Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 7 Mar 1928

Vol. 22 No. 8

IN COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - VOTE 54—LAND COMMISSION.

Debate resumed on the following motion made by the Minister for Finance on Friday, March 2nd:—

Go ndeontar suim bhreise ná raghaidh thar £35,000 chun íoctha an Bhuirir a thiocfidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1928, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig Chei isiún Talmhan na hEireann (44 agus 45 Vict., c. 49, s. 46, agus c. 71, s. 4; 48 agus 49 Vict. c. 75, s. 17, 16 agus 20; 53 agus 54 Vict., c. 49, s. 2; 54 agus 55 Vict., c. 48; 3 Edw. 7, c. 37; 7 Edw. 7, c.. 38 agus c. 56; 9 Edw. 7, c. 42; an tacht Blí Thalmhan (Coimisiún), 1923, an tacht Talmhan, 1923, agus Acht na mBannaí Talmhan, 1925).

That a supplementary sum not exceeding £35,000 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1928, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Irish Land Commission (44 and 45 Vict., c. 49, s. 46, and c. 71, s. 4; 48 and 49 Vict., c. 73; s.s. 17, 18 and 20; 53 and 54 Vict., c. 42, s. 2; 54 and 55 Vict., c. 48; 3 Edw. 7, c. 37; 7 Edw. 7, c. 38, and c. 56; 9 Edw. 7, c. 42; the Land Law (Commission) Act, 1923, the Land Act, 1923, and the Land Bond Act, 1925).

Mr. MORRISSEY

I want to take advantage of this Supplementary Estimate to draw attention to the action, or rather to the inaction, of the Land Commission in the acquisition and division of certain lands in the Co. Tipperary known as the Lattin Lands. These lands have been under consideration by the Land Commission for over three or four years, and the Land Commission have been promising from time to time to acquire these lands and to divide them. There are, I am informed about 1,200 acres of land in that area, and now we are told, after something like four years, that the Land Commission propose to acquire only 600 acres out of about 1,200 acres. At the village of Lattin there are 550 acres of land owned by a gentleman who has 600 acres where he lives, at a place called Dundrum. In other words, he has 1,150 acres of land, and the Land Commission have decided that they are going to acquire only 186 acres out of that 1,150, notwithstanding the fact that these 550 acres are situated in a very congested district, and that there are at least 23 families in the area who have no land whatever, not even sufficient to grow potatoes for household purposes. These lands are non-residential. There are, I am informed, only three men employed on the 1,200 acres, and the Land Commission have told me, on many occasions within the last three years, that it was their intention to acquire and divide these lands without any delay. I have been told that in the offices of the Land Commission. Between three and four years have elapsed since this matter was brought under the notice of the Commission. Yet no attempt has been made to divide the lands. I do not want to go into the matter very much further on this Estimate, but I do want to protest against the attitude taken up by the Land Commission. I want to protest against any person being allowed to retain over 1,000 acres of land, more especially when he is not making a proper use of the land, and when there are many uneconomic holders in the district who are anxious to get a portion of that land and to work it. When this House passed the Land Act it was said that that Act was going to solve the land question in the country. We were told we were going to have no more uneconomic holders, but, in this instance, we have side by side with these uneconomic holders, gentlemen who are going to retain close on 1,000 acres. If that is allowed to continue then the land question is not going to be settled.

This is the first time I have had to bring any complaint in this House or outside it against the Land Commission in dealing with the acquisition or the division of land. I would not bring a complaint against them on this occasion if I were not justified in doing so. I may tell the House that the general belief in that particular district is that there is somebody in the Land Commission, or that there is some person with influence somewhere who is using his influence with the Land Commission and who is succeeding in getting the Land Commission to come to this extraordinary decision not to acquire anything more than 186 acres of land out of something like 1,150 acres. It is wrong that that impression should be there. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to give the House the facts of the case and will be able to tell us why his Department has come to this decision. I may say, as far as I am concerned, that I am satisfied that there is no excuse whatever for the delays that have taken place. I will give the House a case in point. The owners objected to the acquisition of these lands by the Land Commission in March of last year. The Commissioners only gave their decision on that objection a month ago. That is to say, it took the Commissioners ten months from the date on which the objection was served until it was heard. Ten months were spent by the Commissioners in deciding whether these lands were or were not to be acquired by the Land Commission. It seems to me that that was an unreasonable delay, and that there could not possibly be any grounds for it. That incident in itself has gone to strengthen the belief of the people in the area that there is something underhand going on in connection with the matter. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to clear up that matter, and that it will be cleared up in this House. I hope that it is not going to be the policy of the Land Commission to allow, in the hands of one individual, 1,000 acres of good land such as this, particularly when there are uneconomic holders and suitable landless men in the district who are prepared and willing to work the land for their own benefit and for the benefit of the country.

Mr. B. MAGUIRE

I object to this Vote being passed in favour of advantage to the Land Commission a sum which I regard as having been incurred mainly because of their inefficiency and incompetency. We are told that the greater portion of this amount is due as a result of the transition period from the taking over of the land by the Land Commission until it comes into the possession of the allottees. It is an extraordinary condition of affairs that the Department that has control of the lands of this country, with its associations here, including the Department of Agriculture—another very expensive State Department—has no better alternative than to allow the lands which it takes over to become a loss to the community and a burden on the taxpayers through failure to utilise them properly. It should be mentioned that for the period while the land is in their hands it is practically out of use. There should be no difficulty about taking over these lands. For my part, I know very well the conditions that exist in Leitrim. In County Leitrim alone there are at least one thousand farmers who are trained in the management of farms, hardworking, energetic men, quite prepared and willing to leave their rock-strewn patches of ground that are termed farms and go back to the lands that their forefathers were driven from. They are prepared to make good use of those lands if they get an opportunity of working them, and not alone would the land be of use to themselves but they would also make it of benefit to the State.

I consider it is quite possible, when land is taken from the owners, that State Departments can send down competent experts trained for the purpose of educating the farmers in the management of the land. If they have not local applicants to take over the land they can make application in Leitrim and they will find plenty of persons there to respond. Let them take those people to the ground and show them how to manage farms and there will be no need for the land becoming a burden on the rest of the community. The present arrangements seem altogether absurd. I know that there are plenty of applicants from the congested areas of Leitrim who have applications before the Land Commission for the last five years and they still await a call to take over a piece of land to work in their own interest and in the interests of their families. Many people have given up all hope of ever being called back to the land. Most of those who were one time applicants have emigrated and the remnant are contemplating emigration now.

The State is asking us at this juncture to pass a further sum of money in order to allow the inefficiency of the Land Commission to continue. I object to the Vote on that score. It seems rather a strange thing that, if the Land Commission experience difficulty in getting suitable applicants, there is this urgency to take land over at all. There is a strong suspicion in the minds of people in reference to this acquisition of land by the Land Commission. They suspect, from the excessive rents they are forced to pay when the land is divided, that the influence of the Land Commission is greater from the point of view of the landlords and the large ranchers. In view of the economic conditions of the last five or six years, many people believe that it is in order to facilitate land owners and give them compensation out of their holdings that the Land Commission are actuated in their efforts rather than by desire to distribute land amongst the unfortunate people who require it for the purpose of working it in their own interests and in the interests of the State.

In every case where the Land Commission have undertaken the acquisition of land there is a period of undue delay. It is a sort of password in the country that, when a parcel of land is about to be taken over by the Land Commission, it is first used as a sort of pleasure-ground by half the people of the City of Dublin; they air themselves on it during the summer season. The first indication people have that land is about to be taken over is when a motor car arrives with a set of officials and disgorges them on the ground. They produce maps, make a fuss, and invariably end up by leaving behind a state of confusion that does not find a remedy for many a day after they have left. That is altogether unnecessary. I have had experience in Leitrim of lands being taken over and subjected to this extraordinary inspection and the result was that the farmers to whom allotments were given are still waiting to see if the Land Commission will take back the land and relieve them of a burden that it is impossible for them to carry. There is no necessity for that undue inspection and there is no necessity for the taking over of land at an exorbitant, an uneconomic, price.

The Land Commission are very culpable in the whole transaction. As regards the general inefficiency of the Land Commission I have had several instances where farmers who paid land annuities were brought into Court by the Land Commission and sued by ordinary civil bill. They had to appear in Court and they were subject to expense and indignity. That system is quite inefficient. We are told in this House when we make applications to bring about economy by reducing the salaries of overpaid officials, that if that were done we would have inefficiency. Anyone with experience of the Land Commission and the inefficiency of that body, who is met by a threat of further inefficiency, knows that greater inefficiency, or greater efficiency of how not to do it could hardly ever be attained by the body known as the Irish Land Commission.

I state further that the Land Commission are not alone guilty of grave inefficiency, but they are guilty of depriving farmers of millions of pounds by misrepresentation. I will give you as an instance the farm I hold myself. Seventeen years ago an agreement was made to purchase that farm through the Land Commission. Representation was made to the Land Commission by the farmers concerned that the amount of money they would have to pay would be on the basis of eighteen or twenty years' purchase. I am not exactly positive about it now, but the amount calculated in my case would come approximately to £460. If I or my predecessor, who at the time negotiated the business, had £460 and paid it in spot cash, any further liability to the Land Commission or the landlord would cease. My predecessor had not the money, and instead he availed of the system known as the payment of land annuities. The land annuities were based on 2¾ per cent. In the meantime the payment has been at the rate of 3½ per cent. interest in lieu of rent, pending the vesting of the estate. Seventeen years have passed, and the amount of interest in lieu of rent since paid has been at the rate of £15 8s. 9d. per year. I have an estimate from an insurance broker as to what that would amount to at the end of seventeen years, and he tells me it would be worth approximately £360. As I have said, the total charge against the land was about £460. Up to the present the land has not been vested, and the extraordinary fact remains that the bargain I contracted seventeen years ago of paying £460 is still good, and every penny of the money is still due although I have been paying £15 8s. 9d. annually. Not one penny of the amount paid goes to the credit of the annuitant. That applies not only in my case but to practically every tenant on that estate. I am sure the conditions on that estate are not peculiar to that estate alone, but are fairly general all over the Free State. That is misrepresentation amounting to fraud, and I, as the party concerned, have a perfect right to demand from the Land Commission that they will allow me credit for the money that has been paid.

I could understand a delay occurring during a transitionary period when title had to be looked into, but I suggest it is impossible to explain why a Department of State should require seventeen years to investigate title. Even at the end of that period there is no statement from them, nor have they satisfied us that that transitionary period has come to an end. I claim that is fraud. It is direct fraud, and has been directly responsible for defrauding the farmers of this country of a sum amounting to perhaps £2,000,000. I make that statement from my experience of that Department. I hold that the Department is not entitled to any consideration by way of a vote of money from this House, and that if there is one Department in the State that requires strict investigation and strict overhauling it is the one known as the Irish Land Commission which is responsible for more disaster amongst the farmers in this country than its predecessor, the landlords.

Mr. DERRIG

I think the House ought to have a somewhat fuller statement on this subject from the Parliamentary Secretary than the one he has given. This, apparently, is the first instance of a Supplementary Estimate being introduced to make up for deficiencies of annuities on untenanted land. For that reason it gives the House an opportunity to examine this whole question of untenanted land and, as Deputy Maguire pointed out, an opportunity to call attention to the injuries that are being done to tenants by the failure of the Land Commission to complete the vesting of their holdings in the tenants within a reasonable period of time. It is now five years since the Land Act of 1923 was passed. As far as I can make out from the only statement available at the moment, a statement which appeared in the "Irish Times" newspaper last autumn, the total number of holdings which have actually been allotted under the 1923 Act is only 15,000, although we are told that 100,000 holdings are provisionally gazetted. When a tenant has his land in process of acquisition by the Land Commission he gets a reduction in rent equal to 5s. in the £, so that if previously he were paying a rent of £50 a year the new amount he has to pay in the future to the Land Commission would be £37 10s. If a person's holding were vested, the amount of his rent ought to be reduced not by 5s. in the £, but by something like 8s. in the £ according to the provisions of the Land Act of 1923. So that a person with a farm, if his former rent was £50 a year and he is now paying £37 10s., ought in reality only to be paying £30 a year. Therefore by the failure of the Land Commission to vest a holding, a tenant whose former rent was £50 a year is losing at the rate of £7 10s. a year. In other words, he has lost the sum of £37 10s. since 1923.

