Although this Vote is being introduced for the purpose of making good the deficiency in the income derived from untenanted land acquired under the 1923 Act, the discussion has ranged over the whole field of Land Commission administration. Much of the discussion has proceeded on a fallacy. Deputy Dr. Ryan was responsible for the fallacy. In the course of his remarks he said that the £15,000 referred to by me in my introductory statement really represented a net loss of income in respect of untenanted land acquired under the 1923 Act. I think I made it abundantly clear in my opening statement that this £15,000 was merely intended to bridge the period between dividend day and the gale day, and that it would be recouped to the Land Commission when the holdings were finally vested in the tenants. I also stated that there was an amount of arrears due in respect of 1923 Act estates amounting to approximately £9,000. These are arrears that are due over the last 12 or 18 months, and it is hoped that eventually they will be recovered by the Land Commission, so that the actual net maximum loss is somewhere in the neighbourhood of £10,000. It is hoped that eventually the net loss will not be nearly so high as that.
I think the main burden of the complaint against the Land Commission has been the delay in dividing and distributing estates acquired by them since the passing of the 1923 Act. In that connection I would like to remind Deputies of the actual position of affairs. I am not prepared to admit that there has been any delay. After all, Deputies should realise that the land problem is probably one of the very biggest this State has to deal with. Rome was not built in a day, and it is not possible for the Land Commission, or for any Government institution, to deal with a problem such as this in the course of a few years. We have certainly made tremendous strides since the passing of the 1923 Act.
We are dividing land to-day at least three times faster than it was distributed under the old regime. In proof of that I wish to give the House certain statistics relating to the acquisition and distribution of land during the last four years. First of all, I want to remind Deputies of the fact that a certain procedure is laid down under the Acts of 1923 and 1927 for the acquisition of land, and that the Land Commission must proceed literally in accordance with that procedure. Land is acquired here on the basis of compensation to the owner, and, as the Minister for Agriculture pointed out yesterday in his speech, compensation must be assessed according to the equities and merits of each case. The facts must be taken into consideration and must be decided on in a judicial way. The machinery available has been provided by this Dáil under the Land Acts of 1923 and 1927. That machinery is fairly elaborate, and if delays have taken place, as delays must inevitably take place, we must place the blame for that mainly on the machinery devised and designed by members of this and previous Dáils.
Already 258,396 acres of untenanted land have been divided since the formation of the present Land Commission. In other words, more than a quarter million acres of land have been actually distributed since the Land Commission came under the control of the Free State Government on the 1st April, 1923. Of this area 103,260 acres comprised untenanted land on the old Congested Districts Board estates, 22,162 acres of untenanted land purchased by the Estates Commissioners, and 132,974 acres of untenanted land purchased under the Act of 1923. That makes a total of 258,396 acres. In that connection I also wish to make another point. Deputies should remember that the Act of 1903 was a voluntary Act and that the Act of 1923 is compulsory in principle. Most of the landlords, the cream of them, sold their estates under the 1903 or 1909 Acts, and the estates that remained over to be acquired under the 1923 Act were either heavily encumbered or retained by owners for various other reasons. They may have been held in trust for certain members of families or held over for other reasons. Under the 1903 Act it was in the interests of the landlords to see that particulars in respect of estates lodged with the Land Commission were absolutely accurate in every detail, because it was on that schedule lodged that the rentals, annuities and so on, were assessed. The procedure under the 1923 Act is quite different. Under the 1923 Act the landlord is under a statutory obligations to lodge what is called a schedule of particulars, but the landlord is not under the same obligation as he was under the 1903 Act, to see that that schedule of particulars is absolutely accurate in every detail. Consequently, it devolves on the Land Commission to check every single detail of that schedule of particulars, to see that the boundaries are correct, that the rentals returned are correct, as well as innumerable other details that should ordinarily be included in a table of that kind. That means that the work of the Land Commission in that one respect alone has been doubled under the 1923 Act as compared with the 1903 Act.
