his own day, his Valuation was open to criticism.
Section 34 of the 1852 Act contemplated that there could be general re-valuation of the lands of Ireland from time to time:-
"for the purpose of providing for the necessary revision of the valuation of the land in consequence of changes that may have taken place in the gross amount of the value of the several townlands from time to time"
The Section appears to contemplate that there could be generalrevisions at intervals of 14 years and the grand jury of the county might petition for a general revision. However no funds were provided for any such revision, no county ever petitioned to have a revision, and no revision was ever carried out. The individual land holder, unlike the individual owner of buildings, had no appeal against the valuation placed on his lands and no means of having his individual farmrevalued.
It is this alleged absence of any right of the individual land holder to force a revaluation of his lands, together with the absence of any general revision of land valuation since the Griffith valuation was completed one hundred and twenty years ago, which has created the difficulties giving rise to the present case.
In the year 1902 the Royal Commission on Local Taxation in its report on the system of valuation in Ireland pointed out that the valuation of land in Ireland had already become quite out of date. At page 3 of their Report the Commissioners write as follows:-
"The Act of 1852 provided for a general revision of thevaluation, but no funds were provided for the execution of such work, and such a general revision has never been made, with the result that in the course of time the valuation has become quite out of date, consequent chiefly upon the alteration of prices of the various articles of produce and upon the changes in the cultivation of the separateholdings."
The Commissioners went on to call for such a general revision and added (at page 4 of the report) that it was not easy to exaggerate the importance of "fair, uniform and accurate valuation as a preliminary to any just distribution of the burdens of localadministration."
In the 80 years which have followed no such revaluation has beenundertaken.
The Plaintiffs plead they are citizens of Ireland and are self-employed farmers dependent for their livelihood upon farming their respectivefarms.
The first-named Plaintiff, Mr. Michael Brennan, resides on and farms 64 acres of land at Mountelliott, New Ross,County Wexford, which lands are farmed for milk production and have a rateable valuation in the sum of £73.75.
The second-named Plaintiff resides on a farm of 106 acres at Kilmarnock, Campile, County Wexford which lands are used for mixed farming, including the production of milk, and for tillage, and have a rateable valuation of £101.50.
The third-named Plaintiff, Nicholas Fitzhenry, resides on and farms 106 acres of land at Glenduff, Barntown, County Wexford, which lands are farmed for milk production and have a rateable valuation of£72.50.
The fourth-named Plaintiff Bernard Devereux resides on and farms 150 acres at Mooretown, Carne in the County of Wexford which said lands are farmed for milk production and have a rateable valuation of£81.00.
The Plaintiffs are members of an unincorporated association of persons known as the "P.L.V. Action Committee" being an association comprised of farmers within the county of Wexford and organised under the auspices of the Wexford branch of the Irish Farmers' Association; and the Plaintiffs bring this present action both on their own behalf, and asnominees and representatives of the members of the said unincorporatedassociation.
The rateable valuation of the Plaintiffs' land is, in each case, the original rateable valuation assessed and fixed during the carrying out of the primary valuation of lands in Ireland during the years 1853 to 1865 pursuant to the provisions of the Valuation (Ireland) Acts 1852 to1864.
The amount of the said rateable valuation determines the liability and the extent of the liability of each of the Plaintiffs to pay to the State the taxes, charges and contributions imposed by or recoverable under the following statutes that is to say:-
(a) Income Tax on farming profits charged under Schedule D of the Income Tax Act 1967pursuant to the provisions of the Finance Act 1974Sections 13 to 28 as amended;
(b) Resource Tax charged for the year of assessment 1980 to 1981 upon persons occupying farmland at the rateable valuation in excess of£70.00 pursuant to the provisions of the Finance Act 1980Sections 30 to 36;
Plaintiffs' lands, as originally assessed and fixed, now bear no true or no reasonable relationship to the real value or productive capacity of the said lands and when compared to the valuations of other farms in Wexford and throughout the State are wholly inconsistent with, and in no way reflect, differences and true value and productive capacity as between the Plaintiffs' lands and those...
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