We were told at the time that the 1923 Land Act was introduced that land purchase was to be completed in Ireland within five years. The figures that we get in newspaper articles—we get no information from the Land Commission itself and I do not know when it issued a report—are not very reliable. My experience in the West of Ireland is that the Land Commission may purchase several thousand acres of bog or mountain land and put them under some category or other as tenanted or untenanted land available for distribution, so that figures as to the number of hundreds of thousands of acres in hand really give no index as to the exact position. What we do know is that the Land Commission in 1912, and in the preceding years under the British administration, was distributing land at the rate of about 30,000 holdings per year. Since the year 1922 the total allotments under the Land Purchase Acts have not come to 30,000 holdings. Therefore, we have done less since the Free State came into being for the people who were gulled so much at elections into believing that they were going to have a new paradise and that land distribution was going to be speeded up, than the British Government did in a single year.

The Land Commission in the year 1912 had 638 officials, and it was costing the Irish taxpayers £144,335. Now, although it is not doing more than a fraction of the work which the old Land Commission did, it has 752 officials. It has more officials for the Twenty-Six Counties than the British Land Commission had for the whole thirty-two counties, and what was formerly costing us £144,000 odd is now costing, according to last year's estimate, £305,000. We were told also, in this statement which appeared in the "Irish Times," that in one way or another the Land Commission was investigating or proposing to acquire some three million acres of tenanted land, of which it had actually acquired 565,000 acres. If the Land Commission can only acquire 565,000 acres in five years, it stands to reason that it will take it 30 years at least to acquire 3,000,000 acres.

One of the reasons that the Parliamentary Secretary gives for this Vote is that there is a certain amount of difficulty in transferring the land: that the tenants are often not satisfied. Perhaps as in the case of the County Dublin tenants, whom Deputy MacEntee mentioned last Friday, they have reason not to be satisfied. I venture to say to the House that you will find very few cases where a landlord, or a tenant who has been purchased by the Land Commission, is not satisfied. One hundred and eighty-four thousand acres of untenanted land have been acquired by the Land Commission and that has cost the people £2,000,000. Out of that amount of land only 120,000 acres have been divided among 5,300 holders.

I think that Deputy Dr. Ryan was somewhat under-estimating when he said that this Vote represented £400,000 worth of untenanted land. I believe it represents at least £600,000 worth. As regards the 5,300 persons to whom the land was allotted, I do not know whether some of them are in the category that the Parliamentary Secretary calls allottees of untenanted land, or what we call down the country ranchers, but I do know that considerable numbers of these allottees are not able to pay the annuities that were fixed upon them under this Act. And at the same time that these heavy annuities were fixed under the monumental Act of the present Minister for Agriculture, and when we are not alone pursuing them all over the country but driving sheriffs and bailiffs after them in order to collect these annuities, we refuse to give them the benefit of the reductions to which they are entitled under the law of the land by having their holdings vested within a reasonable time. To make matters worse and to show how little these people in the country count under this iron Ministry, we are now proposing to tax them for the benefit of the ranchers and the unfortunate people are being harassed all over the country in order to have the taxes collected.

It is now proposed, in addition to that, and to the loss they have incurred by the failure to vest their land, to pay all these thousands of pounds to make up the losses that the Land Commission has suffered by letting the land out on the eleven months' system. The guarantee fund which the British Government made sure would be there as security for the payment of land annuities, which was available to make up annuities in default or arrear, is not available now at all for this purpose. When the tenant farmer is not able to pay his annuity, the guarantee fund has to make up the deficiency and the local ratepayers have to suffer. Even the British Government did not think of making any provision for the rancher. It has come to a nice pass that we are asked in this House, where we hear so much talk about protection for industry, why we should not have protection, and why we should not help Irish industries, coolly under some guise of words, to pay this money which is nothing less than subsidising ranching. The tenant under the 1923 Land Act has to pay 4¾ per cent. He has to pay a higher rate of interest than was available for the landlord under previous Acts. I do not know why that should be, but I do know that the tenant has to pay 4¾ per cent. where formerly he had only to pay 3½ per cent. As if we were not satisfied with that, we are now coming along and asking him to pay for the defects and the lack of expedition in the Land Commission in having these lands divided.

I desire also to call attention to the way in which land is being distributed in my constituency. A certain estate called the Kilkelly Estate, at Ballickmoyler, has been in agitation for a considerable time. Part of it was acquired, but 60 acres remained. The Land Commission refused to take over these 60 acres, although the steward and other men were available, and were waiting for the land to be given to them. There was also a case about the division of the Burton Hall Estate, outside Carlow. I am not going into the allegations which have been made to me about the way in which this land was distributed, but I do know, and have convinced myself, that people who never tilled an acre of soil in their lives, and who had 40 acres of land—private gentlemen with private incomes—got parcels of the land while 10 or 12 labourers who were living and working on the estate, through the operations of the Land Commission, have not alone lost their weekly wage of 30/- or whatever it was, but it is now proposed to throw them out without giving them a garden. I have a case also where tenants who were evicted from their land 20 years ago had to sit down and watch the land from which they were evicted being let out in grass. They have sat there and waited patiently, hoping that out of all the promises made to the evicted tenants, to do the right thing by uneconomic holders and congests, something would happen. But nothing has happened, and the result is that in my constituency there are whole tracts of land lying waste at present which, a few generations ago, were heavily cropped and produced enough wheat to feed the whole population of the present Free State. Before a further estimate comes up for the Land Commission, I hope that we shall have a full and complete report showing the amount of land which is now in the hands of the Land Commission, explaining the reasons for the delay in distributing it, and giving some idea of the amounts which have been paid for these estates.

Mr. DAVIN

The case to which Deputy Derrig has just referred, the Kilkelly Estate at Ballickmoyler, has not been divided for reasons different to those which I have been given by the Land Commission. That was a case which I brought under the notice of the Land Commission on several occasions. I understand that the division scheme was sanctioned by the Commissioners about eighteen months ago, but, for reasons which I cannot understand, the scheme has not been yet put into operation. I understand the question involved is one of securing possession of the land, but I think it is the kind of case the Parliamentary Secretary might take notice of and see that when land is acquired, and when a division scheme is drawn up and actually sanctioned, power should certainly be in the hands of the Commissioners to put it into operation immediately. Deputy Derrig may be referring to another portion of the Kilkelly Estate, but these are the facts and that is the information conveyed to me by the Commissioners, as a result of several inquiries which I made, on the Commissioners failing to divide the land during the last eighteen months. Deputy Morrissey has cited a case in support of a complaint which he brought before this House, and which, according to what I can find out, is not an isolated case, but which certainly makes it clear that the failure to acquire large estates on the part of the Land Commission is not confined to the Deputy's constituency in Tipperary.

On the 24th November last, the date of the adjournment of the House, I put the following question:—

"To ask the Minister for Fisheries whether the Land Commission have recently decided not to acquire the lands (235 acres) of J.C. Smith, Down, Edenderry, whether the owner resides in Dublin, and whether the Smith family are also in possession of 1,303 acres of land, with a valuation of over £1,000, and if he can now state the reason why the Commissioners declined to acquire these lands for the relief of congestion."

That question appeared on the Order Paper on three occasions before the Parliamentary Secretary gave me the following reply:—

"The lands of J.C. Smith, Down, Edenderry, containing 286 statute acres, were published in a Provisional List in ‘Irish Oifigiúil' on the 3rd December, 1926. On the 17th January, 1927, the owner lodged an objection to the Provisional List under Section 40, sub-section (3) of the Land Act, 1923, which objection was heard in the Court of the Land Commission on the 6th April, 1927, when evidence was submitted by counsel on behalf of the objector in support of his objection. The Commissioners having themselves visited the lands and having fully considered the evidence and entire circumstances of the case gave judgment on the 13th of October allowing the objection.

"The Commissioners are acquiring a large area of land in this neighbourhood which they expect will meet the wants of the local uneconomic holder of land."

That is an entirely unsatisfactory reply and it is certainly not a reply to the very direct question which I put to the Parliamentary Secretary in November last. Here is an individual living in one of the best furnished houses on Ailesbury Road, far away from his 1,303 acres, which he is pleased to hold and supposed to work in County Offaly. He seldom goes there except when he goes, or sends somebody else, to collect his rent. This man resides in Dublin and the advisors to the Land Commission were of opinion that in order to relieve congestion in that district it was necessary to acquire 235 of the 1,303 acres. The Commissioners went down there surrounded by their officials. I do not know what they saw, but I would like to know what they did see to convince them that they should not take 235 acres of untenanted land out of the 1,303 acres. I am not blaming the officials. This is a question involving the policy of the Commissioners, and the Parliamentary Secretary is responsible to the Dáil for that policy. I hope when he replies he will give some better reason for the inaction of the Commissioners in this case than he gave when replying to a question of mine on the 24th of November last.

I know, and I am sure that Deputies Boland, Aird, Dwyer and Gorry will bear me out, that whenever the Commissioners announce their decision to acquire land in Leix and Offaly, more particularly in Offaly, an organised band of landlords with their expert advisers, get to work and, so far as I can see, they seem to be successful in almost every case. The Parliamentary Secretary tries to pass over this particular case by saying that they intend to acquire other land in the vicinity to relieve local uneconomic holders. Are we to understand that land is only to be acquired in a county, a parish, or a rural district, simply to relieve congestion in that particular area? I do not know what is the intention of the Commissioners and, so far as I can see, that is not their policy. I am informed that there are between sixty and seventy uneconomic holders in the immediate vicinity of these lands. I would like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary what are the other lands which the Commissioners propose to acquire in the immediate vicinity to relieve local uneconomic holders, or what is the reason that they did not acquire those 235 acres out of the 1,303.

I know cases in which there was a smaller acreage involved where the Commissioners took over the land for the relief of congestion. This is the first opportunity which I have got of raising this case. It is a bad case and, judging by Deputy Morrissey's complaint, it seems to be typical. It is typical of the inaction of the Commissioners in acquiring land for relieving congestion under the Act of 1923. In Offaly, particularly Edenderry area, there are a number of solicitors who have interested themselves deeply on behalf of the landlords in days gone by. When the Commissioners notify landowners of their intention to acquire land these solicitors and their advisers and friends, with powerful influences behind them, gather together in a hall in a town and decide to put their heads together with a view to beating the Commissioners. I cite this case in order to enable the Parliamentary Secretary to justify the action, or inaction, of the Commissioners. If he can do so I am prepared to listen to the replies in other cases in which the Commissioners proceeded to acquire land but failed to do so. When the Minister for Lands and Agriculture was putting his Bill, which is now an Act, before this House he never intended that only sufficient land would be taken for any particular county or any particular area for relief of congestion in that area, but according to the Parliamentary Secretary that is the policy of the Commissioners. As I said before, I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will give us more information in support of the policy of the Commissioners in regard to this particular case than he gave in his reply to me in November last.

Mr. BRENNAN

I would like to draw the attention of the House, particularly the Parliamentary. Secretary, to the grievances which are pretty general in my county. Definite promises were made by the predecessors of the Land Commission, namely, the Congested Districts Board, to open up turbary and bog for migrants on the borders of County Mayo and County Galway. These people came originally from places where there was a plentiful supply of turf, and found themselves transferred to areas in Mid-Roscommon where there was practically no bog within nine or ten miles distance. The Congested Districts Board and the Land Commission acquired bogs and promised these people that they would open them up, but they have not done so, with the result that these people are in a worse position than they were before. From all over the county, and Mid-Roscommon particularly, I have heard complaints in this regard. I am making inquiries from the Land Commission, and I hope that the definite promises that were made will be carried out. The people involved were largely deceived because they would not have taken their present holdings had they known that they would not get some fuel. They took these costly holdings on that understanding, but they did not get what they were promised, and it is time that the Land Commission now came to their relief and fulfilled those promises.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

took the Chair.

Mr. CLERY

I want to complain about the general inactivity of the Land Commission. I think there is scarcely any Deputy, no matter on what bench he sits, who will not have more complaints about the inactivity of the Land Commission than in regard to any other Department of the Government. Connaught, I believe, is the most congested of the Provinces, and Mayo is certainly the worst county in that respect, as the land question there remains in a very unsettled state. There are estates in Mayo which have been in the hands of the Land Commission for eighteen years, some of them much longer, but nothing has been done in regard to them since they were taken over. The case there is similar to that mentioned by Deputy Maguire in Leitrim. I have a list of estates in regard to which I recently asked the Land Commission what action they proposed to take. The D'Arcy estate has been in the hands of the Land Commission for eighteen years, another estate for sixteen years, the Brabazon estate in Erris for fourteen years, and there are also the Blake estate and the Reddy estate.