I stated a moment ago that land has been acquired at a much faster rate since the Free State Government took control than it was acquired and distributed under the former regime. During the 30 years operations in connection with untenanted land under the old Land Commission and the old Congested Districts Board, 750,253 acres of untenanted land were divided, representing an annual average acreage of about 25,000. Suppose we take the period as 25 years, which, after all, would be a more reasonable period. The annual average acreage would then be somewhere about 30,100 acres. Deputies should also remember that in these days the Land Commission was made up of at least three Departments —the Land Commission, the Estates Commissioners, and the old Congested Districts Board. You had three different Government Departments dealing with the land problem, and these three different Departments were administered by seven permanent heads. You had two Judicial Commissioners and three Land Commissioners, comprising the old Land Commission, and two paid permanent members of the Congested Districts Board. The salaries of these officials were: One Judicial Commissioner, £3,500; a second Judicial Commissioner, £3,000; one Commissioner, £3,500; two Commisisoners £2,000 each, and two C.D.B. Commissioners receiving a salary of £2,000 each, making a total of £18,000 in salaries alone for the statutory heads of the Departments responsible for the acquisition and distribution of land, I hope Deputies will make a particular note of these figures, because it is an unfortunate habit of Deputies, when they go down the country, to abuse various Government Departments, and to refer particularly to the very high salaries the heads of these Departments are receiving. I am making this comparison to-day to show that in the old days the number of statutory heads was double the number you have to-day for dealing with the acquisition and distribution of land.
As Deputies are aware, these three Departments were amalgamated on the 1st April, 1923. Now the amalgamated Departments of the Land Commission, with all the additional work of the Acts of 1923 and 1927, are administered by three statutory heads, one Judicial Commissioner who is in receipt of a salary of £2,500 per annum from the Central Fund, and two Commissioners in receipt of a total salary of £3,000. In other words, you have to-day three permanent heads of the Land Commission in receipt of salaries amounting to £5,500, carrying on double the amount of work that seven officials with salaries amounting to £18,000 were carrying on under the old régime. During the four years' existence of the present Land Commission 258,396 acres of untenanted land have, as I have already stated, been divided. That works out at a yearly average of 64,599 acres, more than double, or practically treble, the average acreage per annum that was dealt with in pre-Saorstát days. Yet Deputies speak of delay in acquiring and distributing land under the 1923 Act, the actual position being that we are to-day actually dividing, acquiring and distributing land three times faster than it was distributed under the former régime. It must also be remembered that there are a limited number of inspectors, who, besides dealing with untenanted land, have a large amount of other work to do in connection with tenanted land, making inquiries as to vesting, sometimes into the title of untenanted land, and about the boundaries of tenanted land under the 1923 Act. They have also to deal with the supervision of improvement works on estates and other work that has to be undertaken under various relief grants.
Furthermore, at the time when the Land Commission was transferred to the Free State Government a huge amount of arrears of work had accumulated under the old Boards. It was the custom of the Congested Districts Board to acquire land and hold it over for a number of years. In the majority of instances they held over this land until they were able to acquire other lands and carry out schemes of rearrangement and consolidation over a whole townland. That was a common thing for them to do, and the result was that at the time of the amalgamation of the Land Commission and the Congested Districts Board we found that we inherited a tremendous amount of arrears from these Boards. In addition to acquiring and distributing land under the Land Act of 1923, we have also tried to clear off these arrears, and we have succeeded in reducing an enormous volume of them.
Many Deputies, in the course of their speeches, referred to grievances of congests, landless men and evicted tenants. So far as I am aware, most of the genuine evicted tenants have been dealt with under previous Acts. In the cases of those who have still to be dealt with they are to receive consideration in connection with the redistribution of estates coming in under the 1923 and earlier Acts. It is well, in a discussion of this sort, that we should clearly realise the nature of the problem with which we have to deal. So far as can be estimated, the approximate number of presumably uneconomic holders—that is to say, holders either with a rental of £9 or, under, or an annuity of £7 or under— is £248,000. Of that number, approximately 64,000 reside in what is commonly called the Gaeltacht areas, or at all events, in the most congested parts of the country. There are 184,000 outside. Of the 64,000 in the Gaeltacht or congested areas, about 33,000 inhabit the special areas described in certain portions of the Gaeltacht report.