I understand that the Reddy estate was inspected by officials of the Land Commission before an election in North Mayo in 1925, but since then nothing has been heard about it. On some of these estates there has been no reduction of rent for eighteen years, so that when the purchase money comes to be paid over it will have to be paid by tenants who have been paying for eighteen years or longer to the Land Commission. In many parts of the county the Land Commission have taken over lands and held them in their possession for a number of years, but the only thing they have done is to take grazing stocks at prices which even the landlords would not demand. They put up the argument that they cannot very well get tenants to take the lands owing to the delay in getting tenants to migrate. The statement has been made concerning many parts of Mayo that they cannot get tenants to go into the holdings. That is all wrong, and is quite unfounded, as the tenants are only too glad, particularly in Erris, to migrate if they get an opportunity.

You have in Erris 1,300 acres of land in one ranch owned by Mr. Carson. Prior to the General Election that land was taken over by the Land Commission, or it was pretended that it was taken over. Mr. Carson's cattle were taken off the land, and the impression was given that the people were to be seen to immediately, and were to get farms. Just before the election took place Mr. Carson drove his cattle back and he still holds the land. No action seems to have been taken by the Land Commission as regards having that question settled. Then with regard to reclamation, about which we heard so much talk recently, concerning Erris I read in the "Independent" of a great scheme being carried out by the Land Commission. I thought some good was being done, but when I went through the district I found what the Commission did was to take 40 acres of mountain bog, already attached to the people's holdings, and they decided they would fence this land and drain it for the tenants. I do not know about the fencing and draining. They did very little of that. What they did for the tenants was to make an agreement with them, or proposed to them, that for every acre of this mountain bog the tenants would dig or turn, they would be paid a grant of £4, that grant to be paid back by them to the Land Commission in a yearly annuity of 3/10 for 68 years. It is very little good to ask people in mountain areas to turn mountain bog and at the same time leave a large ranch of 1,300 acres in the hands of Mr. Carson. The tenants are told that if they fail for any year to till the mountain bog they will be dispossessed of that. I think the attitude there was one of simply fooling the people for the time being to make them feel that something was being done on their behalf, as regards reclamation, and which is only the usual tomfoolery that is going on.

There can be no excuse, I think, for the Land Commission for most of the things that have happened in the County Mayo. Deputy Nally said he is convinced the only way to settle this question is by the dismissal of half the officials of the Land Commission. That is a serious statement from a Cumann na nGaedheal Deputy. Ministers and Cumann na nGaedheal T.D.s often think when we criticise their actions that we are the only people who do so, but when you find a prominent Cumann na nGaedheal Deputy from Mayo advising immediate dismissal of Land Commission officials, the employment of a new staff, and a general reorganisation of the Land Commission, I think they should take a serious view of this question. As far as the Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Roddy, is concerned, I have sympathy with him, because I realise that the Land Commission are now under the Department of Fisheries. Some few years ago I saw a play called "The Drone." If ever I saw a play which brought a person into real life it was in this, in the person of Deputy Lynch, the Minister for Fisheries, and it is an ill omen for the farmers to feel that the Land Commission are now attached to——

Mr. HOGAN (Minister for Lands and Agriculture)

That play was written by an official of the Land Commission.

Mr. CLERY

In the office, I suppose.

Mr. HOGAN

No.

Mr. CLERY

Evidently he got his lesson from within. I should have more information about the Land Commission if I knew who the author was. I think we can safely say that Deputy Lynch's Department, under which the Land Commission are now, seems to have become entangled in the cobwebs of the armchairs in their offices. There is no doubt that the inefficiency and inactivity of the Commission are being found fault with on all sides of the House. When it comes to vote, I think Deputies who talk down the country about the inactivity of the Land Commission, and about dismissals and the appointment of officers who will speed up the work, should vote against this. Money is evidently required by the Land Commission, but if this is turned down it will bring to the minds of the people in charge that there is a serious state of affairs in the country, and that in the West, and particularly in many parts of Mayo, where they have attempted to settle the land question, they have left it worse than before. Where they have divided the land they have charged the people an annuity of £3 an acre for it.

Mr. RODDY

Can the Deputy give the name of an estate where that has been done?

Mr. CLERY

I cannot at the moment, but it is in the parish of Bekan, and there from £2 10s. to £3 an acre is charged. I have got the information from the tenants. They are trying to pay that, and since they got that land they have to go away to England to earn the rent, which they had not to do before. I ask Deputies from Mayo, particularly Deputy Davis and Deputy Nally, if they are in earnest in having estates that were in the hands of the C.D.B. divided, to vote against this as a protest against the existing state of affairs. Since 1923 the Land Commission have expended something over £2,700,000, and since Connaught is the most congested province, I take it that one-third of that amount was spent there, so that you can easily see the Land Commission have expended for that province about £1,000,000. Nobody, I think, could imagine that being spent on the land. Rather it has been spent on salaries and on other ways in Connaught for the past three or four years. The land question remains unsettled, and it is because of that, and in order to get it settled, that I ask Deputies to vote against the motion. Sin a bhfhuil le rádh agam. Tá súil agam go ndeanfhaidh an t-Aire mar a deirim.

MINISTER for LANDS and AGRICULTURE (Mr. Hogan)

This is apparently the only big question. I came to that conclusion when listening to the debate. It is quite clear to me that on the opposite benches there is a complete lack of perspective in this regard. It is quite clear to me from this debate, and other debates on this question which I have listened to, that Deputies on the opposite benches think that the important thing for the farmer is to acquire land and that it makes no difference whatever and is of no importance how he farms it. That is the crude idea of agricultural policy on the opposite benches, if you are to judge by their speeches. The thing is to acquire land. It does not matter what annuity you are to acquire it at, because you can repudiate it afterwards. But get it anyhow, good, bad, or indifferent; it makes no difference whatever how you work it. That is the idea of agricultural policy on the opposite benches. It is from these benches that you hear these loose charges of incompetence and inefficiency from people who have not the faintest idea what they are talking about, and who have not made the slightest attempt to study the figures. They have not the faintest conception of the difficulties and the problems that have to be faced by the Land Commission.

Mr. CORRY

Farmers are waiting for seventeen years to have their farms vested.

Mr. HOGAN

You hear people who know nothing about land, who could not tell the difference between good and bad land, who know nothing about cattle, sheep, or agriculture generally, getting up to dogmatise on agriculture and talking of the inefficiency of the Land Commission Inspectors. Deputies ought to develop a sense of humour. If they developed a sense of humour, they would not make loose charges in that loose way.

A DEPUTY

A Cumann na nGaedheal sense of humour.

Mr. HOGAN

For people who are capable of understanding and appreciating them, I want to put the following considerations forward: Are Deputies aware that the Land Commissioners have a jurisdiction which is about ten times as extensive as any High Court Judge either here or in England? Are they aware that any one case coming before the Land Commission may involve from £10,000 to £40,000 of the property of citizens of the Free State? That is a fact. Surely the political intelligence and development of Deputies ought to have reached the stage to realise that when a citizen's property has to be dealt with, whether it is to be taken from him or left to him, if it is to be interfered with in any vital way, the whole question must be considered in a judicial way. All the merits of the case should be summed up on each side and there should be no danger of doing injustice in the interests of what Deputies call efficiency or expedition. I make bold to say that for every one case that is heard on any one day in any court in the Four Courts, the Land Commission decides at least three or four involving three or four times as much property. Who owns the property? We hear a lot about landlords. Who are the new landlords? I should like some of the Fianna Fáil Deputies just to think of this. There are very few big estates left in Ireland. The greater proportion of the really big estates were dealt with under the 1903 Act. There are big estates left. There are big estates acquired under the 1923 Act. There are still some big estates to be acquired. But by far the bigger proportion of the larger estates were acquired under the 1903 and 1909 Acts. Who are the landlords we are dealing with now? To a great extent farmers with 100, 150 or 200 statute acres of land. Of course I know there are Deputies on the opposite Benches who think that there is no function for these farmers, but they cannot always be trying to have every question both ways. Let us have their views definitely on the question of whether they stand for the wholesale acquisition, say, of 100 acres from a farmer who may have 150 or 200 acres, and that the compensation he is to get is not to be fully considered. I tell Deputies that the time will come when the interests of some of the people whom they regard as their followers will be very nearly touched by the administration of the Land Commission, and they will then begin to take a more sensible and, perhaps, a more equitable view of the Land Commission. I make them a present of that point of view.

The Land Commission, in any event, has a different point of view. It has a responsible point of view in this matter. When you are dealing with the property of any citizen, no matter how big or how small, how much he owns or how little, it believes he should get fair play and full consideration. The Land Act of 1923 was a drastic Act. It gives complete and drastic powers to the Land Commission, and the Land Commission must carry out their powers. The Land Commissioners have no real discretion. They must acquire untenanted land, so far as it is required for the relief of congestion. They must even go further and acquire tenanted land, and a very large area of the land they have acquired for the relief of congestion is tenanted land. They must even go further, and in certain cases acquire land that has already been purchased and vested in tenants. So that they have no discretion in that matter. This Parliament has ruled that the Land Commission must do all that. But they must do it with full advertence to the considerations set out in the Land Act under which they work. They must see that the rights and equities of the case are fully weighed and considered. They must see that fair compensation is given. I say no more, and anybody who does not like the word can tell us what sort of compensation he wants. Is it unfair compensation? They must see that fair compensation is given. They must see when land is taken that there is no more suitable land in the area to be taken and that the land is suitable for the congests who require it. Anybody who knows anything about farming, or has any real interest in small farmers, who does not regard the small farmer as just something to be exploited for political purposes, knows well that there are certain lands which would be no good to the small farmer on any terms, except he is to get them for nothing and pay no rent, rates or taxes. They have to take all these things into account, because they are not inefficient, because they know their job, because for years they have been dealing with the question. I make bold to say that the officers of the Land Commission, the outdoor and the indoor staff, are amongst the most efficient staff that belongs to this Civil Service, which is perhaps the most efficient Civil Service in Europe.

To people who understand these considerations I want to put this: there are a great many steps before you acquire property. That was the opinion of the Dáil. I make bold to say that any Government that comes into power and provides any body of men with compulsory powers to acquire property, no matter whether that property is big or small, or whether the value is big or small, will provide certain safeguards to ensure that things are done in a considered, gradual way. There are various steps to be taken. The land has to be inspected and it has to be priced. When it is priced, the owner has a right to object that the price should be higher. Do Deputies want to take away that right? If they do, let them say it. But if they do not, they must put up with the delay that is inevitable if you are to give any time to object and for the Commissioners to hear the objection. There is only one appeal from the Land Commission's operations, and that is to the Judicial Commissioner. In the old days there was an appeal to the High Courts, but there is only one appeal now. £50,000 or £100,000 worth of property can be taken away by three Commissioners, and there is only one right of appeal. You must provide time for that appeal. Moreover, when you are acquiring property all over the country in that way, you find that the stages of acquisition have progressed to a certain point in each case. Here are the figures since the Land Act of 1923 was passed. 133,000 acres of land have been divided. I know perfectly well that that conveys nothing to the House, that Deputies who have spoken would make exactly the same speech if I said that 1,333,000 had been divided, because the speech has no relevance to the facts.

Mr. G. BOLAND

Would the Minister allow me to ask a question? A Deputy has made a statement that under the British there were 30,000 holdings per annum divided, and that that was done with a staff of less by 100 for the whole of Ireland than at present. Would the Minister deal with that point as to the number of the staff? There are 100 per cent. more officials now. The thing is done at three times the cost now. There are more officials for 26 counties now than there were for the whole of Ireland under the British. According to the statement made by the Deputy, there was as much done in one year then as there is in five now. That is the Deputy's definite statement.

MINISTER for LANDS and AGRICULTURE (Mr. Hogan)

Deputy Roddy, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Fisheries, will deal with that in detail.

Mr. G. BOLAND

I am sorry. I thought the Minister was winding up the debate.

Mr. HOGAN

No; I am intervening in the debate. I remember the conditions, but the Parliamentary Secretary will deal with them and give the exact figures. I remember the general position, and while I have not seen the figures for six months, still I venture to say there was more land divided in one year under the Act of 1923 than in three years under the British régime.

Mr. MacENTEE

The figures do not matter. You make them to suit your case.

Mr. HOGAN

Would Deputies try to be less senseless in their interruptions? If they want information let them listen. I have not worked out the figures; they will be dealt with and gone into by Deputy Roddy, but I say there was more land divided in any one year since the Land Act of 1923 got going than there was in any three years by the British under the 1903 and the 1907 Acts. That was the position. There were nearly 133,000 acres—to be exact 132,974—divided. But if I said there was one million acres divided it would make no difference. In addition to that there are 193,000 acres vested in the Land Commission. Have Deputies any idea about the amount of trouble, time and examination required to vest that land. In addition, there is a price agreed upon for 62,000 acres. There is the price for 104,000 acres and 279,000 acres have been inspected, and inquiries are being made about 439,000 acres. In other words, the Land Commission is at present dealing, in one way or another, with over one million acres of land. It is no use, I realise, quoting these figures. If they were twice as much Deputies would say exactly the same thing.

A DEPUTY

That is not so.

Mr. HOGAN

The people are disappointed ! I suppose so. And why are they disappointed? I am sure the people that believed in the promises which were made by Deputies opposite as to what they were to get done are disappointed. We all know that land is rather an acute political issue in Ireland. It is supposed to be good business politically. We all know the Deputies on the Benches opposite have been going round the country pointing out that all the land in Ireland would be divided in a year if only certain people got the power to do the right thing.

Mr. MacENTEE

Will the Minister cite some instances of those promises?

Mr. HOGAN

No, I shall not. I know Deputy MacEntee would never do the like of that.

Mr. MacENTEE

I am glad to hear you say so.

Mr. G. BOLAND

If there was a by-election in the West, we would know all about it.

Mr. HOGAN

We know that people are promised land at half the annuities, and are promised all sorts and conditions of improvements of grants and houses and subsidies, loans and doles, and protection, all to be carried out in the same year.

Mr. MacENTEE

On a point of order, if the Minister knows all that will he not cite some facts and figures?

Mr. HOGAN

I am speaking of Deputies on the Benches opposite.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

Will the Minister allow me for a moment. Deputy MacEntee raises a point of order which is not a point of order. It has been repeatedly pointed out to Deputies that the more they interrupt the Minister for Agriculture the better he gets on. I ask them to allow him to proceed with his speech.

Mr. HOGAN

I assure Deputies that I have not been going round with a notebook taking down the speeches made at every cross-road by Deputies on the opposite Benches when they make extravagant promises.

Mr. KILLILEA

The Minister went on to farms with a pass-book under his arm.

Mr. MacENTEE

The Minister relies upon his imagination for his facts.

Mr. HOGAN

I never, while in charge of the Land Commission, went on an estate. That is not my job. If Deputies do not listen they cannot get information. I always saw enough land if I looked over the wall in my own County Galway on a Saturday afternoon, so that I never found it necessary to go on to an estate. I have never gone on to an estate with a note-book. The real position is this: Land is considered good political economics in every way. It does not matter how you work it. Get it at any price. Possession is nine points of the law. Get as much grants, doles, subsidies as you can and it does not matter. Where the money is to come from is another thing. If the Fianna Fáil Party comes in, and if they repudiate the annuities, the interest on the loan of £130,000,000 at 2¾ per cent., then everybody will be happy. Then there will be money for land purchase and for every purpose. There will not be a person with £100 in any country in Europe but will be rushing into this country to put it into land loans. The minute we stop paying that exorbitant interest of 2¾ per cent. and 1 per cent. sinking fund, then land purchase will go ahead at once. I see some Deputies sitting on the Benches opposite who have a bit of land. They will come in for a taste of the sort of land purchase you will get then. Where is the money to come from?

Mr. KILLILEA

From Beaverbrook.

Mr. HOGAN

That is the sort of interjection I expected from the Deputy. Deputies hate to face up to the facts. Here they complain of the lack of expedition from the Land Commission and talk about more and more land purchase, while from the same Party comes this campaign about Land Commission annuities and repudiating the interest on the money already advanced.

Mr. LEMASS

May I ask if the Minister is in order in discussing the ultimate financial settlement? He is misrepresenting the facts concerning it.

Mr. HOGAN

Before the Leas-Cheann Comhairle answers that point, may I be allowed to explain?

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

What is the Deputy's point of order?

Mr. LEMASS

My point is that if the Minister is in order in misrepresenting our attitude as to the ultimate financial settlement, will we be in order in discussing that point also?

Mr. HOGAN

Deputies in this Dáil point out that the Land Commission is not proceeding quickly enough and that it should proceed more quickly. Am I in order in pointing out that those Deputies are developing a campaign that the payment of the interest on the money should not be made to the people who advance the money for land purchase.

Mr. G. BOLAND

Borrowed by England to buy out her garrison.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

The Minister is sailing pretty close to the wind in this matter. I think he had better not develop it any further. It clearly might be developed beyond the point when it would not be in order.

Mr. HOGAN

I accept your ruling, sir.

Mr. GOREY

On a point of order, surely the question of the finances of the Act of 1923 has nothing to do with any final settlement.

Mr. LEMASS

Exactly.

Mr. GOREY

But if Deputies repudiate previous land purchase annuities will they also repudiate annuities under the Land Act of 1923?

DEPUTIES

No, no.

Mr. HOGAN

All I have to say in conclusion is that I appreciate that the Deputies opposite do not like to have that discussed in connection with land purchase.

Mr. LEMASS

We will give you an opportunity.

Dr. RYAN

Could the Minister state how much land there was to be purchased at the time that the 1923 Act was passed?

Mr. HOGAN

Untenanted land? I forget the figures.

Dr. RYAN

Would there be three million acres?

Mr. HOGAN

I would say not. I am not able to give the figures.

Dr. RYAN

Because you have only dealt with one hundred thousand acres in five years.

Mr. HOGAN

I would not say that there was anything like three million acres of untenanted land.

Dr. RYAN

It will take one hundred and fifty years to do it at your present rate.

Mr. HOGAN

The Deputy is assuming that there was three million acres of untenanted land. Remember that by the time land purchase is finished a great portion of it will be tenanted land.

Mr. G. BOLAND

I noticed one thing: that the Minister very conveniently dodged the few specific cases that were mentioned, especially the charge made by Deputy Derrig. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will take note of what I say now and will deal with it when he replies. It occurs to me that perhaps the delay in dividing land in the last few years may be due to the great amount of land that has been acquired, but if that has been the case I think that the last four or five years should have been sufficient to get through the preliminary stages, and that we might be excused for hoping that there would be some big increase in the amount distributed in the coming year. I am not going to criticise the members of the staff of the Land Commission that I met, because from my personal experience of them they have been thorough gentlemen. I am sure that some of the older people are not responsible, but that the extra hundred who have been dumped in on them in the last few years are. I am quite sure that that has a good deal to do with keeping back the efficiency of the Commission, and that the fault is not with the Commission at all, but with some of the new recruits who have been dumped in for certain services. I have been making inquiries about some estates in Roscommon, and I got information from those courteous gentlemen—I say it in all sincerity that they are that—that they could not possibly think of dealing with these estates. I will mention one—the Wills-Sandford estate, outside Castlerea. They say that their hands are so full that they cannot expect to tackle any more land —I expect that refers only to Roscommon—for at least eighteen months. There is one piece of land that was in Mayo but which is at present in the Roscommon constituency, where there is no ranch but four not very big nonresidential farms. One is fifty acres, and there are three of eighteen acres each. Those could be acquired and divided among the people, who are of the migratory labour class, and who at present cannot get the work they have been in the habit of getting in England but must remain at home. Their small farms, of about nine acres, are not sufficient for them. There really is a big demand for having that portion of Roscommon dealt with. It is a sort of no man's land. I think it is the Dillon estate, in the Ballaghadereen district, near Carracastle. I certainly think that in a case of acute congestion like that the Land Commission should take some steps to deal with the position, even though their lands are full. I would expect that when the British, with a much smaller staff, were able to deal with 30,000 farms in a year——

The PRESIDENT

The Deputy is not quoting incorrectly from that statement—30,000 holdings in one year?

Mr. G. BOLAND

I thought he said so.

The PRESIDENT

That is what I thought too, but it is so much of a joke that I would like to be correct.

Mr. G. BOLAND

I asked the Minister and he did not deny it.

The PRESIDENT

The Deputy is holding on to the 30,000 holdings in one year?

Mr. G. BOLAND

That is what I gathered.

The PRESIDENT

And so did I.

Mr. G. BOLAND

It has taken the present Land Commission five years to do the work. Deputy Derrig said that in one year the old Land Commission did as much as the present Land Commission have done in five years.

The PRESIDENT

And mentioned 30,000 holdings?

Mr. G. BOLAND

That is my recollection.

The PRESIDENT

And mine too.

Mr. G. BOLAND

The point is: are we to hope now that there will be a speeding up, that the interests of the citizens will be looked after, or are we to infer from what the Minister has said that the British did not pay sufficient attention to the interests of the land-owners when they could rush these cases through? I will just say that much about the acquisition of estates. There is another phase that has not so far been dealt with. I do not pretend to be an agriculturist, but without being one I can know something about questions of land. One thing is very prevalent in Roscommon, and that is that when the Land Commission does divide up an estate it puts ditches up on each side of the roads, but it rarely makes the roads. I have been deluged with complaints from every part of the constituency. People tell me that the land has been striped out, that roads were run through, and they were told that a certain amount of money was left to finish these roads, but complaints have come from all parts of the constituency that during the winter, for practically six months of the year, they cannot use these roads at all, that they were left there with the grass on them, except where the sod was taken off to make the ditches, with the result that they can hardly walk on them themselves, to say nothing of putting a car on them. That prevails all through the county. These people were told that a certain sum was laid out in each case for the making of these roads. The last complaint came from a place called Derrane, where they can scarcely get into their land. It is a most objectionable thing to tell the people you are going to make roads for them and not to do it. The people thought that when this new grant was made it would be available to deal with these roads. I understood money was left for each estate in the beginning to make roads, but all over the County Roscommon that is not being done.

Mr. DALY

I want to point out to the Secretary and the Minister that in a place called Glenville in my district a dozen tenants were prosecuted and fined for removing turf from the property on which they resided. The solicitor for these people, the tenants and myself, met, and we asked the Department to send an inspector down. He went down and said he could not find any turf, but he only met the agent or the steward. I would ask the Minister if he could see his way to send down an inspector again. He should meet some of the tenants with the steward and he would be shown where the turf is. These poor people are fifteen miles away from a town or from the City of Cork and in their case turf would be invaluable. I would like the Minister and the Secretary to take a note of that and to take action in the near future.

Mr. CORRY

We are told that this Vote is due to the delay in taking land over. I wonder what is the cause of the delay. I am one of those who believe that, while the present Government is in power, whose actions in regard to land are dictated from across the water and whose action in regard to the Land Acts must always be to look after the interests, not of the unfortunate tenants but of the landlords who formerly robbed these lands, we cannot expect much. I know that the result of the 1923 Land Act in my district has been to raise the rents of the tenants by ten per cent. If any member of the Cumann na nGaedheal party doubts my word I am prepared to lay the receipts before him. These tenants refused to pay their rents to the landlords in 1919. I went with them to the agents in 1921 and we made an agreement that the rent would be accepted, with a reduction of 35 per cent. That was a very happy arrangement until the Government stepped in and pulled the landlords out of the soup, and these tenants now find themselves in the position that they cannot pay.

We have it stated by the Parliamentary Secretary that "During that time between the purchase of the untenanted land by the Land Commission and its subsequent division amongst allottees the Land Commission becomes liable for rates, herds' wages and other outgoings of various kinds in addition to the 4¾ per cent. interest on the purchase money and it is not possible in many cases to secure an income from these lands by making temporary lettings for grazing or in conacre or by taking in cattle with grazing at prices sufficiently high to cover all these liabilities."

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

What is the Deputy quoting from?

Mr. CORRY

From the Parliamentary Secretary's speech on last Friday. I wonder does the Parliamentary Secretary mean that this land has been taken over—I think he is giving the game away—and bought from the landlords at such a high price that even the Land Commission are unable to pay the amount of rates or to pay a man with a dog for minding the cows, while an unfortunate tenant is to be handed over 30 acres or 40 acres and expected to maintain a wife and children on it. The Minister for Agriculture gave his usual parrot-cry about the lack of brains on these Benches. I only wish to echo the statement of my colleague, Deputy Carney, that when these Ministers go to another place they will leave their heads to the College of Science.

Mr. McGILLIGAN

To the College of Surgeons.