Taking the minimum average of ten acres as being necessary to bring up each of these 248,000 small holders to an economic standard, it will be seen that it would require about 2,500,000 acres of land—in other words, it would require that amount of land to relieve congestion in the Free State. Unfortunately, it is not likely that there will be more than 1,000,000 acres available for that purpose. This area includes all manner of waste land, such as expanses of moor, heath, water, mountain, and so on. Assuming that those 1,000,000 acres are all capable of some degree of production, and that the claims of discharged employees, evicted tenants, and other people who qualified under Section 31 of the Act of 1923 are excluded, only 40 per cent. of the congestion in the Free State can be relieved. Even under the best possible circumstances there would be a probable balance of 148,000 congests remaining unprovided for after the last available acre of land has been acquired and distributed. That is the problem we have to deal with, and these figures represent approximately the actual position of affairs.
A great deal has been heard about the exorbitant prices which the Land Commission are paying for lands acquired under the Act of 1923. It has been stated by a number of Deputies that on account of some peculiar influences, which certain landlords have in certain high quarters of the Land Commission, they can get any price they demand for land. In that connection I would also like to give Deputies some information with regard to the prices we are paying for land to-day as compared with those paid for land under the earlier Acts, and I have no doubt it will be a revelation to some Deputies to know that we are buying land cheaper to-day than we bought it under either the 1903 or the 1909 Act, notwithstanding the fact that the price of land is higher to-day than when it was acquired under the other earlier Acts. The average price paid for land per acre under the 1903 Act was £11.4. Following the passing of the 1903 Act, land as security naturally improved, economic conditions somewhat improved, and there was a greater desire on the part of farmers to own more land, with the result that, between the period of the passing of the 1903 and the 1909 Acts, land prices improved considerably.
The average price of land acquired under the 1909 Act amounted approximately to £16.2, and the average price we have paid for land acquired under the 1923 Act only amounts to £10.3 per acre. That shows that the price we have paid for land under the 1923 Act is smaller than the price paid under any of the earlier Acts, notwithstanding the adverse conditions under which most of this land was acquired. I do not think that I need say anything further on the question of prices as these figures are eloquent and speak for themselves. Now, as to vesting, I quite agree that a number of small holders have legitimate grievances because of the delay in vesting their holdings. Much of that delay was inevitable, first of all because of the huge amount of arrears work we inherited from the old regime, and, secondly, because of the fact that extreme pressure was brought to bear on the Land Commission to acquire and distribute land under the 1923 Act. As a result of the passing of the 1927 Act, which gives power to add compounded arrears of rent to the annuities, we have been able to speed up considerably the work of vesting estates and holdings, with the result that during February last we began to experience the real advantages to be derived in that connection under the section referred to. In February 509 holdings were vested. During October last year only 88 were vested; in November 147, and in December 89 holdings were vested, and so on during the previous months. That shows that, in consequence of that section of the 1927 Act being now in full operation, we have been able to speed up considerably the work of vesting estates and holdings.
These figures are an indication of the extent to which we have speeded up the work. It will be seen that in November we vested only 147 holdings, while as many as 509 were vested in February. As time goes on we will be able to improve considerably on those figures. Steps are being taken with the object of further accelerating the vesting of holdings in tenants. Deputies referred to quite a number of grievances regarding their own particular districts. I do not propose to deal with individual cases or to go into individual grievances. If any Deputy has a grievance in connection with the manner in which the vesting of an estate is being dealt with, he can put down a question and I will give him all the information I can, or he can write a letter to the Land Commission and he will get the desired information. The same applies to other classes of grievances. Deputy Derrig, in the course of his speech, referred to the fact that in 1912 the Land Commission distributed 30,000 holdings. I do not know what knowledge Deputy Derrig has of land, but presumably he is confounding holdings with acres. The average holding in this country is in the neighbourhood of 30 statute acres, and if the Deputy's statement is to be taken as correct it would mean that the Land Commission in 1912 was distributing at the rate of 900,000 acres, or approximately 1,000,000 acres per annum. If that were true, there would be no necessity for passing the 1923 Act. There are only 17,000,000 acres in the country, and every one of these would have been distributed, if Deputy Derrig's figures are true, before 1923.