Mr. CORRY

I wonder what brainpower or what brains there are in the Land Commission when such cases exist as were alluded to by my colleague, Deputy Maguire? He spoke of his personal experience. He has a farm, and for 17 years he has been paying interest on that farm without having the farm vested. The Land Commission has been fraudulently securing interest on money for 17 years without a halfpenny of the principal being paid off. This delay in vesting is not an isolated case. The same state of affairs exists all over the twenty-six counties. I have had several cases brought to my attention in County Cork, where farms have remained for ten or fifteen years without being vested, while all the time interest is being fraudulently collected by the Land Commission. We have the statement of another Deputy that there are one hundred more officials in the Land Commission than in the time the British —100 more officials running twenty-six counties instead of thirty-two. I wonder what are the results? I have made repeated appeals to the Land Commission during the short time I have been here, and from what I can learn appeals were also made by other Deputies before to have an estate in Mitchelstown divided up. It is still hanging in the balance. I maintain that when these estates are being purchased, the only consideration is to satisfy the gentlemen for whom they are dragging the loot, to satisfy the landlord's interest, and that they are generally purchased at such a price as to make it an uneconomic proposition for any tenant to take the land over. I maintain that is why these lands remain in the hands of the Land Commission, that no tenant can take them over at the rent which the Land Commission is compelled to charge after paying an inflated price to those gentlemen who are collecting their legs out of it. Very glad they were to have the Act of 1923 brought forward to enable them to gather their legs out of it. I can assure Deputies opposite that only for the 1923 Act it would be very easy to deal with the landlords at the present day, for they would get damn all. It is high time to put an end to this state of affairs.

Another reason why this land is remaining so long in the hands of the Land Commission is that they do not know which gentleman has the nearest tie of relationship to some Deputy or Minister in order that he may get a slice of the land. There is competition in relationship. That is another reason why these estates are remaining so long unsold. I remember in 1920 that guarantees were given by the Republican Government of the day to the evicted tenants that their claims would be first considered. I have seen estates divided in my district and nobody knew where the gentlemen came from to whom these estates were given, whilst there are evicted tenants in that district, men who went out in the land war —and in consequence of fighting landlordism lost their farms—in order that some benefit might be derived from the land by the unfortunate people who slaved and worked on it. I notice that these evicted tenants' claims are absolutely ignored at the present day. Of course, I expect they are not closely enough related to the Ministers. That is the reason that they are being ignored. I see, furthermore, that the Land Commission cost £635,078. I heard the Minister for Agriculture a few minutes ago making very strong allusions as to what was our policy, but our policy at least—and I can state this very definitely—is not the policy of the gentlemen who hand over £3,000,000 per annum of this money to England and who pay £635,000 for the collecting of it. Surely to goodness if there is £3,000,000 to go to England, England should pay for the bum and the bailiff who go out to seize cattle and the few sheaves of oats which are lying about the farms. It is a nice commentary that we in County Cork have to pay 7d. in the £ rates for defaulting annuitants. It shows that these people are unable to pay this tax which was so lightly voted away in financial agreements. If this thing goes much further we will find ourselves in the position that those who are at present paying will have to cease payment because they will not be able to carry the double burden. It is time an end was put to it, and if the present Government have no intention of putting an end to it—and they have absolutely proved during the last five years that they have no intention of putting an end to it—why then they should get out and let someone in who will deal with it. We cannot afford to see the country run into bankruptcy and farms left derelict by these gentlemen.

Mr. TIMOTHY SHEEHY (Tipperary)

I wish to protest against the action of the Land Commission in regard to the acquisition of Lattin lands and to concur with the remarks made by Deputy Morrissey in reference to them, that the Land Commission only intended to acquire 186 acres of this land. What is the attitude of the Land Commission? Is it to protect the rancher? They have left a rancher with 960 acres or thereabouts for some reason of a shady nature. I am aware that there is a large number of uneconomic tenants in the vicinity of Lattin who would be only too willing to take portion of this land. There are others in the village who have only the houses they reside in.

I think that is a terrible state of affairs in what is known as the Golden Vale, the best land in the County Tipperary. The disposal of this land has been in contemplation for the last four or five years and nothing has been done until now. The Minister for Lands and Agriculture has stated that what all the people wanted was land at any rent. At any rate, the people are willing to accept it at any rent. The lands that were previously divided have been given to people at exorbitant annuities, and under the present depression in the country they are unable to pay these annuities. I think it is only fair that there should be some inquiry into these matters. These people who have land that has been divided for the past two or three years have been given that land at £2 an acre. There are, I know, several decrees from the Land Commission against people who hold land at 10/- an acre. Surely there must be some discrepancy when you find things of that kind happening. As regards the Lattin lands, I would say that whoever is at the root of it is very unfair to be protecting the owner of these lands and preventing the lands from being divided amongst the people who are entitled to them.

Mr. CARNEY

There are a few points I would like to bring out in connection with this Vote. We have heard from the opposite Benches a good deal about the 1923 Land Act, particularly from our able educator, the Minister for Lands and Agriculture. Under the 1923 Land Act the men who were so badly hit by the agricultural depression in the last few years and have lost all the little stock they possessed, found themselves unable to let their lands in conacre in order to eke out a living, simply because people were afraid that the powers that be would descend on them and seize the stock belonging to the people who might be grazing the land taken in conacre. As a consequence, these people found themselves in the position that they neither had stock of their own to put on the lands nor were they able to let the lands to others who would graze them with stock of their own. As a consequence, they were unable to pay the annuities and unable to live.

Mr. HOGAN

The Deputy is making a mistake. It is the 1927 Act the Deputy is referring to.

Mr. CARNEY

They found themselves in that position, that they were unable to pay the annuities. I know of two cases where the people could not stick the thing any longer and they simply cleared away to America. I do not know whether that was general all over the country or not. After the last general election there were in Carrick, Kilcar and Glencolumbcille districts, in south-west Donegal, over 150 writs issued, which had been held up, I understand, during and prior to the election. These writs were issued after the election. The same thing happened in other parts of Donegal. These people found themselves in the position that, in Glencolumbcille, when they had to attend court, they had to walk 16 miles to Killybegs. They simply had to go that distance after the writs were issued. In addition to the other indignities and hardships they were compelled to walk these 16 miles to the court in Killybegs in the depth of winter, in spite of the promises that were made to them before and during the elections. In the parish of Burt we had one outstanding instance of the Government policy in connection with the Land Commission. In Mullany, Burt, there were a number of men taking land for over 20 years. They took it and worked it, and after the lapse of 20 years this land was sold to a man who already owned 200 acres of land, and this left him then in possession of 440 acres. One of the men who held a house on this farm got a month in which to leave. He was to have been evicted on Christmas Eve. Owing to the noise that was created over the case he was not evicted, but, to my own knowledge, that man tried to obtain a house for himself, his wife and seven children in Derry and in Buncrana. Owing to the housing shortage he failed to get a house. He could get no land in the district. This man, who now owns 440 acres of land, has started to work it. Our friend, who was to have been evicted and who is a landless man, has applied for his passport. He is going to Canada. There are seven other farmers going as well. That is the policy of the Government in connection with the Land Commission. I have one particular case in mind where land was taken from the landlord and given to the tenant, and where the question of turbary arose. Whether it was the fault of the people themselves or of the Land Commission I know not. The people in many cases were practically illiterate. It should have been the duty of the Land Commission to see that every provision was made for the care of those people. In this case, after a number of years the people discovered to their amazement that they were not entitled to the turbary which adjoined their holdings. In this particular case of Tullydish, in the parish of Fahan, those people found themselves in the position that they were compelled to pay for their turbary to the former landlord, Alexander, although to the best of their knowledge and belief that turbary should have been their own property. During the years of the trouble no money was paid to the landlord, with the consequence that he sends along his representative or solicitor now, and he has made a retrospective claim for the moneys due during those years. The Land Commission may be able to give some explanation of that. I would like to hear if they have an explanation of this business. The people are concerned over it. They are not in a position to pay for their turbary over the last six years, and they hold that they are not bound to pay. If the Land Commission have an explanation for the people in Tullydish, and in other areas from which I have had inquiries, I would be very pleased now to hear that explanation. In conclusion, we will return thanks to the Minister for Lands and Agriculture for his educational lecture. I am sure he feels like a cross between an encyclopædia and a self-educator.

Mr. KENNEDY

The Minister for Lands and Agriculture spoke about our promises with reference to land. I will give him a couple of instances of promises from his own side of the House with reference to untenanted lands in County Westmeath, which were not fulfilled. The lands situated at Corry and Rathcrevagh, known as the Killian lands, have been the subject of agitation for the past 20 or 30 years and were protected by a police hut. The police cleared off in 1920 to a larger centre and the land came under the jurisdiction of the Republican Courts. Mr. O'Shiel, who is now a Land Commissioner, was then a Judge and his judgment was that these lands should be divided amongst the uneconomic tenants and landless men of the district. Owing to the disturbed conditions that decree was not executed and there was free grazing on the lands by everybody. Then the National Army held away around there and the stock belonging to the people who were using the land for grazing were seized for rent. At the same time the people were told that the land would be shortly divided by the Land Commission. One half of the estate at Corry has been divided and the other half has been acquired by a Mr. Murphy of Loughrea through a firm of solicitors in whom, I think, the Minister for Lands and Agriculture has some interest.

In the same locality are lands tenanted by Mrs. Hardy, 400 acres approximately. Representations were made to the Land Commission about these lands on behalf of the uneconomic holders and landless men by the Parish Priest, Father Carpenter of Collinstown. I have here the acknowledgment he got. These lands were acquired by the same Mr. Murphy through the same firm of solicitors, and Mr. Murphy boasts that he does not care a jot about the claims of the uneconomic holders and the landless men, and he wants two or three more big estates if he can get them. Are those the men that the Minister refers to as farmers of a hundred or a hundred and fifty acres? To my mind the policy of the Department is to keep the midlands safe for the grazier, anyway.

In Mount Temple the Land Commission five years ago took over the lands of Ellen O'Donoghue. Mrs. Maher was the tenant, and the area comprised about 800 acres. Claimants have been told again and again that the land would be divided shortly. No such thing has happened, and the lands are again let on the eleven months system. Then there are the Russell lands in the same locality, which have been in agitation since the days of the Land League. There was a famous trial about them, and the ex-Governor-General and the Chairman of the Senate were defending the prisoners. Numbers of men were imprisoned over the matter. When this Government came into being the lands were inspected by the Land Commission, and the people were led to believe they would be divided. A short time ago the lands were acquired by a gentleman who already holds farms of 90 and 60 acres. There are various other instances up and down Westmeath, but I confine myself to the ones I have mentioned.

It is the deliberate policy of the Ministry not to have security of tenure or fixity of tenure, the thing to by Lalor, but to have jobbing in land the same as in any other property. That is where we differ from them, anyway. We stand for security of tenure, the security especially of the small-holder. There are certain people about at present who are taking advantage of the terrible position in the country, of the terrible economic distress caused by the war-time inflation of money. They are taking advantage of that and are buying up the smallholder who finds himself in difficulties unable to pay land annuities or other debts for which he is being sold.

The Minister said something about fairness to landlords and the jurisdiction held by the Land Commission Inspectors. He mentioned that they should not do injustice to the landlords. He need not be one bit afraid that the Land Commission will do any injustice to the landlords. The Land Commission is the result of the land agitation in times gone by. They were put there by the British Government, and that Government was more on the side of the landlords than on the side of the tenant. The spirit of protecting the landlord permeates the whole Land Commission from top to bottom. The Minister need not be afraid that anybody from the Judicial Commissioner down will do a bit of harm to the landlords. Another thing that should be borne in mind by the very wise Government we have is this: the annuity is a fixed thing. It is over a period of nearly a century, and when some of these lands were being acquired under the 1923 Act an inflated price was paid. Lands were not bought with an eye to stable conditions, stable currency, stable credit. It is obvious that some of these lands are well over £1 an acre, and the lands which were bought across the ditch under the '93 and '99 Acts are 15/- and 17/- an acre. I have spoken to Land Commissioners about the thing. They say to me: "Oh, but look at the price to which land is going." They measure it in terms of present prices, although the annuity will be spread over a period of 70 years.

I suggest that rudimentary knowledge should be on the Ministerial Benches when administering the 1923 Act. Some of those estates which were automatically taken over under the 1923 Act were tenanted by a number of people. What I mean is that the landlord had no residence thereon, but the position was that there was a big central estate with a number of tenants on the fringe of it. While the individual was in the position of landlord he had to keep the ditches and fences in repair and the drains in working order. Since estates of this sort came automatically under the control of the Land Commission, the latter are not bound to do these things, with the result that the fences and ditches have fallen into disrepair. I know of one case where the main estate is a kind of commons for everyone. Therefore, I submit that the delay in fixing the appointed day is not fair to the tenants, and that this matter should be speeded up.

On the Smith estate at Drumcree the landlord had certain obligations with regard to bye-roads. These obligations ceased five years ago. The roads have gone out of repair, and will remain so until the land has been vested by the Land Commission. What we are criticising is that the rate of progress is so slow that it may be 20 or 30 years before the lands are vested. It was pointed out to me that as regards some lands under the '93 Act, the appointed day was fixed only a few years ago. We should not take our precedents from the working of the British Acts, and it is time that we had a speeding up of the whole process.

To my mind, what is wrong with the Land Commission is that there is a duplication somewhere. Two or three Departments are doing what one should do. I do not say that there is deliberate inefficiency, but from my experience of it it is a Department like a rabbit burrow. You do not know where to go, you are sent "from Billy to Jack," and no one seems to have a definite idea about anything, that is comparing it to other Government Departments. There is another matter I want to mention. Take, say, a farm of 60, 70 or 100 acres. The owner of it is not resident thereon. He is willing to dispose of it to the Land Commission for distribution amongst the uneconomic holders in the locality. He is trying to get rid of it because he wants money, and is willing to meet the claims of uneconomic holders in the locality. The position is that such a man cannot wait an indefinite length of time, such a length of time as the Land Commission is apt to keep people like him waiting.

I would ask the Government to take cases like this into their special consideration. They are types of cases in which you will not have a whole lot of rights of way or things of that kind to be investigated. There will not be a great deal of difficulty as regards coming to an agreement in the matter of price of a 60 or 100 acre farm. The disposal of such farms would go a long way to relieve congestion in many localities. Finally, I desire to say that we are not so much opposed to this Vote because it is for untenanted land. The more of these that are taken over the better. It is to the slowness of the division of the land, the lack of sanity in fixing prices, and the slowness in fixing the appointed day on the estates so taken over under the 1923 Act that we take objection.

Mr. LITTLE

The President saw fit to adopt obstructive tactics while Deputy Boland was speaking. What he did was to cast doubt upon certain statements made by Deputy Derrig in his speech. I want now to give chapter and verse for the figures quoted by Deputy Derrig. They appear in the Hansard Report of the British House of Commons for the 4th November, 1912. In reply to a question asked by the late Mr. Ginnell, Mr. Birrell said: "The number of holdings in respect of which agreements for sale through the Estates Commissioners were entered into in each year since the passing of the Irish Land Act of 1903 and the number of separate estates on which such holdings are situate are as follows:—The period from the 1st November, 1903, to the 1st March, 1905, 46,282 holdings. I need not give the names of the estates, because there is no question in that. For the year ending March 31st, 1906, 50,966 holdings; 1907, 29,244 holdings; 1908, 32,989 holdings; 1909, 77,139 holdings; 1910, 10,721 holdings; 1911, 7,954 holdings; and 1912, 10,542 holdings, the total being 265,537 holdings." If you divide the number of years—nine—you get just the figure of 30,000, which Deputy Derrig arrived at.

MINISTER for LANDS and AGRICULTURE

Deputy Derrig, as I understood, was talking about land divided. I understood that what he said, or what he meant to say, was that there were 30,000 holdings divided. We were talking of dividing land, untenanted land. Is not that right? Deputy Little is now giving the figures of existing holdings vested per annum, a totally different thing.

Mr. LITTLE

The figures which Deputy Derrig took were these, and he compared them. Perhaps this will meet the question put by the Minister for Lands and Agriculture. He then quoted, in comparison with them, figures which he took from an authoritative article, apparently, in the "Irish Times," which was subsequently quoted in support of the Free State by a local paper. These were the figures: Under the Land Purchase Acts since 1923 the amount of advances made was £6,250,000 in respect of 27,700 holdings, which included 950,000 acres. These are the two comparisons. These figures are on all fours, and I do not think it is necessary to enter into any other explanation of the objection made by the Minister for Lands and Agriculture.

MINISTER for LANDS and AGRICULTURE

As long as the Deputy realises that he is not talking about the division of land, I am satisfied.

Mr. LITTLE

I take the comparison as it is there. It is on all fours. The Minister might have misunderstood what was said in the first instance. I must deplore the irresponsible attitude taken in this House by one who should be responsible, and is a Minister. It is not good for the country to allow Party spirit to go so far as to attribute to one side of this House an attitude of mind which charges a large section of the people with making the country unstable from the point of view of raising loans. The charge was made, irrelevantly to the discussion, I think in reference to land annuities. It is the kind of charge which should not be made. There has been no statement made from these Benches that we repudiate the annuities. What we are determined to do is a different matter altogether, that is to re-open the financial settlement. Having said so much, I do not propose to go into that discussion, but I hope the Minister for Lands and Agriculture will take the first opportunity of removing the evil effects of what he said when he was speaking.

Mr. KILLILEA

I wish to draw attention to a few points in connection with this Estimate. First of all, I entirely disagree with the method and manner adopted by the Land Commission in dealing with big ranches in Co. Galway. There are several farms containing several hundred acres held by the Land Commission for years past. In Kilkerrin there are four or five farms held on the D'Arcy Park East estate, and several others. These are all held over, and I suppose the ratepayers of Co. Galway are to bear the burden, or the taxpayers of Ireland. There are ranches in the parish of Clomberne, in the parish of Williamstown, and a noted one in the parish of Caltra. The Minister for Agriculture, I think, knows as much about these ranches in Caltra as I do. If he does not, I am sure that certain of his colleagues can give him all information regarding them. Previous to the June elections there was a sort of cry for one of these farms to be divided, and I suppose it suited some of the people on the opposite Benches to send a Commissioner, or probably an engineer, down to show some of the people where houses would be built. Strange to say, I went to the Land Commission less than two months ago about this farm, and they told me they had not yet acquired the farm. We are told that the Minister for Agriculture and people on the opposite Benches go round with a book under their arms dishing out land. I do not know whether that is the book under his arm or not. I did not hear the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary contradict the statement that he did not go round in Ballygar with a book under his arm. I am sure I can prove several other cases where people on the other Benches have gone round with books under their arms. I do not think the Minister for Agriculture should make such a barefaced statement. Undoubtedly he is bare-faced enough for anything. There are several other estates that I will not mention, as I do not think it is necessary to do so to-day. I need not tell the Minister about them, seeing that he knows about them already, and that he will run down, have them split up, or go to the Land Commission and say: "Go down and divide this land."

Anyway the people are living in hopes that probably in the near future there will be another election and several hundred acres divided. Deputy Derrig has talked about the tenants not being satisfied. I know several cases where land was divided, where the people were not satisfied, and I hold batches of letters that I have received from time to time regarding the complaints from different parts of the constituency I represent. I have one letter here which says that a farm of 300 acres was divided amongst people who held from 8 to 28 acres before they got it. In addition they got from 18 to 40 acres each. There are people left out who have only five acres—at least 20 people. There are a number of such people and there is just a fence between them and the others. That is the way the division of land is going on in the County Galway. The Minister for Agriculture asked: "Who are the new landlords?" I think there is no one in this House more capable of answering that question than himself because every day in the week he is trying to create new landlords. There is the Clanrickarde Estate, and I am sure the Minister knows as much, if not more than I do, about it. People were evicted there years ago. They fought on, and although he brought in the Land Act of 1923 and the Land Act of 1927, and although there was a lot of what we call "buckshee" talk about these people not being reinstated, the Land Commission has not put them back into the land that rightly belongs to them. The Minister talked about the drastic powers the Land Commission have for dealing with land. The drastic power that I see in the Land Commission is in the drastic manner in which they deal with graziers who were paying 5/6 or 6/- an acre for their lands, who, when it is taken from them by the Land Commission, get something like £1 an acre, and in addition they are sent to Meath or Westmeath and given a few hundred acres of land as well. That is happening over County Galway and I am sure it is happening all over Ireland. There are drastic measures because they are dealing with a class to which the Minister for Agriculture belongs.

Mr. HOGAN

No such luck.

Mr. KILLILEA

He talks about people who know nothing about agriculture. That reminds me about tales which I hear old women in County Galway telling. They say "Why are we poor, and why are we in misery?" They ask "What can we expect from a two-penny halfpenny solicitor?"

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

I will not allow that remark to pass. The Deputy cannot make any reflection on other Deputies.

Mr. KILLILEA

I am not making a reflection.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

The Deputy will please sit down. He is endeavouring to cast a reflection on another Deputy. He must withdraw that expression or else he will not be allowed to proceed.

Mr. HOGAN

Leave out the "twopence halfpenny."

Mr. KILLILEA

I have not made a reflection.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

The Deputy knows what he is referring to. So do I. The Deputy will have to withdraw the remark.

Mr. SHEEHY (Cork)

He ought to be ashamed of himself.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

Is the Deputy going to withdraw the remark?

Mr. KILLILEA

Yes, I withdraw the twopenny halfpenny part of it. Anyhow, I think there are Deputies on these benches who know as much about agriculture as anybody on the opposite benches, and we can stand up and defend agriculture. We could not carry on farms unless we knew something about agriculture. The Minister also talks about taking away the rights of the individual. I do not know what he means by that if it is not something which you might take from his own words or actions. I do not think, however, that I will go into that now. As to the question of roads, I am sure that I received and handed into the Land Commission at least 100 petitions for making roads in North Galway, but out of that number there were only about five or six roads made. These are all the different things which the Land Commission have been doing for the people in County Galway, or, at least, they are some of the things that they have been doing, or talking of doing. I do not know that it is the Land Commission that we have to blame. Whenever I went to the Land Commission I found that the officials were tied down by some law or another. I think the whole thing starts at the top. Probably the Parliamentary Secretary, or the Minister responsible to that Department, has a big say in the whole matter. I think if he brought sufficient pressure to bear on those people they certainly would get a little more speed on, and the people would not be waiting so long for the division of lands, and probably we would not have as many evictions as we are about to have at the moment.

Mr. GOULDING

I think it advisable to call attention to the question of the maintenance of embankments on tidal rivers, as, unless it is remedied, it may be the cause of having more untenanted lands in the future. Along tidal rivers embankments were built years ago by the landlords, to prevent the encroachment of the tide. They were built with sluice-gates and were maintained by the landlords, but since the passing of Land Acts, the landlords have ceased to maintain them, with the result that in many cases, owing to the deterioration of the sluices, the gates, and, in some cases, the embankments have been broken and the lands adjoining have become flooded and useless. A few weeks ago near Cappoquin serious trouble was caused on a farm owing to an attempted seizure for land annuities. The farmer in question, I have reason to believe, was a strong supporter of the Government. He maintained that the land for which he was asked to pay rent was absolutely useless to him, and, therefore, that it was not fair that rent should be levied on him for it.

To justify his attitude, he declared that the revising barrister exempted the land from rates for twelve months. An attempt was made to seize the stock, with the result that serious trouble occurred. Near another river a number of farmers have been decreed for several gales of rent and they were also faced with threats for the payment of compounded arrears. Their position is similar to that of the other man whom I have mentioned. Their lands have been flooded constantly for years past. They maintain that it is the duty of the Land Commission to take over the work formerly done by the landlords and keep the banks in repair. They cannot do so themselves, and unless the work is done the lands will become useless and untenanted. When I approached the Land Commission on the matter I was very fairly met, and they sent down an inspector to report. Similar cases are probably occurring on other tidal rivers. Efforts should be made to do this work, as the longer it is neglected the greater the damage will be and the greater the cost of repair. In Tramore, as the result of the flooding, a farm had to be abandoned, but the annuities are still being levied and the Waterford County Council are faced with a charge for £900 arrears of annuities which no one will pay. There is no owner, and if the present state of affairs is allowed to continue the arrears will swamp the total agricultural grant-in-aid. I wish to call the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to this question and to point out that, if action is not taken, damage will be done which will render the land absolutely useless.

Mr. HOLT

I would like to draw the attention of the House to Section 31 of the Land Act of 1927. I hold that that section should be repealed.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

We are discussing the administration of an Act of Parliament. We cannot suggest any further legislation. We can discuss what the Minister has power to do under present legislation, but nothing more. We can discuss administration purely and solely.

Mr. HOLT

I would like to draw attention to that matter, because farmers who hitherto were able to set land for grazing are now unable to do so. Hitherto when a farmer got poor he was able to set his land, but now, when the Land Commission decree him for rent, he is not able to do so because the decree is there.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

Is it within the power of the Minister to stop that procedure? Is it not the operation of legislation?

Mr. HOLT

Very well, I will leave it at that. I would like to draw the attention of the House to another injustice in connection with evicted tenants. I find that the policy of the Government, as expressed through the Land Commission, prevents evicted tenants from getting back their original holdings, or having their cases considered when estates are being divided. These evicted tenants, or their children or grandchildren, do not get the opportunity of being reinstated, and consideration should be first given to them when it comes to the division of estates. I would further draw attention to the policy of the Land Commission in dealing with the payment of rents. I will instance the case of one who was on the run from 1918 to 1921. That man was prosecuted in 1925 by the Free State Government on a political charge. He was in jail for 18 months. While there his mother died and he would not be allowed out for her funeral. When he came back to his home he found it was derelict. Arrears of rent were due. The sheriff was sent out to collect them and he succeeded in getting £9 5s. 0d. last October. A further process was issued. I wrote to the Land Commission asking if something could be done in the matter, and pointing out that he would perhaps be able to pay in June. The reply I got was:—

"I am directed by the Land Commission to state that if the above tenant pays £35 to George Lynch, Esq., State Solicitor, Carrick-on-Shannon, on or before the 29th inst. and the balance of the arrear then due on the 1st June, 1928, the sheriff will be instructed not to execute the decree."

That man having been on the run was not able to meet his liabilities in that respect. He says so himself. He wrote:—

"With reference to your letter of the 20th instant regarding the amount of debt due on my holding to the Land Commission I am sorry to state I am not in a position to pay anything at present owing to how everything went to the bad on me while I was in jail and then my mother's death cost me a lot of money. In fact all the stock nearly was sold while I was in jail to pay bills and law expenses, etc., and you have an idea of what I lost during the eight years before all this trouble came on me."

Compare the treatment meted out to this man, who made it possible for Deputies to be on the opposite Benches, with that meted out to the people who call themselves the "southern loyalists." At a meeting in London of the southern loyalists, Major White, an official of the Association, made this statement: "Most of those people were badly off, and while waiting for the grants awarded to them had to borrow from the banks." That is more than they would do for the tenants. Major White went on to say, "The Land Commission too, had facilitated them by not pressing for annuities." Not at all, but they are pressing the poor unfortunate man who helped to place in their positions those who now occupy the Government Benches. The sheriff is sent out to collect his rent while the loyalists in London can congratulate the Land Commission here for not pressing them for their rents. Fish for one and flesh for the other. I would also like to mention the case of a farmer who has 30 acres of land. He has seven children. He has been prosecuted for his land annuities and the sheriff was sent there to try and collect them. This man writes:—

"December 10th, 1927. I am in a terrible way for money, and it was just the same this time last year. I was expecting a road cheque and I did not get it until after Christmas, and as sure as God is over me I had not as much flour in the house during the Christmas Day as would make one cake and I was ashamed to borrow off the neighbours."

That man was processed, and the bailiff and the sheriff went out to collect rent from him. The two cases to which I have drawn attention are typical of what is occurring all over Leitrim, and the Government knows it. In November, 1926, Deputy Hogan and Deputy Blythe were in Leitrim, and attended a meeting in Mohill. The condition of affairs in the county was put before them by Canon Masterson, Chairman of the South Leitrim Executive of the Cumann na nGaedheal. He said:

"The situation caused by the cattle losses was beyond the power of description. He could not paint the distress in the hearts of the people, and the dark cloud over South Leitrim, but he could put impressive facts before the Ministers. Out of 7,000 farmers in South Leitrim, 600 had no cattle. There are 2,000 holdings that are only quarter stocked, and 2,000 more that have only half the normal supply, and the remainder have only three-quarters of the supply. He did not think there was a farmer in County Leitrim who had the full cattle supply. There were 400 more who had no capital and were living on old age pensions and what they got from America. There were about 3,000 farmers overwhelmed with debt, and who had no chance of paying, although they might have some little capital, but were for the most part looking for American assistance."

That was the condition of affairs in Leitrim, and the Land Commission sent out sheriffs. In fact there were three of them operating in Leitrim in 1926 and 1927. It is estimated by the Cumann na nGaedheal Party themselves that the farmers in South Leitrim lost over 30,000 cattle through fluke, and at £10 per head it would take £300,000 to replace the cattle lost in 1924 and 1925. Yet nothing is done for these people, but send out sheriffs and bailiffs. We are told how prosperous the people are. The people of Leitrim know how prosperous they are. A good many of them have gone to America, and only for the people in America I do not know what those at home would do. They do not believe that we send boys and girls out of Leitrim to see their brothers and sisters in America. That is like more of the statements about prosperity. We are not prosperous in this country, we are not prosperous in Leitrim. It is scandalous the way the people are treated, especially the farmers in South Leitrim.

AN LEAS-CHEANN COMHAIRLE

There is not one word about the collection of annuities in the Vote asked for.

Mr. RUTTLEDGE

I wish to raise one or two questions. One is whether the Parliamentary Secretary has still in mind the pursuance of a policy of giving large holdings as additions in areas where there is not sufficient land to give proportionately large holdings to all the uneconomic land holders in that district? What I mean is this: In many areas in the West you have a large number of uneconomic holders with from 5 to 6 acres of rather indifferent land. In such an area you have, perhaps, a large ranch of, say, 100 acres, and no other land within five or six miles available for division. I have several times put it before Land Commission Inspectors, and I must say that in the majority of cases they have agreed with me that in such a condition of affairs, and where there are difficulties about migrating the people, it would be much better if the farm that was being divided was apportioned in lots of, say, three or four acres suitable for tillage for those people. I put that before the Parliamentary Secretary as the best thing that can be done in that particular area.

Another matter is the very serious condition of things at present in Inniskea. As the President is aware, the relatives of those who were drowned in the recent disaster have unfortunately been sadly neglected. They were left high and dry for the Christmas without any assistance, although we were told that £30,000 or £40,000 had been collected for them. I see no hope for them at the moment. They did get whatever was necessary—£29, I think—to bury the dead, and two or three sums of 15/- each after that. Seventeen or more of these people have notified the Land Commission of their willingness to come on to the mainland and take up holdings there. Deputy Cleary has already referred to the fact that there is a large farm on the mainland which we believed had been taken over by the Land Commission, but apparently, it has fallen back into the hands of the owners.

PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FISHERIES (Mr. Roddy)

What estate is that?

Mr. RUTTLEDGE

The Carson estate. We understood it had been taken over. It was stated several times, at Cumann na nGaedheal meetings, that it had been acquired and would be divided.

The Minister for Lands and Agriculture referred to what he alleged to be statements from this side of the House, and said that our attitude was to get land no matter how you worked it. The Minister must be either seeing or imagining things, because I do not think he will find that any such statement was made from this side of the House. What was his policy? Individuals were taken out of the towns, and, as far as I know, their only knowledge and experience of land was when they were out raiding as members of the National Army. The Minister will probably answer me: "You are probably referring to something that happened in the West of Ireland, and would not that be a means of living for those people, because they are good shots and there is a good deal of snipe there?" Probably he would say they were quite suitable from that point of view. He dealt with a good deal of the difficulties and delays. Undoubtedly there are reasons for delay with regard to the division of land, but he tries to confuse that delay with the delay that we complain of mainly, and that is with regard to vesting. No reasons, so far as I have heard, have been put forward for the delay with regard to vesting estates, and certainly all the twisting or distorting of facts cannot account for a delay, say, of 18 years. At that rate of progression, it would probably take 150 years before the tenant farmers would become what we used to talk so much about years ago, peasant proprietors.

The Minister talked about the delay in fixing fair compensation and about all the formalities that have to be complied with. What are the formalities? The person in possession of the land that is going to be taken over is served with a provisional list and asked to put in an objection within two months. If he does not, he is assumed to have made no objection, and is like the unfortunate litigant who does not defend his action and who is decreed. It is the first time I have heard it stated—I do not think it was very definitely stated, but the inference was tried to be given to the House, that there was congestion in the Court of the Judicial Commissioner. I am not aware of that. But it would be information if it is so. Before we came into this House there was supposed to be accumulation of work in other courts, and the House did not hesitate to have four Commissioners appointed to dispose of the arrears. There is no reason why such a step, if necessary, should not be taken in this case. If that is the only excuse that can be given for the delay, surely it is more important to try and deal with this urgent question of land division in that way than it was, perhaps, to attend to the difficulty with regard to accumulation of work in the courts. The Minister talks about us going round the country trying to create this impression and that, and that the land is there for division. He knows better than I do that before we ever came into the House the condition precedent to getting land for a number of years past was that people should contribute one shilling to Cumann na nGaedheal.

I can show him from dozens of newspapers where at meeting after meeting of branches of Cumann na nGaedheal in North Mayo the people were told to join Cumann na nGaedheal as the lands were going to be divided. What happened? Relief works were started by the Local Government Department at election time, and I can give the names of gangers who refused to give employment to any person on these works unless he had a Cumann na nGaedheal badge. Will the Minister deny these facts? He is trying this thing on the people, but he is in a position to try this kind of stunt on the people. We have not control of the resources of the Government of the country. The people opposite have. If they use them for political purposes they have an advantage over other people. The Minister should not mention a thing like that without at least looking at it from his own point of view. He knows when he goes around the country that he spends a considerable time in receiving deputations. We see Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies publishing letters in the newspapers every other day. The reply from the Land Commission always is that the matter is receiving attention. The matter is not exposed to the people in these letters in the same reasoned way that we are supposed to take from the argument of the Minister. I do not want to use a strong word, but, shall I say that he should not have the audacity to make a statement like that about how we were trying to fool the people about land when the people know that we have not the power to give the land. But when the Minister goes round and tells them what he is going to do about the land they know that he has the power. The Minister knows that when Cumann na nGaedheal Deputies go down the country stating what they are going to get done with this estate and that, the people know that that is going to be done. I do not approach this matter in any carping spirit of criticism, but it is only by exposing the delays that have taken place that we can hope to be able to speed up the work of acquisition and division of lands. We do not believe, and have not at any time stated, that the settling of the land question would settle everything in this country. But the land question is an urgent question in places, particularly in the poorer districts. It is an urgent question in Erris, where the people have been processed and seizures have been carried out. Now, when the people have had their last cow taken away, and there is no cow to seize, we have the Land Commission coming along and getting an instalment order against them, and they must go to prison for two months if they cannot find the money. I submit that it is the areas where the people are in the greatest poverty that should receive attention first.

Mr. SHAW

I did not intend to contribute anything to this debate, and would not have done so only for the remarks made by Deputy Ruttledge. In Westmeath there has been a very large amount of land divided, from 6,000 to 8,000 acres. Before that land was divided there were some 30 or 40 Cumann na nGaedheal organisations all over the County Westmeath, but when the land was taken up and divided, and because the members of the Cumann na nGaedheal organisation in this particular area were not picked out and did not receive favouritism, I am sorry to say, but it is absolutely true, that at the present moment I do not think there is one live Cumann na nGaedheal branch in the whole county. And the division of land, and the fair division of land, by the Land Commission is the cause of that. I only speak for the place I know about myself.

I say here, and I challenge contradiction, that the persons whom Deputy Ruttledge represents got far more land in the county than the persons belonging to the Cumann na nGaedheal Party.

Dr. RYAN

They were in the majority.

Mr. SHAW

They were not. I headed the poll by a large number, but, if I did, I may say this, that in the County Westmeath the break up of the Cumann na nGaedheal organisation was because the Land Commission did not favour persons who were members of it. As I said already, I would not have spoken at all but for the statement made by Deputy Ruttledge that the Land Commission politically favoured any particular persons. Certainly, in view of my experience in Westmeath. I stand up here and absolutely contradict that statement.

The PRESIDENT

I have been down through the country on a great many occasions, and I have no recollection of seeing any of the badges referred to by Deputy Ruttledge. Perhaps he will produce them.

Mr. LEMASS

Will Deputy Shaw say whether it is a fact that the road which runs between Mullingar and Longford is locally known as the Shaw Election Road?

Mr. MacENTEE

I should like to ask if the Cumann na nGaedheal badge has the name "Cosgrave" spelled with an "o" or an "a"?

The PRESIDENT

If the Deputy knew Irish he would not ask that question.

Mr. S. JORDAN

There has been a big lot of discussion on the question of land and about the dissatisfaction expressed in certain districts owing to the way that lands were divided and the delay of the Land Commission investing certain holdings. Reference has also been made to evicted tenants not being reinstated, and a good deal was said by Deputies from the West and a lot of reference was made to the County Galway, where I happen to come from. I want to say a little more relative to a particular case that I probably know more about than other Deputies do. The idea I have in speaking is that it is better to stop dissatisfaction than to allow it to go on. There is no doubt, from questions asked in this House in reference to the division of land, that there is a lot of dissatisfaction in certain places over the way the land is divided. I do not know whether Deputy Shaw or President Cosgrave believe it or not, but I can testify to the fact that you want to do something further than appealing to Deputies on this side of the House to get land in County Galway any way, and I know what I am talking about. I do not know whether the Commissioner sent out to Co. Galway was as pure-souled or high-minded as you were blessed with in Westmeath. I assure you they were not. They must have some plums that they sent to Westmeath if the Deputy is telling the truth. They did not send them to Galway anyway.

There is one particular estate in Galway that I take a little interest in, and the interest I take in it is to get justice for the people who have a right to this estate. I have no hesitation in telling this House emphatically that there will be dissatisfaction over the division of this particular estate if it is going to be divided as already arranged. That is the Corgavy estate at Menlough in the County Galway. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to take a note of that. There have been promises made to people who are not entitled to land that they are going to get it on this estate. If they were entitled to it they would be welcome to it. The least that should be done would be to give the land to the people who are nearest to it and best entitled to it, and to reinstate the evicted tenants or the sons of the evicted tenants. This particular type of people in this district happen to be supporters of those sitting on this side of the House, and there is grave doubt that they are going to get any of the land. If these people are entitled to it we demand that they should get it, and whoever is entitled to the land on the Corgavy estate, no matter what way they think, we hope that they will get it and there will be no favouritism either to followers of Cumann na nGaedheal or Fianna Fáil. Whoever has a claim to the land we hope will get it. We do not want land for the Fianna Fáil people; we want it for the people of Ireland if they are entitled to it, whether they be Cumann na nGaedheal or Fianna Fáil people. The same applies to the Strahan estate, in the Tuam area.

Now, with regard to the question of delay, I understand that this Strahan estate has been offered to the Land Commission for the last six years. Questions have been asked about the delay of the Land Commission in dividing it up and the Land Commission has stated the matter is receiving attention. I happen to have got that answer since I came into this House. I am not so long in it, however, and I do not blame the Land Commission for not dividing it as a result of my question but I hope I will not have to intervene again and will not be requested to ask when is that immediate attention to be given in this matter. The same applies to the land on the Corrofin area and also to the famous O'Rourke estate between Tuam and Dunmore, which was taken in 1926 for division with the Clonburn estate. The latter was divided up while the O'Rourke estate was handed back to the owners, for what reason I do not know.

Reference was made by the Minister for Agriculture to the fact that some Deputies went around with books under their arms dividing lands. I did not happen to be in the House when the statement was made, but the impression I got when the news was conveyed to me was that he was referring to County Galway, and I presume he was referring to a period of time when, as they say, everything is fair in love and war—the election time. I happened to be going round County Galway at the time of the elections, but I had not a book under my arm and I did not divide any land, nor did I make any promises, nor do I intend to make any promises with regard to land in the future. I am not capable of these things. I do not know whether the Minister himself is or not. But I know an instance of people who went round with what I call a fake Land Commissioner. A secondhand auctioneer, to my knowledge, went round County Galway dividing land just before the September elections, and I do not believe Cumann na nGaedheal profited so much from that. They thought they would, but he went around a day too soon. If he had waited another day there would not have been time to contradict him, but he gave a few days to us and we went after him and let the cat out of the bag. We told the people who he was and it was then that it dawned on them: "Oh," said one fellow, "you're right. Sure we know him well now," and he knew the man did not come from the Land Commission in Dublin to divide lands. But it was election time and the Cumann na nGaedheal stooped to these practices. The Fianna Fáil Party did not, and still they got there just the same; they got the odd seat in nine, and the oddity is addressing you at present.

All we ask in connection with these estates is justice for the applicants. I know that a big number of applications have gone in for land. We pointed out to some of these people after the elections that we were their servants and not their masters, and we asked them for their work. We said if they had any grievances and wished to place them in our hands we were quite prepared to work for them. As a result of those statements they wrote to us and said that they wanted land on certain estates.

We sent the letters to the proper quarter, with no comment whatsoever, just as they came. Whether they referred to the Free State, to Cumann na nGaedheal or Fianna Fáil, no matter who they abused, we did not care what was in the letters. We sent these letters to the Land Commission—at least I did. I have sent in a big number of claims for land on these estates, particularly on the Corgary estate and Menlough, and I do not mind whether these people are Fianna Fáil or Cumann na nGaedheal. I only ask for common justice, and I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to convey to the Department that it would be no harm if consideration, and great consideration, was given to the last list of applications that went in, lest they might be numbered amongst the list of pets for that estate that I know did go in.

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

resumed the Chair.

Mr. S. BRODERICK

I did not intend to participate in this debate, but Galway comes so prominently into the discussion on land distribution that I think it my duty to let some of the Deputies who have spoken from the other Benches know the facts. Probably they have not inquired to find out how much land has been divided since the passing of the 1923 Act. I think I would not be far wrong in stating that about 50,000 acres have been divided in Galway under the 1923 Act. As regards promises during the June and September elections, some Deputies mentioned a book under the arm. I think that Deputy Killilea, and probably Deputy Jordan, might want very big books, because I know I have got a large number of communications, particularly as regards roads. I have explained to these people that it is impossible, owing to the small grants, to get all these roads, and the answer I got was what Deputy Killilea and Deputy Jordan promised it. Deputy Killilea himself admits that he got five works done out of one hundred.

Mr. KILLILEA

Can you name one of the people to whom I said I could get it done?

Mr. S. BRODERICK

I could name hundreds.

Mr. KILLILEA

Name one. I challenge you.

Mr. S. BRODERICK

As regards the vesting of estates, we all know that there is great congestion in Galway. A good many properties have been divided, and I believe that, with the policy of the Land Commission in dividing some of these small properties, they were unable to bring the tenants up to the economic standard, the result of which was that they were waiting to take over other properties in order to bring them up to that standard. That I believe is the cause of the delay in the vesting of a number of estates in County Galway. As regards migration, I think Deputy Killilea said that the graziers down in Galway who were paying 6/- an acre for their land have got £1 an acre on leaving, and have got holdings in County Meath equal in valuation to the lands they gave up. I think that is not a fact; that all they got in compensation was the valuation equivalent to what they were leaving in the West. They might get some little extra compensation if they had to bring up big families. With regard to the division of lands, we saw about two years ago where the Land Commission, in their hurry to divide estates, particularly in the West, put these people in in temporary tenancies. I think that was a good act by the Land Commission to try to hurry up the division of lands, and all I would ask Deputies who have spoken about the division of lands, particularly in Galway, is that they might look at what the Land Commission are doing at present in Connemara, the thousands of acres they have acquired in the Maam Valley, and the scheme of 70 or 80 houses, some of which are in course of erection, in a place near Oughterard. Then I think they will admit that the Land Commission is making very good headway in Galway.

Mr. S. JORDAN

Deputy Broderick made reference to me——

AN CEANN COMHAIRLE

It appears to me that all the Galway people are making references to each other.

Mr. S. JORDAN

I do not mind; he can get away with it here if he likes, but I will get him in some other place.

Mr. P. BOLAND

There are a few aspects of this question which have not been touched upon. One is the selection of allottees under the 1923 Act. I understand that one sub-section of that Act specially provides for employees on estates—the number of the sub-section is immaterial at the moment. From experience I have found that that provision has not been carried out. In that connection, may I quote the Lattybrook estate, on which there were two employees, one for fourteen years and one for 8 years. Neither of these men got any of the land, and one has been evicted from the gate lodge on the estate, getting nothing in the way of compensation. I had some correspondence in connection with this matter with the Department, and I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will exercise his discretion in the matter and do what he can for these particular employees.

Another matter which arises in connection with the same estate is the question as to who will make a suitable applicant or allottee—the best person to whom the Land Commission will entrust the management of a farm. This estate originally belonged to an officer of the British Army. It is a very large estate, with elaborate buildings and out-offices. When the Land Commission acquired the estate, I understand that the house and the major portion of the better land were given to Major General Prout, who had had distinguished service both in this country and in America. On that occasion I wonder if the applicant was looked upon in the light of whether he would make a suitable farmer? Was he a man who had acquired tastes in his military career that would adapt him for the hard work of the farm, or was he a man capable of the management of that large portion of the estate to the extent that he would make a paying proposition of it for himself and contribute annuities to the Land Commission? What has happened? He remained in the place for some time. Certain liabilities were pressed upon him and he has now abandoned the place and it is lying derelict. That is an instance I might point out in which the Land Commission did not exercise a proper discretion. They could have selected from amongst the disappointed people who have been looking for the land a more sutable applicant. The Minister for Agriculture is not here at the moment, but I will reserve what I have to say with reference to his promises.

Deputy Davin has mentioned a case in which a J.C. Smith, of Down, Edenderry, was concerned. His objection was upheld on appeal. This man has 1,000 acres other than the land which the people of that district have asked to be acquired for their advantage, and for distribution amongst them. By way of contrast, I would point out to that from the Parliamentary Secretary's reply, there were other lands in the vicinity the Land Commission acquired, and they hoped these lands would satisfy the demand. The other lands, I presume, were the lands purchased in 1924 by John Mangan, of Castledangan, and the estate was the Thornville estate. He purchased 360 acres for the sum of £4,500. The purchase land was fee-simple land that could be acquired compulsorily under the Land Act of 1923. After the lapse of some time the Land Commission acquired the land by compulsion and gave a lesser price than he paid for it, and he lost £1,500 on the transaction. Mangan is a working farmer with a family, and I would appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to consider a claim from him on behalf of his son to the land for which he paid £4,500. He had to borrow the money from the bank, and he is now out of pocket on the transaction to the extent of £1,500. He has a claim in equity, and if there is any equity in the case the Parliamentary Secretary should consider it. That is by way of contrast with the case mentioned by Deputy Davin.

There is one other estate in Offaly, known as the Bewley estate, to which I would like to refer. It is near Tullamore. It comprises a demesne of 1,500 acres, and attached to it there is an out-farm of 1,200 acres. These 1,200 acres have been acquired from time to time by evictions. There is upwards of ten dwellings, which are now dilapidated, on these 1,200 acres. An agitation has been going on for years for the Land Commission to take over this land. Some time previous to the fight for independence the Irish Parliamentary Party had promised to have this land divided, and it was expected that their successors would fulfil that promise to the people. But what has happened? The people have been promised, time after time, that these lands would be acquired. During the recent election an organiser on behalf of the Government Party promised them definitely that the land would be acquired, but they have not been acquired. Why they are not acquired I cannot understand. The owner of these lands does not reside in this country, or even in England. She is a lady who resides in Austria and the place is managed by a herd and a steward, not to the best advantage of the community at large. I would appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to reconsider previous decisions of inspectors on this particular estate and have the land acquired for distribution at an early date.

Another question to which I would like to refer concerns promises made by Deputies all over the House. We are accused of making certain promises by the Minister for Agriculture. I know that everybody belonging to every Party has made promises, but I know at the same time that some who have made these promises made them with a full sense of responsibility. We are here to honour these promises. But here is a promise made very definitely by the Minister for Agriculture in connection with cow plots on an estate in Kilcormick, Offaly. The Minister wrote to the Parish Priest some time after June and made a very definite promise. He said:—

"Dear Father O'Reilly,—Since my last letter to you the Land Commission has been transferred from my Department to the Department of Fisheries. Mr. Roddy, as Parliamentary Secretary, is now in charge of that Department. I have seen Mr. Roddy about the question of allotting cow park plots for the town of Kilcormack, and I have given a specific direction in the matter to the Land Commission."

That letter has been published by the secretary of the local branch, together with similar hopeful messages from the Deputies representing my constituency on the Cumann na nGaedheal Benches. I can refer the Minister for Agriculture to the particular paper and to the man who has written the article, if he desires to have it. There is specific promise made by a responsible Minister and I know from what has happened since that that promise has not been fulfilled. Perhaps it was outside his power to make that promise. The Land Commission in the exercise of their discretion under the Act of 1923 did not think fit to accede to the promise made by the Minister. Then why did the Minister make the promise? He stated definitely we have this 1923 Act. I do not agree with much that has been said with reference to delays. I understand and am prepared to make allowance for transition periods, and with questions of title and other matters to be gone into there must be delays, but apart altogether from any criticism we may have with reference to the 1923 Act we are asking for the full benefit of the law as far as provision for employees on these estates is concerned.

Also for the case, when there is a case, made for congestion when there is a large estate like this, I think we are entitled to have these lands acquired and divided.

Ordered: That progress be reported.

The Dáil resumed.

Progress reported, the Committee to sit again on Thursday, 8th March.